An even dozen D.C. Randonneurs (counting Mary Crawley as one of ours!) traveled to Quakertown, PA Saturday for the PA Randonneurs 200.
See my Flickr photoset Here or see the captioned Slideshow.
Update: Bill Beck has posted his photos, Slideshow, and Motion Based map and elevation graph.
Maile has also posted her photos. See them Here, or see the Slideshow.
Cresting Fox GapAfter a pre-ride group dinner at the popular McCoole’s Red Lion Inn in Quakertown, we went back to our hotel and hostel beds to dread the forecast of showers throughout the day Saturday.
We gathered under rain at the Weisel Hostel and Tom Rosenbauer delayed the start when thunder and lightning rolled through. It was very ominous. Yet the rain had tapered to a mist as we departed at 6:15 a.m. and we rode the rest of the day under partly sunny skies, save for a sprinkle in the afternoon when the winds shifted from the south to the west. Temperatures climbed into the low 70s and we drank a lot of water.
Ed & MG give the Secret Randonneur Salute
A total of 37 riders (Tom pre-rode the route, bringing the official field to 38) undertook the loop route that consisted of four long ascents and numerous little steeps along the Delaware River, alternating winding descents, riverside romps and slow crawls back to high ground. There were four tandems: Chuck and Crista, Mary and Kelly, me and MG, and Ron and Barbara of Hamilton, N.J. on a well-equipped Burley Paso Doble. There were many excellent randonneur bikes on this ride — I’ll post about them this week.
Tom had a terrific route, beautiful and challenging. Chuck logged about 9,700 feet of ascent on his GPS. It felt harder because most of the climbing was steep, such as Fox Gap, which had sections of 13 percent. On our tandem, that’s about 4.3 m.p.h., or more than 30 minutes to climb the 2.6 miles to the top of Fox Gap. Oof!
In all, the event was well run and Tom took very good care of us. We’ll be back for more.
Crista and Chuck, with Dan from Pittsburgh, prepare for the final segment
The Daily Randonneur 
Hey Ed & the rest of the DC area contingent,
It was great to have you along for the ride last Sat. at the Eastern PA 200k. What a blast it was having 4 (count ’em 4!) tandems at a brevet. It was indeed a scenic and challenging ride, and the weather cooperated beautifully. I really enjoyed checking out the photosets that several of your group posted on the web. I hope Barbara & I can arrange to make it to a DC Randonneurs event at some point this season.
Happy Riding,
Ron & Barbara Anderson
Great to see you too, and do come visit us. We have 200K brevets on May 31 and July 19 and more to come this fall, including a Dart overnight weekend if you want to get on a team. Maybe an all tandem team?
Ed