In which the author rides his first 200k brevet in about a year and spends most of the day happily riding alone.
It’s October 2019 and I’m a randonneur who has been off his bike far too much this year. My RUSA results tell the sorry tale: four 100k’s in 2019 and no more.
I have my excuses. My wife, Sheila, and I moved to Houston, Texas in 2018 and it’s harder to ride here. The traffic seems even worse than our previous home of Austin, and there are aggressive drivers everywhere. I also like the challenge of climbing hills and the thrill of descending them. Houston is as flat as a board, and is also just really big. In Austin I could leave on my bike from our front door in the middle of town and be out on country roads within the hour. Not so from the center of sprawling Houston, which can feel infinite to a cyclist.
We’ve spent much of the summer of 2019 in Mexico City without bicycles, and upon returning to Houston in mid-August it feels too ridiculously hot and humid to ride all that much (another excuse). Now it’s early October and autumn is finally beginning. The first weak cold front has slipped into town, bringing belated relief from summer’s heat and humidity. I’ve just gotten an email from the Houston Randonneurs detailing their 2020 brevet calendar, and I start feeling inspired to ride again. A few days later, another message announces a 200k brevet on October 12. The route goes from Brookshire to Bellville, then loops through Burton, Brenham, and Chappel Hill before retracing its path from Bellville to Brookshire. I know I can do it. I’m in!
I throw in some extra training the week before the ride, riding a 100k permanent in Houston plus a few shorter workouts on the city’s paved bayou trails. On the day before the ride I feel like I’m as ready as I’m going to get.
I wake up at 4:00 on the morning of the ride, well before the alarm I set for 4:30, and creep into the kitchen, trying not to wake our three dogs. I drink coffee and eat a few pieces of toast with peanut butter, then take my time getting dressed, going through the bags I packed yesterday night, and re-checking the weather. As I load the car in the dark, one of our dogs starts barking his head off inside the house (as usual, I’ve failed to sneak out). I drive away a little before 6AM.
The ride will begin at the Brookshire police station at 7:00. Most of the riders are already there when I arrive a little after 6:30, fussing with their bikes and the ride paperwork. I unload my bike from the car and attach my handlebar and trunk bags, then walk over to Wally Bigler, the ride’s organizer. Wally hands me a waiver to sign, a cue sheet showing turns and distances, and my brevet card.
Brevet cards are an old-fashioned paper system for recording a randonneur’s timely progress through the course. At each control, or mandatory stopping point (often a gas station or convenience store), riders must collect the current time and a set of initials from an employee, or write down information such as the price of gas or the color of a sign. At the ride’s end, each randonneur signs their brevet card and returns it to the ride organizer, who in turn submits the results to RUSA.
Outsiders and new randonneurs are often taken aback by this primitive system. However, the fact is that over a long ride, GPS units and smartphones can run out of power or otherwise fail, destroying all record of a rider’s progress. Despite advances in GPS technology, brevet cards continue to be the norm in randonneuring, and could be considered part of the sport’s low-tech charm.
All of the riders (myself and 5 other middle-aged men) are signed in now, and the ride starts at 7AM sharp. The first leg of our ride is to the north, into a 15MPH headwind. The group forms a small paceline, led by Wally. Wally is a strong rider and holds the position for miles, setting a pace I’m not quite comfortable with at the start of an all-day ride, especially after a year of mostly slacking off. Experience has taught me that if I keep this up, I’ll be in serious trouble in a few hours.
After about 10 miles of struggling to keep up, I drop from behind Wally to the back of the group. The others stick with Wally, and I keep falling behind. I don’t want to ask the group to slow down on my behalf, so I make the decision to ride alone for awhile and catch up at the next stop, if possible.
Now that I can relax a bit, I forage in my bag for a banana and some gummy bears. The snacks I brought (two bananas, a bag of gummy bears, and some coconut energy cubes) will sustain me until lunch in Burton. Soon, the course turns to the northwest and the initial headwind becomes a persistent crosswind. It’s annoying, but I’ll take it after summer’s insufferable heat and humidity. There will be no chance of a tailwind for hours.
I cross the Brazos river alone as the sun continues to rise. A verse of Lightnin’ Hopkin’s Bud Russell Blues runs through my head:
Lord, you oughta been on Big Brazos
Whoa, man, nineteen hundred and ten
Yeah, you oughta been on Big Brazos (Lord have mercy)
Young man, nineteen hundred and ten
You know Bud Russell drove pretty womens
Just like he did them ugly mens
During the early- to mid-twentieth century, “Uncle Bud” Russell (Chief Transfer Agent of Texas’ prison system) transported thousands of men and women to Texas prisons in his “one-way wagon.” Climbing the hills that appear on the west side of the Brazos, I pass prosperous-looking small ranches, then suddenly remember that my name is Russell too.
Five miles or so before Bellville, a fellow 200k rider pops out of a side road where he has taken a “nature break.” We ride together to Bellville, and notice that some of the riders have stopped at a gas station for snacks. The first official control on the route will be in Burton, almost 60 miles into the ride, so we decide to stop too.
I pull in, use the restroom, adjust my clothing layers a bit, then decide to take off ahead of the others. They’re faster than me, and I assume they’ll catch up in no time. In Nelsonville, a short distance north, the route turns off onto a small country lane with a surface of rough chipseal. A big, yellow, raw-boned country dog, its ribs clearly visible from 50 feet away, chases me after I pass a small church. I speed up and barely get away. Fifteen minutes later, I get the same treatment from a chihuahua and a dachshund. This time I want to stop and pet them but think better of it.
