The Birds and the Bees (and the Bikes)

Ride: Night Time 200k Brevet Organizer: Marcello Napolitano Date: Saturday April 2, 2011 Start Time: 5:00 PM Registration from 04:00 PM – 05:00 PM Start Location: 6675 SE Borwick St, Hilsboro, OR (near Baseline Rd/Cornelius Pass Rd. intersection) Finish By: 06:30 AM ( on Sunday morning) Entry Fee: $10 (additional $5 fee for non-RUSA members) [...]

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UPDATE: 2-1-11 – The final route sheet can be downloaded from here, if you would like to print your own copy. The file contains two tabs, one for the 200k route, and one for the 300k route. Printed copies of both routes will be available at the start. I created routes for each loop at [...]

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Just for fun, I tried to use Google Maps to give me directions from my house to the start of PBP: View Larger Map No luck, all I get is a message that says: We could not calculate directions between Hillsboro, OR and Gymnase des Droits de l Homme, Rond point des Saules, 78280 Guyancourt, [...]

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December 27 update: Due to potential flooding of the Tulatin River south of Forest Grove on a section of the original route, the first few (and last) miles of the route have been changed. This makes for a much more pleasant ride, along scenic farmland, with relatively low traffic, but it adds about 4 miles [...]

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Back in March, I wrote a series of posts looking at each leg of the Gold Rush Randonnee route, from the start in Davis to the turn around point in Davis Creek. Now that we are only 8 days from the start, I realize that I never finished looking at the rest of the route. [...]

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One of the members of the Randon mailing list, Tom (don’t know the last name) is riding the Gold Rush Randonnee next month, and he did a ride this past weekend from Susanville to Taylorville and back, and then from Susanville to Adin. That section is the part of the GRR route with most of [...]

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I read all the ride reports that I could find from the 2005 Gold Rush Randonnee, which was held at the end of July. I also talked with a few riders who completed that ride. All of them remember vividly the brutal heat. It was scorching hot, over 100F, in the Central Valley between Davis [...]

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The crank that came standard with my bike has always been trouble. On the last day of my first 1000 km brevet three years ago, after crossing the northern Cascades, I started to panic when the left crank arm started getting loose. It’s been a pain ever since, and on the 600k brevet last month [...]

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A couple of days ago I was riding along Washington County farmland towards the hills, for a training ride, when suddenly I was overwhelmed by a wonderful scent. Ripe strawberries. I looked to my left, and across the street was a field covered in strawberry plants, and I could see the bright red dots of [...]

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I carry a cell phone on my rides. But fairly often, I end up in areas where T-Mobile has no reception. The staffed control in Vernonia on our spring Birkie 200 brevet is one of them. You can call if you have ATT or Verizon, but not T-Mobile. Same story along the coast on the [...]

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