D.C. Randonneurs held its first ACP brevet in two years on Saturday, following a reorganization year in which Bill Beck was named the new Regional Brevet Administrator and the club staged RUSA brevets. The club had a terrific day despite wet conditions. Some 47 riders undertook the Urbana 200K and another nine went out on the 100K Populaire. There were more than a few sporting the new Woolistic DCR wool jersey. (Well done Michael Scholten!)
Bill has posted photos and preliminary results. See his recap of the ride below. Maile “24” Neel has also posted photos at her Flickr page.
Congratulations to everyone who rode, and to DCR for coming back with a full ACP schedule this spring!
MG and I could not be there, and certainly missed the excitement of the beginning of the ACP season. (Why do French-certified brevets mean more than RUSA brevets? Beyond their status as qualifiers for PBP and some other 1200K randonnees, there is still something that makes them special. That’s a topic for another time.)
My excuse? My daughter DF was in town. On Sunday the sun came out and she and I grabbed the tandem and met MG down at the National Mall to check out the Cherry Blossoms around the Tidal Basin and Hains Point. It was crowded with cars and tourists, but the bikes made it all manageable. See a set of photos from our jaunt at my Flickr page.
Here’s Bill’s recount of Saturday’s brevet:
What an impressive bunch showed up in the rain at Urbana on Saturday: 47 riders for the 200K ACP brevet, and 10 for the 100K populaire! The riders pedaled a challenging route through light rain for pretty much the whole day. But there seemed to be nothing but smiles around the course.
The populaire riders went half the distance of the brevet, but they had some bragging rights of their own because they rode over MarLu ridge and South Mountain in the hard direction (as well as the easier direction). All of the populaire riders finished the course, five with official finishes. All but one of the 47 who started the 200K brevet completed the full course, 44 within the time limit. Everyone who showed up gets credit as being certifiably hard-core.
Special congratulations to Erik Ewald who completed his first brevet and Maile Neel who completed her second consecutive R-12 award (which we have been calling R-24). Maile’s streak started with her very first brevet! If there were any other notable firsts that I didn’t hear about, please let me know. And thanks to Bill Arcieri and Maile Neel for volunteering to help at registration, and to Jan and Nick Bull for volunteering at the finish.
The Daily Randonneur 