The plan is to have a barbecue and birthday-cake-eating competition at Barre Falls Dam, a pretty park somewhere in mid-state Massachusetts. Of course, seeing as how this is a randonneuring event, we would have to ride to and from the party. A normal bike club would start the ride somewhere like Stow, and make the whole round trip a nice 100 km — a distance that the ranodnnering community calls a "Populaire", because it is a good way of introducing people to this crazy sport of ours. However, the only place that BBS riders can find without a GPS is Hanscom field, and that is about 70 km from Barre Falls. OK then, you say, make it a 150 km ride, or maybe even 160 km — equivalent to a 100 mile "century" ride.
However, doing that would be missing the opportunity to take in some of the best riding in the State. Once one is "out west" almost as far as Quabbin, why not continue into the Connecticut River Valley? So the destination for the day was to Westfield, where there is a Bike Shop run by the organizer of the Berkshire Brevets. That's 66 miles or 106 km from Barre Falls by a scenic route, and 178 km from Hanscom.
And then, of course, you have to ride back home. Hence: a 350 km Populaire.
Getting to Hanscom for a 4 am start means getting out of bed at 2:30 and leaving home at 3am. At least it had stopped raining: the forecast was a 50% chance of thunder showers, so this was welcome. I arrived with plenty of time to check-in and use the men's room in the terminal building, as well as remembering to turn off my diNotte rear light. Riding as a bunch through Concord, Acton, Maynard and Stow in the quiet hours of the morning was wonderful. The pace was a little more sane than on the 600k, maybe because I made sure to get up near the front, and hold the pack back! I rode for a while with Emily O'Brien, who rides all of her Brevets (including PBP) on a fixie. Not that I had any idea where I was going, so after a while we let Bruce Ingle, the designer of the route, take the lead.
At some point Emily peeled off to deal with a puncture. The pack stayed together until daylight, when it started to fragment as riders stopped for a nature break or to make some adjustment, or to eat. Once it was light, the route was easy to follow, because it stayed on State Route 62 all the way from Sterling to the park entrance road. Riding by myself now, I really enjoyed watching the mist rising off Asnacomet Pond in Hubbardston.
Shortly after I turned onto the park access road, I saw Emily Searles and Dave, and then a group of about six riders, and then a couple more, all riding out. After my stop, they would all be about 15 minutes in front of me. Tracey had thoughtfully provided a cloud of mosquitoes at the contrôle to make sure that we didn't linger too long. If there had been any onlookers (it was 7am), they would have been amused to see a cyclist holding a slice of bread in one hand, a jar of peanut butter in the other, and somehow trying to spread the peanut butter and swat mosquitoes at the same time.
A couple of other riders came in to the contrôle while I was thus occupied, and Dave, Lynda and I left more or less together. Route 62 West from the park is not so much a state highway as a series of potholes strung together with patches of gravel. Dave took it all in his stride: he was gone down the hill and out of view faster than I could say "pinch-flat". Lynda and I found him again when we merged onto Route 32 south of the town of Barre; Dave had taken a wrong turn and a slightly longer route. Just as Dave was off the front again, I punctured, and both Lynda and Dave stopped with me to help find the offending piece of glass and replace the tube. This was much appreciated, as Dave had a real pump!
We chat for a while as we make our way south towards Belchertown. This is Lynda's first randonnée: quite an ambitious undertaking. She says that she was looking for a double century as a challenge, and this looked close. We wonder how Belchertown got its name; it didn't sound very PC. Subsequent Wikipedia research tells me that the town was named in honor of Massachusetts governor John Belcher (1682–1757). Not that he ever came there: an inspection by the governor was required before a settlement could become an official town, and after years of waiting, the residents of what was then called Cold Spring decided that they would name the town for him as an inducement for him to visit. All this was to no avail; Jonathan Belcher died four years before the town was incorporated. Nevertheless, the burgers might be said to have had the last laugh, because Belcher is buried in the town's graveyard.
Somewhere around here I missed the turn onto O'Belchertown Road. Lynda did warn me that her GPS said that we were off-route, but I had seen the street name, so I was confident that we were OK. However, when the next cue did not show up, reason prevailed and we backtracked a couple of miles to he missed turn — which proved to be a short steep hill followed by a steep long hill.
Lynda's bike, equipped with a racing double and a close-ratio cassette, is not one that I would have chosen for a long randonnée. She said that she was considering upgrading to a compact double. My latest upgraded had been to an 11-34 wide-ratio cassette — and I was riding a bike with 20 inch wheels! Thus, in spite of Lynda being a much stronger rider than me, I was able to easily leave her behind on the hills.
For some time now I have been looking for a shop or some other suitable place to answer the call of nature. I eventually leave my bike leaning against the guard rail on Route 118 and head into the woods. Just as I am about to disappear, Emily rides by and calls out "are you stopping for a leak?" Yes indeed: at least, that's all you need to know. However, the mosquitoes know better: I still have the welts to prove it.
I thought that I would catch up with Emily or Lynda in short order, but never did. Further along the road I stop at a farm-stand in someone's front garden, buy a tomato and a small cucumber, and ask their permission to sit under a tree and eat them, along with the last sandwich I'd brought from home. The homeowner is happy to refill my water bottle too; little stops like this are one of the things that I find very attractive about randonneuring. While thus pleasantly engaged, Jake rides by, stops, and asks if I have seen Emily. I tell him that I believe that she and Lynda must be way ahead, and he rides of to track them down.
