449 km

Those that know me, know that data, and numbers are part of my make up. One of my favorite sports, though one I can't play much any more, is baseball (and in later years softball) and numbers form a very important way of looking at that sport. As a ballplayer, I was never good enough to generate numbers that might superficially define me as a good player, that just wasn't the reason why I played. There were many other reasons why. However, while numbers are not at all the motivation for my involvement in cycling, they are a way I have of marking my participation in cycling. In other words, I don't ride to achieve a number, say miles ridden in a day/week/year, but I do use the numbers as a way to look back on how things were at a given time with cycling, and often when I'm looking back, it is to find that 'oh, gee' moment that shows up when the numbers become less consistent and show a change of some kind. When I look at the following chart which represents my ...

Photos by Masayoshi KOBAYASHI A number of years back, I recalled hearing stories of a 200km night time brevet run, I think, out of Davis and organized by Bill Bryant. The concept of a night-time brevet stuck with me, the main appeal being acquiring the experience of riding through the night, but being fresh at the start plus also knowing that come sunrise the ride would be done. So in 2009 I shamelessly stole the idea from Bill and created SFR's Davis Nighttime 230km. As I created the route I wanted to route it to go past some services and thereby allow for bailout options, but to also include as much rural terrain as possible. Davis was chosen as the turn-around point because of all the services there late at night, including hotels and public transportation for the return the next day should one need that. That first year, there were 17 riders and every year since we've had a few more each time. This year we had 38 starters and 35 finishers. At 20:00 we rolled from the P...