Every year I do the 200K brevet I think it's going to be my last. This year I think it really is.
I started doing these brevets around 13 years ago. Now, I'm not one of your dyed in the wool (literally) randonneur types that thinks a 600K ride is just a stroll in the park. A century ride is about my limit, and not being known for pacing myself, I usually end these events fairly close to death. The 200K is a bit of a stretch, but it's a nice route, and it lets me hob nob with those zany randonneurs. Also, since it starts at Hanscom in Bedford, my home town, it's convenient. So I usually ride to the ride adding a few more miles.
But I'm getting a bit long in the tooth, and I don't know how many 200K's I have in me. This last one seems to have made the decision for me.
The other reason I do the 200K is that it is arrowed. I'm of the old school that believes "real men don't use cue sheets" (sort of the moral equivalent of asking for directions) and being directionally challenged, doing any ride further than five miles from my house without arrows is madness.
I had heard some nasty rumors that this 200K was in fact not arrowed, which caused me much fear and trepidation. But I dismissed it since I had seen brand spanking new arrows on route 225 and other places. Turns out that my pal Dave had done the arrowing out to Groton and back, but left the rest of the ride to the organizers, who apparently didn't bother to finish the job.
I found this out at the ride start and immediately started making contingency plans. I specialize in wheel sucking, but now it was imperative that I tuck myself into a group that presumably could find their way.
All went well initially, I tucked into a group that I could keep up with as long as someone else was pulling. There was a dilemma at one point when we found that a bridge was out. This was no surprise to some of the riders, but apparently the organizers were unaware of it. Upon close examination, it looked like you could do a cyclocross number and ford the stream, and several of the more adventuresome in the group did. I was inclined to follow their lead, but then I realized the my group was starting to turn around, which would leave me without my native guides, so I did too.
Made it to the first check point without further incident. Started out with much of the same group as before, including Melinda, who I had planned to try to ride with, since I managed to have her group drag me into the finish last year. Rode with her and a smaller group for a while, until I lost my head and decided to take the lead for a while. Shortly thereafter, they all left me for dead, and I was in the exact situation I was trying to avoid, riding by myself sans arrows.
For a while I was OK, there were enough faint arrows from yesteryear that I could figure out where to go. Came upon an intersection bereft of arrows, but fortunately there was a group of puzzled riders stopped there as well trying to figure out where to go, and one of them cheated and looked at the cue sheet. My first save.
They of course dropped me so I was again riding alone. There was a dreaded Y intersection and a barely discernible arrow which I thought pointed left, but really didn't. Again I was saved since I saw a rider heading the other way, who had just figured out that this was the wrong direction.
Then I got to another Y intersection, and there was absolutely no remnant of arrow to be seen anywhere. This called for desperate measures, so I was forced to extract the cue sheet and try to figure out where I was. Now in all the years I've been doing this ride, I think I only looked at the cue sheet once. The first time I did it, near the end I got to a point where there was a large "Entering New Hampshire" sign. Now, I'd been in New Hampshire a large portion of the day, and I knew the end was in Massachusetts, so this seemed wrong (it wasn't). So I tried to locate myself on the cue sheet. I figured I must be around mile 80 or so, and after vainly seeking a mileage like this on the cue sheet realized that all the mileages were not cumulative, as they were on every other cue sheet I'd ever seen, but from each check point. So, I finally found the appropriate cue, which fortunately referenced a farm stand by name that was across the street, so that was pretty unequivocal.
Now I was getting really worried. If I missed another turn I could end up most anywhere. But fortune smiled again, and I was able to blunder my way back to where Dave's arrows picked up and home.
Another tragedy narrowly averted.
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