Randonneuring is probably our favorite cycling sport. Randonneuring is long-distance (sometimes ultra-long-distance) unsupported endurance riding. It is non-competitive in nature (don’t kid yourself… this just means they don’t give out trophies or prize money). It’s marked by a strong sense of camaraderie among cyclists. And perhaps the coolest thing about randonneuring is that it’s all about self-sufficiency.
If you get hungry, you’ve got to have food, or at least money to buy food. If your bike breaks, you’ve got to fix it. You’ve got to have lights, preferably lights that don’t need batteries, to ride through the night. If you get hurt, you’ve got to either keep going or quit. But even if you quit, you’ve probably got to keep going, because you’re probably in the middle of nowhere. And there’s no team car to pull up alongside you and put numbing spray on your ouchies like those pansies in the Tour de France.
Randonneuring is the very essence of cycling sport. It’s what the sport was like in Italy and France way back before the days of team cars and neutral wheels.
So if you’re thinking about doing a little randonneuring, come see us. We do it, and we know what you need. And if you’d like more information on local brevets and other randonneuring events, check out the Lone Star Randonneurs.
The link for Lone Star Randonneurs is invalid. It should be: http://www.lonestarrandon.org/
Thanks Keith
I updated it to the new site… appreciate the reminder.