At the Emitremmus Brevet, the hills of Hertfordshire turned out to be a challenge indeed in the original
configuration. In the following year, and equipped with a new gearing, the time had come for my
first randonnee, the Cambridge 200. But I was still a shift-lazy fenland rider, and this showed
when, on a sudden uphill turn, the chain jumped and got stuck between cassette and hub -
impossible to see how it could get out (or how it could have got in) without a chain tool, which I
didn’t carry. Fortunately it was less than 10 km to the next control in Olney, so I rode there in the
traditional dandy horse mode to deal with this problem in a more comfortable atmosphere. And
over a coffee, with a bit of patience and a Swiss army knife, the chain and the bike were put
back on track.
In this spirit of dilettantism I set out on the road of continual improvisations. Long rides and
associated mental freewheeling led to such “inventions"; like a Baguette holder, an “energy
drink” powder (whey, maltodextrin, instant coffee, salts; vitamins) or a tria-bar mounted
headlight which can be turned around into a map reading lamp - I like to navigate by route
sheet, because mental maths how long it will take to the next turn help me stay awake.
To keep me motivated, I was now looking for a challenge that would not take too much time (let
alone effort) at once, but also involved interesting planning, so I set out for the International
Super Randonneur. To qualify for this, one has to do BRM brevets in four countries (at least one
of each 200/300/400/600k or longer- check out Granbrevetto Europe Challenge Randonnée if
these look too short for you).
For the International Super Randonneur I rode:
-October 2017: Dying Light 200k starting in Dublin. A great season-closer and the social event
of the Irish randonneur community, after battling strong autumn headwinds on Irish roads that
were so rough that my backlight cover jumped the ship.
-May 2018: Green and Yellow Fields 300k starting in Manningtree and organised by Audax Mid-
Essex. East Anglian cycling experience was not of disadvantage in this smooth ride, and the
weather was so fine that I learned where sunscreen needs to be applied on a cyclist.
-June 2019: 400k starting in Dunkerque, France - most French brevets don’t have individual
names. Riding in impromptu groups (and having regular breaks together, also for flats) is the
norm here also outside Euraudax, compared to British rides that build more on the local tradition
of time trials. Instead, club-managed controls are not so much of a social hub in France, since
most events are self-supported. On the other hand, some riders are able to organise support on
the spot, for example by persuading the mayor of a village to let a small pub open for
refreshments in the middle of the night. Also, French hotel porters also don’t seem to be
surprised about being asked to stamp brevet cards in the small hours: Everybody expects a
French validation. And baguette vending machines exist.
-August 2021: 600k. Gießen, Hessen, Germany. Now living in Germany again, plans for a 600k
in 2020 were put on hold due to Covid. Permanents in Germany mainly narrow down to
Superrandonnées, but the lines to calendar events become blurred in pandemic times: For
2021, the ACP allowed for homologated events the starting in groups of two, within a window of
two weeks. The geographically closest one for me was the “Großenwiedener Antizykel”, named
after its opposite point from the start and the fact it had historically an anti-brevet running the
other way round at the same time. Early on Saturday, 14. August, two riders started at the
pedestrian overpass in Gießen they call the “elephant’s toilet” for its big round opening.01 I used
the smartphone app “Digital Brevet Card” for contact-free validation by uploading timestamped
and geolocated images at checkpoints. Unfortunately, even on a summer night the airstream
can cool an uncovered phone so much that no electrons would want to come out of the battery -
shut down plaintively and the charger cable was far away. So I relied on snapshots with my
emergency camera and on cashier receipts. Shop opening times on weekends are short (even
compared with France), but gas stations are plenty and they often open around the clock. Since
central Germany is full of mid- to small- sized mountain ranges, a brevet through this region
should be expected to involve a lot of up and down between towns unless you follow a river. But
in the prevalent Sunday afternoon mood, no motorist took care to honk at a cyclist on an uphill
struggle, turning increasingly into an involuntary pedestrian. As I wanted to make it home in
time, I took no time to doss and finished by taking a photo of my bike in front of the elephant’s
toilet on Sunday evening before taking the train home.
After riding a 600k almost entirely on my own (I gave my starting companion was a go ahead
soon after the start), some more social riding was most welcome, so I signed up for one of many
brevets that globally celebrated the centenary of free-paced randonneuring in September 2021.
