David Roderick - 9/10/2018

I knew that there was something missing from both of my pre-ride speeches. I “forgot” to mention the possibility of having “Secret Controls”. The Populaire had a secret control and the 200K had a manned control that was scheduled to be a merchant control. I manned the Populaire secret control, and Dick Sebode, five time ancien of Paris-Brest-Paris, manned the South Bloomingville control on the 200K. Yes, Dick’s license plate does read, “Allez”. On P-B-P, sometimes you hear that at 2:00 in the morning from fans on the side of the road.  Dick and Steve Barbour are most responsible for dragging me to “the dark-side”, randonneuring.  Rider Scott Ebbing found a $100 bill on the 200K route. His remarks concerning the find were, in effect, “it pays not to be in the ‘breakaway’”. The fast guys missed the reward.

Thank you to Ric Noland for opening his shop and shower for our rides. He left Damon Howard, a former student of mine, in charge while he went on vacation. Damon had an emergency at home and he left my wife Debi in charge of Cyclist Connection. She still did not give me a discount. Instead, she made sure that all the randonneurs were well fed and had Dick Denning refusing offers of more food. She SAG supports me. She promises that “Debi’s date bars ” will return for the P-B-P qualifiers.

Thank you to Ted Meisky for coming up with a safe 200K route that proved to be a preview of next year’s brevet series. Dick thanks you for giving him a control with shade. Ted works miracles.

David Miller and I have already been out working on safety improvements on next year’s 200K. We got his new car dirty checking out route options. Dave takes my rough ideas, tweaks them and comes up with the best and official route and cue sheet.  The Lancaster-Jackson-Lancaster 200K was the first brevet that I rode in 1999, a P-B-P year. Dave Miller said that if it had been “his first brevet”, it “may have been his last”. The route can be found out there on the Internet. Ted will post the “Ride with GPS” file and the final cue on Tuesday before the ride. I now know how easy it is to load a route to a GPS but, remember, the cue sheet is the “final route”. Dave Miller takes care of us.

Our 100K Populaire convinced a few new riders to come to the “dark-side” of cycling. I’d originally estimated 30 riders, 20 for the Populaire and 10 for the 200K brevet. We ended up with 14 200K riders, and 25 Populaire riders. Tom Dusky, the RBA in Michigan, will be sending us additional medals. I have a new order of Ohio Super Randonneur shirts, and will send all of the cards and awards out as soon as I can.

Next Up:

March 23: Ohio Randonneur’s 2019 ACP 200K.

Lancaster-Jackson-Lancaster – This year we trained your mind. In 2019 we will train your legs.

Let’s crank it up…