Monday, March 3

Sunday's ride


This Sunday, Arnica participated in the Seattle Randonneurs Populaire 100k Ride. Big name-Fun ride. Despite the picture shown, we all had our pants on.

Randonneering is a fancy word for bike riding long distances.

The ride is put on by the local chapter of the nationwide group called RUSA(Randonneering U.S.A.) which is affiliated with a much larger international group whose name Arnica is too pooped to mention. The Seattle Randonneurs like to wear blue woolen jerseys and ride around the town and up hills, in a given amount of time and without any support. You either pack your Twinkies in your jacket or you buy them along the way.

This ride is considered a "social" so anyone can ride and Arnica did. Set up like a time trial of sorts, you start with a route sheet and a check-point card. You ride to a destination, get your card stamped, ride to the next spot, get stamped, etc. You do all this while trying to keep within the time constraints. At some point the number of kilometers you put on your bike during Randonneur sponsored events qualifies you to ride in the every-four-years Randonneur event in France.

The ride was very nice. the map was accurate. The hills were steep. The Randonneurs are a fun group of guys but hard-core for sure.

Arnica has no intention of ever going to France until they take back that hideous Statue of Liberty, so he did not stop at all the check points. And at some point he took a shortcut to cut an hour off the ride and get back to beer drinking sooner. So Arnica did not do the entire 100k, but did somewhere around 82 kilometers.

Oh ya, these guys really like to use metric measurement. Something to do with their connection to France.

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