On Sunday, 11th September 1921, 77 cyclists started from the Porte Maillot in Paris for the first
free-paced 200 km brevet. Apparently, all of them, including a married couple and a one-armed
veteran, completed the course within the 16-hour time limit, the fastest being Messieurs
Lavenarde and Girardot in 10:19 h (Source: L’écho des Sports, 13.9.1921).
The biggest number of jubilee riders turned up in India, where 400 of them celebrated the
anniversary in Bengaluru alone. For me, it would be the easiest to get to the one in Munich: If I
departed from Heidelberg in the small hours and took the high-speed train to Munich, I would
arrive at the main station twenty-five minutes before the start at 8 o’clock. Although my train ran
80 minutes late, this problem had miraculously resolved after a brief nap, and I could ride the
few kilometers to the start comfortably through the quiet and wide roads of Munich.
In a gentle
drizzle, the starting area was well visible by the fluorescent colour of jackets and vests of more
than a hundred starters. Corona-related social distance measures had been partially relaxed, making this
event probably the biggest brevet in Germany on this side of Covid so far.
Starting in groups, we rode the first kilometers out of the city, first along the gravelly banks of the
Isar and then continued southwards through the Perlacher forest. Sheltered from sun, wind, rain
and hills this cycleway is ideal for cycle-based conversations. Soon the drizzle gave way to a
clear sky and the Alps became visible, and the ascent was so steady it was barely noticeable.
After the much-needed coffee and cake at the first control in Lenggries, it was now time to go
into the mountains (but especially the valleys), and at the end of a tunnel we were received with
a stunning panorama, with the blue waters of the Sylvenstein reservoir below us. We followed
the Ache, the inlet feeding the reservoir, upstream into a narrowing valley and the road changed
into a gravelly forest track winding uphill. It ended at a sign telling us that we were now in
Austria.
However, this sign was for cars only. On our bikes, we had already crossed into Austria via a bridge over a tiny mountain stream a bit earlier.
I wonder which brevet crosses most countries, Belgium might be a good place to look for it.
Within slightly more than 600k, iIt should be possible to ride through eight countries: Beginning
in the southernmost corner of the Netherlands, crossing into Germany with brief excursions into
Belgium and Luxembourg, crossing the Rhine and touching the French border, then towards
Bregenz at the Austrian end of Lake Constance, from there briefly over the Rhine (because the
left bank is Switzerland), and back again onto the right bank into Liechtenstein. The first five of
these countries would not even take 200k to cycle.
From the border on the mountain pass, we rode on well-groomed roads up the Ache river until
arriving at the lake out of which it flows. Among other leisure activities, the blue-green waters of
the Achensee are an excellent cruising ground for Pedalos. These pedaled watercraft
were developed not far from here, and did their first rounds on Bavarian lakes in 1810, a handful
of years before Baron von Drais first rode on two wheels. I don’t know if it is possible to
homologate a Randonnee on water, as the current record for a Pedalo stands at 194 km in 24h,
but it might be possible with a pedaled hydrofoil, which can go as fast as 35 km/h.
Soon after passing the end of the lake, the ride reached its highest (and halfway) point at about
968 m above zero - we were riding in the Alps now, but still without much uphill struggle. But the
descent was moderate as well - trailing a livestock transporter limited the speed to an
adrenaline-saving 51 km/h, but much faster than a traditional cattle drive down from the summer
pastures would have been, albeit that would have had cowbells. At the bottom we reached the
valley of the Inn river, and followed the Inn cyclepath through a well-developed tourist region
towards the next checkpoint in Wörgl (133 km). I validated there with a traditional stamp, as the
digital brevet card did not seem to work (expected if one travels abroad without turning on
international roaming).
We stayed close to the Inn (also a good mountain-grinder according to its gravel deposits) past
the border fortress of Kufstein 07 and crossed another unnoticeable border back into Germany,
and the horizon opened again. After a cake stop at the 175 km checkpoint at Brannenburg, we
left the Inn cycle path - it would finally merge into the Danube cycle path downstream in Passau.
Instead, our small group followed its tributary the Mangfall upstream, and cycled past tiny
cascades, towards the beer garden finish, into the sunset.
