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rebeccmeisterOut of the many possible things to forget, in the end it turned out that I forgot to check the tightness of my seatpost retention bolt. You might remember that I recently discovered that Froinlavin's seatpost was stuck, but then promptly managed to unstick it. What I neglected to mention, and neglected to remember, was that in my haste I didn't retighten the retention bolt.
I didn't really figure out that was part of what was going on for me until around mile 40, and then I didn't actually manage to do anything about it until around mile 55, and even then I don't think I got my saddle to full height again on this brevet.
So, add that to the list of things to remember. My knees will thank me. I also didn't bring along the emergency space blanket for this ride, but I'll absolutely remember to pack it again in the future, or at least one of the compact ones, because when you need one, you NEED one, and shouldn't be caught out without one.
In any case! The route, and then a bit of blow-by-blow.
This got long, with photos, so the rest is
The route:
We knew the weather was going to be interesting, based on Winter Storm Warnings from the National Weather Service. That meant that a grand total of 8 fools appeared at the starting line, to give things a try. Most of us were able to pose for a pre-ride photo:
Then it was 7 am and time to head out. I quickly found myself in the company of J, who knew me from my cameo in the PBP 2015 video, and A and G, a younger couple who were out for their very first brevet. We had an entertaining time in the earliest stretches of the ride, sorting out our various navigational systems and figuring out who actually knew how to use them (hint: not me!). After a bit of futzing I finally managed to get things situated well enough on my Garmin Etrex to be able to help us backtrack as needed and follow the purple line.
Soon enough, we found ourselves on a pleasant bike path with some space for a bit of chitchat. I learned that A and G had been learning all kinds of things about PBP and were keen to give randonneuring a try. However, the rain set in early, and G wasn't quite prepared for cold rain, so just 20 miles in, he threw in the towel. So that left A and J. Very early on I had mumbled some warnings about not really planning on sticking with a group or riding at any kind of reasonable or consistent pace, but with G out of the ride, A was left with a slightly less-than-ideal navigational arrangement, so I agreed we could generally push on as a small group.
We had a nice quick stop on the Mount Hope Bridge, (in)famous for its gaping, wheel-eating expansion joints. No wheels eaten this particular time, thank goodness. But the danger is real. It is also very easily prevented by four small hops off the bike to walk instead of riding across. Easier than the excitement that happens on the Columbia River Bridge crossing during the Seattle-to-Portland, which is a great opportunity to collect up a whole lot of free bike lights and water bottles when they all inevitably rattle free on those expansion joints. Of course, the most harrowing part of the STP crossing is avoiding the other people on bicycles trying to cross at the same time.
This photo provides a great sense of what the overall visibility was like for the day.
All was well and good, if soggy, until we reached Newport, where J suddenly discovered that his front brake was no longer cooperating. In the grand scheme of things, Newport is an excellent place to make this kind of discovery, for two reasons. First, the bike shop in Newport used to be owned by one of the most famous of early American randonneuses, so it's a fantastic shop to patronize if you're a randonneur or randonneuse in need of a bike fix during a brevet. But second, for better or worse, it's really easy to catch a bus from Newport back to Providence, for about $2.
I only learned those two details at the end of the ride, when I learned that J had abandoned at that point. Can't say I blame him in the slightest. It was early in the ride, we were already soaking wet, and temperatures were just starting to drop. No gale-force winds yet, but it was easy to imagine how dismal things were liable to get. While we were in Newport, most of my mental energy was going towards dodging the throngs of people festooned in green waiting outside of every available drinking establishment at 10 am. Not knowing how long J's mechanical issues would take to resolve, A and I said goodbye to him there and carried on our way. Our group of 4 was now down to 2.
A and I forged onward. She was a great riding companion, and we had fun pointing out to each other the various things we noticed in the scenery. In the drizzle we couldn't see much of the ocean itself, but there were plenty of outrageously ostentatious mansions to ogle, with elaborate stone walls and ornate gates, and some deer crashing about picturesquely in the midst of everything.
Eventually we found ourselves at the first information control, in Brenton Point State Park. I'll bet the views from this park are lovely, when you can see them.
Just about all we could see were the monuments in the park, like this one:
The gray in the background is the ocean.
