The Great Lakes Randonneurs held their 300 km ACP brevet n Saturday, May 16. This is the second brevet of the season in the and of the super randonneur series (200 km, 300 km, 400 km and 600 km. In mileage, a 300 km brevet is about 190 miles, so it is roughly equivalent to riding a double century. I have done 3 double centuries before Seattle to Portland in 2003, 2004 and 2005) plus a 300 km with the DC Randonneurs in 2006. So completing this ride would rank as one of the longest rides I have ever done.
A ride of this length is always very difficult. The amount of miles on the bike and the time you will be on the bike make it so. But Saturday's ride was made even more difficult by a 20 - 25 mile an hour wind blowing out of the Northwest. The route was an out and back, starting in Delevan, WI going to Sauk City, WI, meaning all the way to the turn around, we were going northwest, right into the teeth of the wind. Put another way, we had a headwind of 20+ mph for the first 97 miles of the ride.
It would be hard to understate the ferocity of the wind on Saturday. Since a lot of the terrain is farm country, there was nowhere to hide. You were always in it. Drafting was of little use because the wind was so strong, it just cut right through whoever was in front and affected everyone in the back just the same. And the wind never let up. It blew just as hard all day until about 8:00 PM, when we were well on our way back. During much of the ride on the "out" leg, speeds were between 11 - 13 mph. And this was actually pretty good.
One of the hardest things about riding in wind is that it never goes away. Even on a tough climb, you eventually summit the climb and get a little bit of a recovery/reward on the downhill. A headwind just keeps battering you, every minute of every mile and never goes away. It wears you down mentally as well as physically. And since this was essentially an out and back ride, we hhad to just keep going into the wind the whole first half, with not even a mile of releif. On Saturday, the last 5 miles into Verona seemed like they would never end. It was just more and more wind, and Verona just wouldn't seem to show up on the horizon.
After getting into Verona, you wind Northwest through the hills west of Madison and up to Sauk City. There are quite a few good hills in this area. The longest hill is probably a little over a mile long, but some of them are steep. And you have to navigate them twice, because you come back on this same road. These were tough, but you just work your way through them. One nice thing is that this area is a little bit more wooded, so it is more scenic. But the most scenic place of all was the turnaround in Sauk City. Now we would finally get a tailwind.
The effect of the tailwind was not immediate as we still had to go through the hills between Sauk City and Verona. And these were not easy after 100 miles of hard riding. But after Verona, the tailwind started to make a difference. Now our speeds were up to 20 mph, sometimes even 25 mph. Even with tired legs only able to put moderate pressure on the pedals, we could keep our speed up. The miles flew by, and this was good news since it would be dark soon.
We made a minimalist stop at the control in Edgerton and then tackled the last 31 miles. It would be dark soon, so we put on our reflective gear and turned on our lights. I had been riding with another rider from Madison most of the day, but now we joined up with a group of 4 that had been ahead of us, that included at least a couple riders from the Wausau Wheelers. The last wisps of daylight slipped away and we rode the last 15 miles or so back to Delavan in the dark. We were slowed by a rider with a flat about 12 miles out of Delavan, but otherwise, the the ride back in was quiet and peaceful. We arrived in Delavan at 9:35 PM for a total ride time of 14 hours, 35 minutes.
Overall, it was a very difficult day. The wind was absolutely brutal. A 300 km is hard wnough without a wind like that, but with it, there isn't much fun. Everyone I talked to at the end admitted to having thoughts about quitting because of the wind, just turning around and going back to Delavan. But in the end, you find a way to get through. And at times yesterday, that's all I was doing, was getting through. But in the end, that was enough.
The riders from the Wausau Wheelers wook some pictures, and I'll post those when they send them to me.
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