First 200km of the season

The brevet season came early this year, but it arrived with perfect weather. Bob and I headed east out of Edwardsville yesterday morning ready to make 2009 a great randonneuring year. It was chilly, but the wind was very cooperative. We had a gentle ENE wind all day long which pushed us to the turnaround but did not give us too much trouble on the way back. I rode the fixed-gear bike and enjoyed visiting with John (the RBA), Bob, and Tom (Tom decided a 126-mile ride wasn't enough and tacked on 20 miles more). It could not have been a more perfect day: a good time (for a fixed-gear bike) of 10:58 and I had energy to spare at the end.

Training ride

I took a short training ride yesterday with my buddy Bob to get ready for the first Randonneuring event next week. We rode a portion of the course for approximately 100km. We would have liked to do more but we both had things going on in the afternoon. On the other hand, riding even 100 mi would have had us out there all day. The wind was very steady and strong out of the south. On my fixed-gear, I could only make 12-13 mph into the wind. We flew back north at 18 -19 mph. The temprature was too mild to be a true randonneuring experience, but we did get some practice rding for hours into a headwind and that's the best practice there is.