While searching for a bathroom (eventually found a porta-john), I also found that they had a charming wee bike shelter:
Perfect in drizzly weather.
We continued on. It was around that point that I started noticing that my saddle didn't quite seem like it was the right height, but I was loathe to stop at that stage in the ride, so we pressed onward.
This is the kind of situation where I can hear S saying, "If someone needs to stop for a minute to do a thing, we need to agree to just stop for a minute to do a thing." He is 100% correct about this. I have a hard time getting myself to stop sometimes when I really should. During a brevet I feel the weight of the clock, which causes me to convince myself that I can keep going, even when there's a little voice telling me that it would be easier to keep going if I actually just stopped and dealt with the little thing, whether it's finding a snack or fixing a minor mechanical nuisance. But I was riding with someone I didn't know, so I wasn't sure about the negotiations over stopping. Plus, it was raining enough that if we were to stop I'd want to find some form of shelter while digging around to find wherever I'd buried my multitool. And there was no shelter to be found, anywhere.
Just when we were reaching the point where we'd want to stop and have something to eat anyway, we crested a small hill and came upon a magical view: a cafe! Anna D's Cafe, no less. Complete with a big covered porch out front! Perfect for stashing soggy bikes! Not only that, but two other riders who had passed us earlier had stopped as well. A sign.
Definitely wet out there
This cafe had something for everyone
I should note that, for this ride, although I'd packed along apples, four hard-boiled eggs, muffins, apricots, and more, at this point it was lunchtime and none of the things I had with me really sounded like lunch. The cafe, meanwhile, had a delightful assortment of pastries and sandwiches and breakfast items, including a breakfast wrap with eggs, sweet potatoes, and goat cheese. I don't know if it was the hunger talking, or the fact that the food was warm and the weather was cold, or what, but that breakfast wrap was absolutely perfect and hit the spot. It completely made up for the fact that I failed to make any burritos for this brevet.
A was generally amenable to my plan to keep stops fairly short, so after I'd gulped down a hot chocolate, eaten half the wrap, and FINALLY adjusted my seatpost, she was also ready to get back on the road again. J's advice for stops, when I'd asked him earlier, rang in our heads, "Have a plan for your stops, get everything done, so you can get back out on the road."
It continued to rain. We continued to ride. We crossed another bridge that was familiar to me from my last 300k in August of 2018, but this time the visibility was so low there wasn't much to see, at all (Sakonnet River Bridge, near Tiverton). Eventually, we found ourselves in some marshy countryside near Little Compton that A and I both remarked reminded us of California for some reason. The strangest part of that near simultaneous remark was that we hadn't talked at all about California prior to that moment. Regardless, for that stretch, the rain let up for a bit and we enjoyed the change of terrain for what it was.
It was around that stage that A declared that she thought she should stop riding at around 2 pm. She had come fairly well-prepared overall with food and other necessities, but she could tell that she just didn't have gloves or footwear that were entirely adequate for the snow forecast for later in the day, and as it continued to get colder her hands were cold and not warming up. We soon found ourselves at another recommended coffeeshop stop, Gray's Daily Grind, and that seemed like the most sensible place for A to throw in the towel and wait for G to drive out and pick her up. While we waited, the same two riders, J and S, reappeared from behind us. Also, not mentioned up to this point, at previous stops we'd been playing leapfrog with another woman named S; she leapfrogged once again while we were at Gray's, commenting that she knew herself well enough to know that if she stopped at all, she wouldn't start up again, so her strategy was to just keep going. (this steady but nonstop pace works surprisingly well, for those who can manage it!)
In the meantime, at Gray's I got another hot chocolate and dug my arm and leg warmers out of my pannier to put on; temperatures were continuing to drop and my feet were soaked, so I had to figure I'd benefit from a bit more strategic wool placement. At that point, with A out of commission, J and S asked me about riding as a group of three. It seemed to me that they might be stronger riders than me, but after delivering my caveats they still seemed inclined to ride near-ish together, so I shrugged my shoulders and the three of us forged onward.