It is a long 46 miles to Northampton, where the route goes straight down the main street. This is the first town that the route actually takes us through, rather than around. It's a bustling little place, but totally overrun by motor cars. However, I did spot the Bakery Normand hiding behind a row of parked F-350s. That's right, not the Boulangerie Normandie, but close enough for this Randonneur to stop and buy a quark slice and a day-old pâtisserie danoise. Quite an international spot, what?
With only a couple more stops to eat my goodies, 20 miles later I negotiate the potholes of Westfield, Massachusetts and pull into the parking lot of New Horizons Sports, where Eric greets me with a smile. Jake is sitting on a lawn chair, and Dave is pacing the sidewalk waiting for his rear wheel, now minus two spokes, to be trued by the shop owner and Berkshire RBA.
I am surprised to see Jake, since I had imagined that he was now far ahead of me. He says that he is waiting for Emily; neither she nor Lynda have yet checked in. Another wrong turn, we assumed, and so it proved: Jake and I left Westfield about a half-hour later, at about 13:30, just in time to wave to Emily and Lynda as they rode in.
Jake and I stay together all the way back to Barre. The weather started hot and sunny; we both had a lot of miles in our legs, and were not riding fast. We also managed to miss a number of turns, and while never actually lost, had to backtrack a few times. As the afternoon progressed clouds built up, and when we stopped to backtrack to the missed "Right at the gazebo" at mile 40, the first drops of rain started to fall. We just had time to put on our jackets before the heavens opened. Pretty soon we were climbing up Babcock Tavern Road with hailstones the size of large ball-bearings pinging off or our helmets, (I knew that they were good for something!) and rainbows all around as the sun shone in the West. We turned right at end on onto River 9 East, or so the cue sheet might have said: the water was a couple of inches deep on the road as we climbed the hill, and ran right over the drain grates without visibly diminishing. We rode right to the center of Ware before I found a doorway to shelter in. (The center of where? Ware. That's a town in Massachusetts, named after a town in Hartfordshire, England. Where? Ware. My brother lives there, in Ware. OK? You know where we are now. Who's on first?)
The rain is soon over and the road dries out. In fact, by the time we have ridden another 10 miles, everything is dry. We head into Hubbardstown and the start of what is euphemistically known as State Route 62. We can smell the hay in the barn now, and by 19:20 we are at Barre Falls park enjoying, in my case, a clean pair of shorts and the remnants of the RUSA anniversary pasta salad, in that order. There is also corn, and potato salad, and burgers and chicken breasts for the meat eaters. Tracey apologizes: apparently, there are no veggie burgers to be had within 50 miles of Barre, but there is food aplenty, including an excellent rhubarb pie that had been carried to the park by one of the randonneurs in his Camelback, and which had been only partially eaten by a most determined chipmunk before the hungry hoards beat him back.
Dave, and eventually Emily and Lynda came in while we were partying. Lynda is hurting, and Emily has slowed down to stay with her. There was no real rush: it was only 8pm, which gave us over 7 hours to complete the last 45 miles within the Brevet time window. Still, we knew that Tracey wanted to go home, and I was starting to feel the effects of 17 hours of riding after 4 hours of sleep the previous night. After getting some food down her, Lynda decided that she wanted to finish, and Emily decided that she would stay with her, so Jake, Dave and I left together at about 8:30pm.
Riding with Jake had showed up a curiosity that i can't really explain. Jake was much faster than me going up hills. This by itself wasn't surprising, since apart from being half my age, Jake has ridden fixed for a number of years, which builds strong climbing legs (if it doesn't kill you first). What was curious was that I was easily able to catch Jake again on the flats, and even pull ahead — knowing that he would pass me again on the next climb. Dave, in contrast, was able to pull ahead on the hills and stay there: I lost sight of him within a mile of the Barre Falls Dam turnoff, and didn't see him again until Hanscom field.
Jake and I play tortoise and hare in this fashion all the way back along Route 62, through the excursion onto Route 117 in Sterling and back onto Route 62 in Stow. We stop a few times briefly to grab a bite to eat or replace a battery pack, and are buzzed by an occasional (motorized) late-night reveler in Maynard and Acton. Turning the cranks is no problem, but keeping my eyes open is more difficult, and I curse myself for forgetting the chocolate. Then I remember the chocolate-covered blueberries: mmmm, that helps some. We make it back to Hanscom just three minutes too late to be able to claim that we had finished before midnight, and there we are finally able to enjoy the RUSA birthday cake.
I learned later that Lynda and Emily made it in a little after we had left. This was a valiant effort from Lynda, on a bike not ideally set up for the event. You can ride almost any bike for 100 miles, but once you are talking about 200+ miles, issues of fit become all important. Still, I think that she is now "hooked", and there will be some equipment upgrades in her future.
Statistics for my ride: 350 km Brevet, elapsed time 20h03. Overall: 251 miles (404 km); 17h41 saddle time; 22h20 minutes elapsed time; elevation gain 12320 ft.
