In our last episode, I was set to do a 200K brevet that started in Fennimore, went down to Galena and back. I spent the night in Fennimore, got up the next morning to winds gusting to 35 MPH and temperatures in the teens. Decided not to ride.
Onward.
For those who aren't randonneurs (which, given the demographics, is nearly everybody), there are two challenges called a P12 and an R12. Like most things in randonneuring, you're only competing with yourself. The P12 challenge is to ride 100K or more every month for twelve consecutive months. The R12 is the same with the distance being 200K or more.
Oh, and both have an "ultra" version where if you do ten years you complete an "ultra-P12" or "ultra-R12". If you miss a month, you reset the annual (but not total) calendar so if e.g., you've completed 48 consecutive months you have 4 of the 10 years required in the bank and if you then miss a month you don't lose those you just reset the clock.
And what do you get for this? The usual: name on a list and a trinket should you decide to order it.
When I started, I didn't really set out to do either. My normal brevet riding season runs from April to October. The first year of the cycle, the weather was pretty decent in November and December so I did a 100K and 200K permanent each month. So there I was in January (in Texas) thinking "if I do a 100K/200K each month while I'm here I can finish the year" so that's what I did. One year done.
And that's how it's gone every year thus far. I get to November and think if I can push through and do a 100K and 200K in November and December I can complete another cycle in Texas and bag another year.
Which brings us to this year. I'm currently at "P55" and "R55" which means I've completed a 100K and 200K every month for 55 months. The weather this year has been dreadful. We're about one month ahead of seasonal norms in terms of both temperature and snow. As I type this, we got 4" of snow yesterday and the wind chill is in the single digits.
So, being the cold weather wimp that I am, I've started thinking "do I really care about this enough to go ride in the freezing cold to complete another month?" and, a very related thought, "what's the long term plan?" Is getting an "ultra" anything important to me?
The answer to the last question is no. I don't really ride for trinkets, I just do the rides I want to do and let the awards take care of themselves. In fact, I've missed some awards that I could have gotten just because I don't pay attention to them. For example, I have 4 RUSA cups (a RUSA cup is awarded for 5000 kilometers of RUSA calendared events which must include a 100K, 200K, 300K, 400K, 600K, 1000K and 1200K and a team event (Dart or Fléche) in a 2 year period. I missed having a 5th RUSA cup because I hadn't done a 100K.
So here we are. It's cold AF and I need a 100K and 200K. The forecast doesn't look promising for the next 10 days with the warmest temperature being 42 degrees for one day and most of it being in the 20's-30's with some additional snow.
Streaks are powerful things.