All told, I rode with J and S for about 23 miles, until we reached a gas station in Freetown. At that point, J's hands were also extremely cold, so he was eager to stop and buy new gloves at the gas station, and then wanted to stay inside long enough for his hands to thaw out completely. I was starting to feel that if I stopped for too long, I'd risk having my core cool off too much. Plus I was getting tired of the chatter and negotiations involved in riding with people I hadn't necessarily signed up to ride with, and feeling more inclined to just turn the pedals on my own, to the tune of the music in my head. On top of that, this particular gas station did not appear to have any restrooms for the public, and so I said my farewells and got back on the road again.
That was around mile 105. I hadn't had much of a chance to preview the route ahead of riding it, so I wasn't completely sure about how much longer I had to go. I also wasn't sure about where the start and finish line were positioned in the overall counterclockwise loop. I figured the start/finish was somewhere on the west and south portion. So when the GPS continued to send me mostly north, with some sections a bit towards the east, I tried to not get my hopes up too high that the end was anywhere near.
Eventually, the gray gloom of the day turned to twilight, and the rain turned to sleet and something of a headwind, pelting me in the face. Sleet stings. Onward. Twilight became night. I kept turning the pedals. At long, long last the purple line on the GPS started to trend more west, and very begrudgingly, south. Ish. Southish. Sleet turned to snow. My feet went from feeling like soggy seal flippers to feeling like big blocks of ice. My hands were faring slightly better, but just barely. I kept the pedals turning over in spite of knees growing cranky from too many miles at a suboptimal angle.
I paused in one of those regions where there are houses everywhere, and yet the region feels like nowhere because it's unclear whether you'll ever arrive at anything or whether the houses will just keep going, like giant, forlorn ghosts in the aged countryside. If I'd seen anything resembling another gas station I would have made a beeline for it, but there was nothing but cold, dark, snow. I figured, if I got really hypothermic at least I could knock on one of the doors to one of these ghost houses and have a chance someone might answer. Safer than the middle of the desert at night. But I was not really that hypothermic, or even hypothermic at all, so instead I just paused to gulp down half of a brownie that I'd bought back at Anna D's, then kept riding. I hadn't seen J and S again, but I knew they had to be somewhere not too far behind me.
Then, eventually, finally, it happened. Streets with traffic lights. More traffic. Signs that I must be getting somewhere, even if it was going to take a while longer yet. Seekonk High School. Then, finally, one last bridge crossing, for good measure. The ride organizer had noted that there was a lot of construction along the route, and that at points it wouldn't look like we should go where the route said to go, but we should go there anyway and then we'd see a way through.
He was right: the Massasoit Ave approach to the Henderson Expressway Bridge is currently majorly rerouted because half of the bridge has been torn down and is being reconstructed. While narrow and full of grit, there's a shoulder that people on bicycles can traverse, so long as they're careful about those treacherous, slippery metal plates on the road. It wasn't a pleasant crossing, and I may have mostly gotten myself through that part by cussing under my breath, but I got it done. And very soon thereafter, I found myself on neighborhood streets and back to the start control. Incredible.
Often, this is where the story might end, but this one deserves some epilogue. When I arrived at the finish control, T's wife answered the door. I was the first one to arrive back! And it was only 6:30 pm, 11.5 hours after I'd started. And meanwhile, T was out on the course somewhere, in the process of rescuing someone. T and his wife provided an incredible welcome to this sodden, shivering, hungry randonneuse: hot tea, hot soup, a hot shower, dates stuffed with pistachios, and more. Civilization never felt so good.
After a shower with a painful and itchy rewarming of my feet, I felt a thousand times better. By and by, T reappeared, with S: with 7 miles to go, her GPS was about to die and she was too cold, so she threw in the towel. After she also got warmed up, T, S, and I had a fantastic time swapping randonneuring stories and eating hot food. It was a meeting of kindred spirits. At some point when I stepped out to get a change of clothes, I encountered J and S putting their bikes away. They had made it in as well, but opted to hit the road instead of lingering.
Eventually it was time for me to hit the road as well, back up to Acton tobluepapercup's house. The storm sent along a bit of a snow squall for part of the drive, as a parting shot, but soon enough I was through it and soon enough, into bed. Another brevet in the books!