After about 40 minutes, I notice that the other riders still haven’t caught up with me. Did I take a wrong turn somewhere? I study my GPS and cue sheet, reassure myself that I’m on the right road, and keep moving. Some donkeys catch my eye and I stop to take a picture. Turning, I see three riders approaching, the ones I left in Bellville. We ride together for ten miles or so before I again decide that the pace is a little fast for me. Dropping back, I follow the others at a distance.
As I arrive in Burton, a rider coming back the other way waves at me. It’s Eric, whom I just met at the start of the ride. The two strongest riders, Eric and Wally, skipped the stop in Bellville and are now well ahead of the rest of us. Wally is now riding alone in the lead, ahead of Eric, and I will not see him again for the rest of the ride.
The control in Burton is a gas station and store with a 1950s diner aesthetic. I arrive a minute or so behind the others, buy some lemonade and potato chips, ask the clerk to initial my card, and flop down at a table. I eat a turkey sandwich that I brought from home and half of the chips, putting the rest in my handlebar bag for later.
I’ve had my lunch and am ready to leave, but the other three want to stop again, at a diner in Burton. Once more, I decide to push on alone and let them catch up.
Burton is close to the halfway point of the ride, and here the route turns back to the south and east. Riding south out of town on Old Mill Creek Road, I catch a good tailwind and am suddenly cruising along at an effortless 20MPH. The fun only lasts for a mile or so before the road becomes rough, corrugated gravel and I have to slow down. Turning east toward Brenham, the road alternates between gravel and chipseal for a few more miles before settling on chipseal. Protected from crosswinds by thick vegetation on the north side of the road, I start making good progress.
I ride east through the larger town of Brenham (home of Blue Bell ice cream) then continue in this direction to Chappell Hill. Here, the route runs straight through a street fair, with pedestrians clogging the road. I walk the bike through the crowd for awhile until I reach the control at the Chappell Hill Rattler’s store.
I get my card initialed, then sit outside on the curb, eating a creamsicle. A few people wander up and ask me how many miles I’m riding that day. They’re all impressed, and one man tells me he likes to ride too, but only maybe 30 miles on weekends. I say that he could probably do this too if he wanted to, and he replies that he would need someone like me to push him. I had needed people to push me too, and I agree with him.
Culture war signals pop up from time to time during the ride. A biker in Chappel Hill has vest patches proclaiming that “when guns are outlawed, then I will be an outlaw,” and ordering you to get the hell out of his country if you don’t like the American and Confederate flags. A diner on the square in Bellville has been renamed “Trump Cafe” by its (Muslim, immigrant) owners. A coal-rolling white pickup passes on a country road, spewing black diesel exhaust. I’m happier when a big group roars by on Harleys, throwing me proud, devil-horned metal salutes. I wave back, scrupulously avoiding the slightest hint of an isolated middle finger. They ride on, and I keep pedaling.
Just as I’m finished fixing myself up in Chappell Hill, the three other riders arrive. They ended up not eating in Burton, and now they’re intent on visiting the Burger King built into Rattler’s. Again, I don’t want to wait and take off alone. I’ve gotten used to setting my own pace at this point and am really enjoying being alone on the bike.
In Zen they say: If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, try it for eight, sixteen, thirty-two, and so on. Eventually one discovers that it’s not boring at all but very interesting. – John Cage
You might think that being alone on a bike all day would be boring, but it isn’t. For one, you need to pay attention all the time or you may get a tire full of broken glass, ride off the side of the road, or (worst case scenario) get hit by a truck. Is the bike making some weird noise? Better stop and check it out.
Above all, on these long rides one must pay close attention to the state of one’s body and mind: Am I hungry? Am I thirsty? Do I need to eat or drink something now even if I don’t feel hungry or thirsty? What can I eat if I really don’t want to eat anything right now? Is anything hurting? What can I do about that? How much time do I have to make it to the next control before it closes? Am I pacing myself well, not wasting time but also not splurging reserves of energy I will need later?
When I am riding all day, I tend to think a lot. Sometimes, when I don’t think I am thinking, an answer pops into my head anyway: sell the house, get a new job, start a business, buy a wok and learn to cook Chinese food. I think (or at least hope) that the kind of thinking I do on an all-day ride helps keep me honest with myself.
Of course, there is also the attraction of spending a nice day in the pretty countryside, phone switched off. Who doesn’t like that?
If I do find myself utterly bored I come up with simple mental games, like trying to replay all ten and a half minutes of Yes’ Heart of the Sunrise in my head without losing my place. (I tried for hours once, but couldn’t get all the way through.)
From Chappell Hill to the finish, the ride is a relative piece of cake. Light tailwinds push me the 16 miles south to Bellville, where I refuel with some potato wedges and a Topo Chico at the Bellville Rattler’s. This time, I don’t see the other riders before leaving.
After Bellville, the route retraces its initial 26 miles back to Brookshire. The north wind has died down a lot over the course of the day, but what’s left of it now works for me, instead of against. I get my card initialed at a gas station in Brookshire and I’m done. I’ve ridden about 125 miles in 10 hours and 43 minutes, including stops. Not fast at all, but well within the RUSA’s 13.5 hour time limit for 200k brevets. I’m tired but not exhausted. It’s been a nice day on the bike.
I slowly pedal down the street, back to my car at the police station, and load up my bike. The parking lot is desolate; there is no sign of the other three riders yet, and Wally and Eric have already made themselves scarce. There is no end-of-brevet fête with kegs and barbecue. Driving back to Houston, I munch my remaining potato chips and drink yet more Topo Chico. I get home about 7, take a shower, drink a couple of glasses of red wine, eat a bowl of beans and rice, walk the dogs with Sheila, and go to bed.
