Beyond Brevets - going it alone...

I have three 200K brevets highlighted on my dogeared printout of the AB Randonneur 2007 schedule. That will take me to 5 May. I'll select some longer distance events to fill out the rest of May and June. I definitely want to complete a 300K & a 400K. Maybe I'll just keep going and finish my SR series. I wouldn't be surprised if I did.

The interesting thing about riding 400K is that it makes a whole new kind of bike ride possible. I did a tour of the Icefields Parkway last year. 450K in 4 days - seemed pretty epic at the time. Now I am thinking of doing the Parkway itself (180-200K) as a day ride and riding the whole way back to my apartment (450K) as a two day jaunt. My friends have a cabin on Kootenay Lake in BC - 600K from Calgary - hmmm...maybe I could ride back from there. And my friend Arne lives in Abbotsford BC - what if I flew to Vancouver and the rode back to Calgary. It could be my own personal 1000K LD ride.

There is nothing unusual about these rides or distances for cycle tourists, but they take 10 days to cover a 1000K - maybe 12 if they take some time off the bike. I could do it in a little over 3 days if I can travel light and be efficient. Getting extended vacation time is tough for me in the summer. Work is busy and I have some other "fun" commitments that eat up what time I do get. So these kind of rides fit into the long weekends that I can realistically get and allow me to do things that have been on my virtual shelf waiting for a week or two of time off during a warm part of the year.

Since the AB rando scene is so tiny I'll most likely be riding all my brevets solo anyways. I'll train solo and if I do these long distance rides they'll be pretty much the same - solo. I am a little jealous of the big rando clubs like the Seattle folks, but you have to be happy with what you have.