But next time, I swear, I'm going to check my seatpost BEFORE the ride starts, along with tending to several other critical bike maintenance items discovered during the ride:
-Rear cassette one gear is skipping
-Check rear wheel tension
-Check brake pad condition
One can get away with a certain number of mistakes on a 200k, but as the distances increase, the consequences get amplified.
I didn't really figure out that was part of what was going on for me until around mile 40, and then I didn't actually manage to do anything about it until around mile 55, and even then I don't think I got my saddle to full height again on this brevet.
So, add that to the list of things to remember. My knees will thank me. I also didn't bring along the emergency space blanket for this ride, but I'll absolutely remember to pack it again in the future, or at least one of the compact ones, because when you need one, you NEED one, and shouldn't be caught out without one.
In any case! The route, and then a bit of blow-by-blow.
This got long, with photos, so the rest is
The route:
We knew the weather was going to be interesting, based on Winter Storm Warnings from the National Weather Service. That meant that a grand total of 8 fools appeared at the starting line, to give things a try. Most of us were able to pose for a pre-ride photo:
Then it was 7 am and time to head out. I quickly found myself in the company of J, who knew me from my cameo in the PBP 2015 video, and A and G, a younger couple who were out for their very first brevet. We had an entertaining time in the earliest stretches of the ride, sorting out our various navigational systems and figuring out who actually knew how to use them (hint: not me!). After a bit of futzing I finally managed to get things situated well enough on my Garmin Etrex to be able to help us backtrack as needed and follow the purple line.
Soon enough, we found ourselves on a pleasant bike path with some space for a bit of chitchat. I learned that A and G had been learning all kinds of things about PBP and were keen to give randonneuring a try. However, the rain set in early, and G wasn't quite prepared for cold rain, so just 20 miles in, he threw in the towel. So that left A and J. Very early on I had mumbled some warnings about not really planning on sticking with a group or riding at any kind of reasonable or consistent pace, but with G out of the ride, A was left with a slightly less-than-ideal navigational arrangement, so I agreed we could generally push on as a small group.
We had a nice quick stop on the Mount Hope Bridge, (in)famous for its gaping, wheel-eating expansion joints. No wheels eaten this particular time, thank goodness. But the danger is real. It is also very easily prevented by four small hops off the bike to walk instead of riding across. Easier than the excitement that happens on the Columbia River Bridge crossing during the Seattle-to-Portland, which is a great opportunity to collect up a whole lot of free bike lights and water bottles when they all inevitably rattle free on those expansion joints. Of course, the most harrowing part of the STP crossing is avoiding the other people on bicycles trying to cross at the same time.
This photo provides a great sense of what the overall visibility was like for the day.
All was well and good, if soggy, until we reached Newport, where J suddenly discovered that his front brake was no longer cooperating. In the grand scheme of things, Newport is an excellent place to make this kind of discovery, for two reasons. First, the bike shop in Newport used to be owned by one of the most famous of early American randonneuses, so it's a fantastic shop to patronize if you're a randonneur or randonneuse in need of a bike fix during a brevet. But second, for better or worse, it's really easy to catch a bus from Newport back to Providence, for about $2.
I only learned those two details at the end of the ride, when I learned that J had abandoned at that point. Can't say I blame him in the slightest. It was early in the ride, we were already soaking wet, and temperatures were just starting to drop. No gale-force winds yet, but it was easy to imagine how dismal things were liable to get. While we were in Newport, most of my mental energy was going towards dodging the throngs of people festooned in green waiting outside of every available drinking establishment at 10 am. Not knowing how long J's mechanical issues would take to resolve, A and I said goodbye to him there and carried on our way. Our group of 4 was now down to 2.
A and I forged onward. She was a great riding companion, and we had fun pointing out to each other the various things we noticed in the scenery. In the drizzle we couldn't see much of the ocean itself, but there were plenty of outrageously ostentatious mansions to ogle, with elaborate stone walls and ornate gates, and some deer crashing about picturesquely in the midst of everything.
Eventually we found ourselves at the first information control, in Brenton Point State Park. I'll bet the views from this park are lovely, when you can see them.
Just about all we could see were the monuments in the park, like this one:
The gray in the background is the ocean.
While searching for a bathroom (eventually found a porta-john), I also found that they had a charming wee bike shelter:
Perfect in drizzly weather.
