Randonneurs (randos), use metric for distances; it'll make them feel like a longer ride: rando chat‽

Horse_Mafia · May 18, 2026, 1:35am

ok the 600k was totally fine and I think the tough/dumb parts were of my own doing

Horse_Mafia · June 23, 2026, 7:59pm

A selection of bikes from the leaderboard of the Pas Normal 200k challenge on Strava:

ARA 1000K - S-Works Aethos

Nordic Chase 800K - Canyon Ultimate CF SLX

ARA 1000K DNF - Pinarello Dogma F10

ARA 600K - Scott Addict Gravel

CVRQ 600K - Tr*k Madone SL 7

ALPI 4000 DNF - Casati Progetto

Hamburg BRM 600K - Orlowski tracklocross

cousinmosquito · June 24, 2026, 9:57am

What percentage of rando peeps use aero bars? Do people frown upon them?

jame5on · June 24, 2026, 11:48am

How would they see the map?

LASER_BEIGE · June 24, 2026, 1:09pm

Lots
Depends
There’s one particular guy who uses them that I don’t like because he’s a smug asshole, not because he uses aero bars though

LASER_BEIGE · July 7, 2026, 3:43am

Doing a dart
Here’s our route
https://ridewithgps.com/routes/56002157

We’re the 7/11 rouleur doggz

LASER_BEIGE · July 12, 2026, 1:45am

I DNF
My team made it

LASER_BEIGE · July 27, 2026, 9:55pm

Saturday 7/11 was a great day with friends, terrible day on the bike.

This was the dart populaire which is the rare team event in this niche designation of self flagellation. A team of 3-5 “machines” builds a >/= 120km route and ride it over 8 hours to a pre determined finish location. This years finish was a beautiful back yard on the west side of Portlands of Mt. Tabor.

I assembled a team of some old friends and a new(er) guy to the club, we called our team “7/11 rouleur doggz” and we had 3 goals:
Eat some dogs
Crush some beers
Not shit our pants

I was mostly successful.

We started downtown Portland at (not the coffee shop we were supposed to start at because that coffee shop opens at 9). We went to the other coffee shop and waited around for 5 minutes before realizing they weren’t going to open on time.

Clicked the start button on rwgps and did a little jig jog around a few city blocks to head up to the rose garden in Washington park in SW Portland. It was a perfect overcast July morning and the temp was somewhere in the upper 60s - warm enough for no arm warmers but cool enough that the humidity wasn’t a concern. This time of year the rose garden is full of tourists parking cars in the wrong places and walking off the sidewalks without looking. Classic. I wonder if it’s the same in every other city in summer.

After the sweet city view over the garden we continue up the hill past the Japanese garden and to the zoo, another climb to the arboretum. At this point we turn to descend into a small tree lined mid century neighborhood with tennis courts, luxury cars and houses I could never afford. This drops us to a road that runs parallel, protected from a major highway. It’s quiet in terms of traffic but there is a sound of cars and trucks whooshing by, droning back or forth from wherever they’re coming or going.

A few turns and we’re now ascending and rolling through a neighborhood with houses on stilts and bunches of ferns and blackberry brambles under leafy and evergreen trees, pass a cemetery at the top of the hill and onto the skyline road with views of forest park, the Columbia river and the airport. This is a main bicycle thoroughfare that everyone who rides a bike for exercise in Portland will ride eventually and it drops into gravel trails which we descend down to the gravel road that everyone eventually rides. It’s quiet. There are walkers and joggers and middle aged women with off leash dogs. We’re in 2x2 formation and I take a corner

Short interlude to share the new club stickers

And my rear tire washes out, I correct and I stay upright but I’m rolling into a ravine. I lay the bike cheap side down SOFTLY into fresh green grassy dirt.
Fuck
This is almost as bad as falling and getting hurt
My bike handling skills are “questionable” to my riding companions
Emotional damage to my ego
I had been complaining to myself about these pacenti pari motos - there is such a narrow band of tire pressure where these feel good and going from one surface (road) to another (gravel) changes all that.
I stop, collect myself, stand up, check to make sure no bones broken, no clothing ripped, pick up the bike and give it a drop test. Everything else seems ok.
One of my teammates hands me a cloth to dust myself off and I look fine.
Bruise to my reputation

We start back and continue to the trailhead and descent across the most beautiful bridge on Portland and our first 7-11 stop. At the 7-11 there are free slurpees because its name day and there are also 50¢ mystery bags at the counter
You want one (points to the bag)?
What’s in it?
50¢
What’s in it?
You want one? (Points to the bag)
This goes on another round and one of my teammates finally breaks
It’s a day old donut
Anyway that got ate and we head on out
Next stop is my place because I live in the neighborhood and I wanted to drop off the layer from the rainy morning.
We leave there and head out to our local wetland and cross to the tax evasion capital of Vancouver Washington. There we ride to burnt bridge road and call each other inappropriate names and enjoy views of libertarian excess and squalor and stop at another 7/11 for a name day free slurpee and head back to the Oregon side.

We’re somewhat behind on timing because we spend too long on stops but we’re having a good time. The sun has come out and the heat is starting to take its toll on me. We stop by another 7-11 after the exposed sunny slog out marine drive and onto the 205 path, crossing many campsites and a frail looking woman carrying a baseball bat with a silk scarf tied around it. She didn’t look like she was headed to softball practice. Our map gets turned around but we start the ascent to rocky butte and I’m cooked. Too hot, didn’t eat, excuses so I call it in. My team goes on but I head to the end. The team descended and then went up mt tabor for another controle and to the finish, where I had already arrived, but a few minutes after the cutoff. I have opinions.