What have I been up to? Lots of long distance randonneur cycling. I have now qualified for the Paris-Brest-Paris in August :). Since I seem incapable of riding fast, I’m having a go at riding long this year.
My challenge for the year to is to complete the 1200km Paris-Brest-Paris Randonneur under the 90-hour time limit. We’ll see what sleep, eating, exhaustion, physical, mechanical and navigation challenges await me. I be ecstatic if I am able finish under 80 hours. This will be a good challenge for an average cyclist such as myself. The ride starts on August 21st. Much training left to do…
The Paris-Brest-Paris is the longest running cycle event in the world with the even dating back to 1891. It has not been professionally ridden since 1951 and is now ridden every four years as a randonnee/brevet or, every five years as a Audax 22.5km/h ride.
To qualify I needed to ride a series of qualifying brevets, registered with Audax Club Parisien over distances of 200km, 300km, 400km and 600km. I exceeded this with 1x200km; 1x300km; 3x400km and 2x600km brevets – enough to qualify twice. The qualifying rides organised by Kiwi Randonneurs took me all over the lower North Island and the top third of the South Island. My strongest performance by a long way was the Lake Taupo Enduro. My favourite ride was Nelson to Christchurch which took me through the Buller Gorge, down the West Coast, Around Lake Brunner and over Arthurs Pass (two-foot gear was required). I’ll endeavour to catch up on my blogging with a brief post about these rides between training. Meanwhile, you can click through to the Garmin data to see the routes.
Randonneuring is not well known in New Zealand. We had between 2 and 6 riders starting each brevet. With the number of riders who enter long distance events at Taupo etcetera there seems the potential to grow this discipline of cycling in New Zealand. We are currently looking at establishing a local club to promote this discipline more in the future.
| Date | Brevet Name | Distance | Avg Spd. (Moving) | Avg Spd. (Elasped) | Elapsed Time | Total Ascent |
| 13 November 2010 | South Coast Sortie GPS upload failed for this ride :( | 202km | ? | 20.3 km/h | 10h10m | ? |
| 27 November 2010 | Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge Enduro (Best performance. Why can’t I ride like this all the time?) | 315.5km | 25.9 km.h | 24.8 km/h | 12h42m | 3,412m |
| 15 January 2011 | Apiti Hills | 405km | 22.6 km/h | 18.6 km/h | 21h45m | 3,075m |
| 5 February 2011 | Christchurch to Nelson | 403.9km | 20.5 km/h | 15.6 km/h | 25h56m | 3,264m |
| 8 February 2011 | Nelson to Christchurch (Scenic & Mountainous! Wonderful ride) | 610.5km | 20.5 km/h | 16.3 km/h | 38h26m | 5,809m |
| 19 March 2011 | Pahiatua Delight (My favorite North Island brevet) | 424.1km | 23.8 km/h | 19.7 km/h | 21h31m | 3031m |
| 22 April 2011 | Taranaki Challenge | 616.3km | 22.5 km/h | 17.1 km/h | 36h23m | 4,281m |
TOTAL | 2977.3km | 22.3 km/h | 17.85km/h | 166h53m | 22,872m |
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