We continued on. It was around that point that I started noticing that my saddle didn't quite seem like it was the right height, but I was loathe to stop at that stage in the ride, so we pressed onward.
This is the kind of situation where I can hear S saying, "If someone needs to stop for a minute to do a thing, we need to agree to just stop for a minute to do a thing." He is 100% correct about this. I have a hard time getting myself to stop sometimes when I really should. During a brevet I feel the weight of the clock, which causes me to convince myself that I can keep going, even when there's a little voice telling me that it would be easier to keep going if I actually just stopped and dealt with the little thing, whether it's finding a snack or fixing a minor mechanical nuisance. But I was riding with someone I didn't know, so I wasn't sure about the negotiations over stopping. Plus, it was raining enough that if we were to stop I'd want to find some form of shelter while digging around to find wherever I'd buried my multitool. And there was no shelter to be found, anywhere.
Just when we were reaching the point where we'd want to stop and have something to eat anyway, we crested a small hill and came upon a magical view: a cafe! Anna D's Cafe, no less. Complete with a big covered porch out front! Perfect for stashing soggy bikes! Not only that, but two other riders who had passed us earlier had stopped as well. A sign.
Definitely wet out there
This cafe had something for everyone
I should note that, for this ride, although I'd packed along apples, four hard-boiled eggs, muffins, apricots, and more, at this point it was lunchtime and none of the things I had with me really sounded like lunch. The cafe, meanwhile, had a delightful assortment of pastries and sandwiches and breakfast items, including a breakfast wrap with eggs, sweet potatoes, and goat cheese. I don't know if it was the hunger talking, or the fact that the food was warm and the weather was cold, or what, but that breakfast wrap was absolutely perfect and hit the spot. It completely made up for the fact that I failed to make any burritos for this brevet.
A was generally amenable to my plan to keep stops fairly short, so after I'd gulped down a hot chocolate, eaten half the wrap, and FINALLY adjusted my seatpost, she was also ready to get back on the road again. J's advice for stops, when I'd asked him earlier, rang in our heads, "Have a plan for your stops, get everything done, so you can get back out on the road."
It continued to rain. We continued to ride. We crossed another bridge that was familiar to me from my last 300k in August of 2018, but this time the visibility was so low there wasn't much to see, at all (Sakonnet River Bridge, near Tiverton). Eventually, we found ourselves in some marshy countryside near Little Compton that A and I both remarked reminded us of California for some reason. The strangest part of that near simultaneous remark was that we hadn't talked at all about California prior to that moment. Regardless, for that stretch, the rain let up for a bit and we enjoyed the change of terrain for what it was.
It was around that stage that A declared that she thought she should stop riding at around 2 pm. She had come fairly well-prepared overall with food and other necessities, but she could tell that she just didn't have gloves or footwear that were entirely adequate for the snow forecast for later in the day, and as it continued to get colder her hands were cold and not warming up. We soon found ourselves at another recommended coffeeshop stop, Gray's Daily Grind, and that seemed like the most sensible place for A to throw in the towel and wait for G to drive out and pick her up. While we waited, the same two riders, J and S, reappeared from behind us. Also, not mentioned up to this point, at previous stops we'd been playing leapfrog with another woman named S; she leapfrogged once again while we were at Gray's, commenting that she knew herself well enough to know that if she stopped at all, she wouldn't start up again, so her strategy was to just keep going. (this steady but nonstop pace works surprisingly well, for those who can manage it!)
In the meantime, at Gray's I got another hot chocolate and dug my arm and leg warmers out of my pannier to put on; temperatures were continuing to drop and my feet were soaked, so I had to figure I'd benefit from a bit more strategic wool placement. At that point, with A out of commission, J and S asked me about riding as a group of three. It seemed to me that they might be stronger riders than me, but after delivering my caveats they still seemed inclined to ride near-ish together, so I shrugged my shoulders and the three of us forged onward.
All told, I rode with J and S for about 23 miles, until we reached a gas station in Freetown. At that point, J's hands were also extremely cold, so he was eager to stop and buy new gloves at the gas station, and then wanted to stay inside long enough for his hands to thaw out completely. I was starting to feel that if I stopped for too long, I'd risk having my core cool off too much. Plus I was getting tired of the chatter and negotiations involved in riding with people I hadn't necessarily signed up to ride with, and feeling more inclined to just turn the pedals on my own, to the tune of the music in my head. On top of that, this particular gas station did not appear to have any restrooms for the public, and so I said my farewells and got back on the road again.
