I know that’s a strange title.  But I read back through what I wrote about the first qualifying brevet that I did in preparation for PBP last time, and I remembered the struggles I went through to acquire and understand and feel comfortable with the equipment part of randonneuring.  It turns out that when you’re on your bike for 12, 15, even 24 hours at a time, the bike begins to matter.  It feels irreverent to say so, but in some ways, it really is about the bike.

Unfortunately, I am often a bit blase about things that I perceive to be minutiae.  In many ways, my lack of perfectionism is a good thing–it keeps me sane in my role as mother to two very active, exuberant, out-there kind of kids.  But it also means that I sometimes gloss over details that I need to focus on a bit more carefully.  So I’m trying, as part of my preparation in the next few months, to pay more attention to the small stuff that can grow to be big stuff if left unattended.  Some lessons shouldn’t have to be learned twice.

My First Brevet: April 2003. Okay, so I did my first brevet.  In order to ride in P-B-P, you have to qualify by doing a series of increasingly longer rides called brevets.  The first, and shortest, is 200k-for those of us who are metrically impaired, that’s roughly 125 miles.  I (and about 40 other people) tackled this first major distance in mid-April.  There were a couple of glitches First off, I had been sick in bed the entire week before with a stomach bug.  I managed to get up and around a bit on Friday, but when the ride started at 7 am on Saturday, I was still pretty wiped as well as nauseated, dehydrated, and weak from four days of not eating.  This did not bode well.

I felt pretty decent for a long while.  The route we’re using begins in Morrisville and winds around through the northern part of Chatham county, then drops down through Snow Camp to Siler City. It’s an out-and-back; the turn-around was at a gas station in Siler City. Every brevet has official check-points, or controls.  At these predesignated places, you go in and get your card stamped as proof that you stayed on course.  The caveat:  the control is only open certain hours.  This particular ride, because it was so short (hah!) had only one control, at the turn-around.  But as the distances increase, I’ll pretty much have to keep moving to make it from one control to the next before closing time. 

Anyway, on that particular day, I felt pretty decent when we got to Siler City.  I ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that I had brought with me, as well as a Snickers that I bought in the gas station.  Things went downhill from there.
 
The second major glitch was that I was using new shoes and pedals.  Yes, I know.  You’re never supposed to use new equipment (or food or technique, or anything else) in an event.  Well, so, okay.  I screwed up.  It turned out the cleats were placed wrong, and by 70 miles I was in agony.  Pain was shooting up my left leg, from my ankle all the way to my hip.  By about 90 miles, my right leg was going, too.  I couldn’t figure out what to do about it, so I just kept pedaling…..slower and slower and slower.   I also discovered, much to my chagrin, that pb&j and Snickers are not what the body wants when recovering from the stomach flu.  Nor is an extremely long bike ride;
 
We took a break at some little country store; I sank to the ground with a bottled water and wouldn’t let anyone talk to me.  The water finally settled my stomach a bit, so I just got back on the bike and kept going.  Later, to my amazement, I realized that it had never even crossed my mind to quit.

By the time we reached the finish, I made quite a pretty picture.  I had started the day wearing tights over my shorts, as well as arm warmers, a jacket, and a fleece headband.  The one thing I needed and didn’t have was full-fingered gloves.  But by mid-day we had all stripped off the extra layers-unfortunately, I had not yet equipped my bike with a rack or bag, so I had excess clothing stuffed and hanging everywhere I could think of.  I rode probably 70 miles with my jacket tied around my waist.  No drag there!  I kept asking people was it billowing horribly; they were all kind enough to lie and tell me it was just fine.

But we made it to the finish, and I was quite pleased to get my medal.  I finished at 5:25 pm.  It was one really long day.  When I got home, my mother-in-law, who was visiting for the weekend, took one look at me and noted with horror that I looked like I had been beaten up.  Okay, I was a tad tired.  She’s going with me to Paris, so I think it was good that she got to see me in rough shape.  Hopefully it won’t freak her out too much over there.
 
The next day, we had fifteen kindergarteners over for my daughter’s birthday party.  Now that was the truly hard part of my weekend, but that’s another story!
 
Back to 2006–

Like I said, I don’t want to have to learn this lesson twice, so today I dealt with a small problem.  I realized a couple of months ago that my saddle was wearing out, so after a few weeks of reminding myself, I bought a new one.  It sat for a couple more weeks before I finally installed it.  And now that I’ve ridden on it 4 or 5 times, I finally got around to adjusting it today.  It was too far back, I think, so I moved it forward a bit, then went out and rode 23 miles on it.  It probably seems like I let the problem go on too long, but for me, that was a prompt response!  I’m doing Cycle NC the first week of October, and I’ve got weeks between now and then to be sure I’m totally comfy with the position.

In the meantime, I suppose I have to get rid of my old saddle.  I’m actually quite proud of it–I’ve never actually worn out a piece of sports equipment before, and that saddle is testament to a lot of miles ridden.  It’s no pile of yellow jerseys, or room full of trophies, but it was certainly hard-earned.
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