That was around mile 105. I hadn't had much of a chance to preview the route ahead of riding it, so I wasn't completely sure about how much longer I had to go. I also wasn't sure about where the start and finish line were positioned in the overall counterclockwise loop. I figured the start/finish was somewhere on the west and south portion. So when the GPS continued to send me mostly north, with some sections a bit towards the east, I tried to not get my hopes up too high that the end was anywhere near.
Eventually, the gray gloom of the day turned to twilight, and the rain turned to sleet and something of a headwind, pelting me in the face. Sleet stings. Onward. Twilight became night. I kept turning the pedals. At long, long last the purple line on the GPS started to trend more west, and very begrudgingly, south. Ish. Southish. Sleet turned to snow. My feet went from feeling like soggy seal flippers to feeling like big blocks of ice. My hands were faring slightly better, but just barely. I kept the pedals turning over in spite of knees growing cranky from too many miles at a suboptimal angle.
I paused in one of those regions where there are houses everywhere, and yet the region feels like nowhere because it's unclear whether you'll ever arrive at anything or whether the houses will just keep going, like giant, forlorn ghosts in the aged countryside. If I'd seen anything resembling another gas station I would have made a beeline for it, but there was nothing but cold, dark, snow. I figured, if I got really hypothermic at least I could knock on one of the doors to one of these ghost houses and have a chance someone might answer. Safer than the middle of the desert at night. But I was not really that hypothermic, or even hypothermic at all, so instead I just paused to gulp down half of a brownie that I'd bought back at Anna D's, then kept riding. I hadn't seen J and S again, but I knew they had to be somewhere not too far behind me.
Then, eventually, finally, it happened. Streets with traffic lights. More traffic. Signs that I must be getting somewhere, even if it was going to take a while longer yet. Seekonk High School. Then, finally, one last bridge crossing, for good measure. The ride organizer had noted that there was a lot of construction along the route, and that at points it wouldn't look like we should go where the route said to go, but we should go there anyway and then we'd see a way through.
He was right: the Massasoit Ave approach to the Henderson Expressway Bridge is currently majorly rerouted because half of the bridge has been torn down and is being reconstructed. While narrow and full of grit, there's a shoulder that people on bicycles can traverse, so long as they're careful about those treacherous, slippery metal plates on the road. It wasn't a pleasant crossing, and I may have mostly gotten myself through that part by cussing under my breath, but I got it done. And very soon thereafter, I found myself on neighborhood streets and back to the start control. Incredible.
Often, this is where the story might end, but this one deserves some epilogue. When I arrived at the finish control, T's wife answered the door. I was the first one to arrive back! And it was only 6:30 pm, 11.5 hours after I'd started. And meanwhile, T was out on the course somewhere, in the process of rescuing someone. T and his wife provided an incredible welcome to this sodden, shivering, hungry randonneuse: hot tea, hot soup, a hot shower, dates stuffed with pistachios, and more. Civilization never felt so good.
After a shower with a painful and itchy rewarming of my feet, I felt a thousand times better. By and by, T reappeared, with S: with 7 miles to go, her GPS was about to die and she was too cold, so she threw in the towel. After she also got warmed up, T, S, and I had a fantastic time swapping randonneuring stories and eating hot food. It was a meeting of kindred spirits. At some point when I stepped out to get a change of clothes, I encountered J and S putting their bikes away. They had made it in as well, but opted to hit the road instead of lingering.
Eventually it was time for me to hit the road as well, back up to Acton to
bluepapercup's house. The storm sent along a bit of a snow squall for part of the drive, as a parting shot, but soon enough I was through it and soon enough, into bed. Another brevet in the books!But next time, I swear, I'm going to check my seatpost BEFORE the ride starts, along with tending to several other critical bike maintenance items discovered during the ride:
-Rear cassette one gear is skipping
-Check rear wheel tension
-Check brake pad condition
One can get away with a certain number of mistakes on a 200k, but as the distances increase, the consequences get amplified.
