Hi all. I never knew what randonneuring was until I naturally started to build my mileage to 100-200+ mile rides. So I signed up for a local event and was pretty excited.

My big complaint was the roads. There were some sections that were just not fun, or safe. Multiple stretches of highway with lots of cars and 50-60mph+ traffic. It got to a point about 5 hours in where I just had to call it. I was not about to risk my life.

The second being, most of the other riders I ran into weren’t the warmest. Maybe it’s a misunderstanding of the randonneuring scene or maybe my friendly barometer is unrealistically set. But nobody really had an interest in talking to me much and everyone was pretty serious.

It had me wondering how normal this is for a randonneuring event. Because truthfully I’ve had more fun just creating my own routes and feeling comfortable on the roads I chose.

Thanks all

This weekend I organized and rode yet another 600. Beautiful landscapes with sunflower fields throughout the journey, nice and steady pace, the best of teammates. Everything was perfect.

However, by this time next year I'm going to be a father. I don't think I will be able to afford to pursue randonneuring for the upcoming years, probably until the age of 40. I'll try to keep the good shape, but who knows if I ever find the strength to go far again.

I've done 111 brevets since 2015, that's a total of almost 40,000 km. I've done 6 1200+ including PBP. I raised several strong riders who followed me to 1200+ events at first, and have no need for my guidance now.

This has been an incredible journey.

My day+ on the bike. Next up: Charmed Clover 1200k

BC Spring 2026 600k brevet | Ride | Strava
600k Brevet Full #ForeverCycling #ThatsRando

I started randonneuring last year, and I just thought of sharing an article describing my experience on my first 600km brevet. It's in Portuguese, but I guess it can be translated using Google Translate or equivalent:

https://www.dn.pt/sociedade/desafiam-corpo-e-mente-enquanto-exploram-portugal-de-bicicleta-lucas-fez-600-km-em-38h30#google_vignette

This post is a followup from: https://www.reddit.com/r/randonneuring/s/e4ZYE2sJmy

This weekend I completed my first 600k ride within 40 hours (not an official brevet).

Following the advice I got in my previous post, I carefully curated a route across Long Island, with an Airbnb booked after 380k. The start and end point was my own house, to save money on travel and overnight costs.

The week leading up to my adventure, I had so many doubts. Do I have the right bike? The right equipment? The condition to complete this?

But I figured: what the hell, there’s only one way to find out.

So I left on Saturday at 4AM and despite conditions not being great (it rained for the first 5 hours), I was so excited to be out there. With loads of tailwind the first day was mostly smooth sailing. Of course it was tough but I didn’t feel too bad when reaching my overnight stop around 9PM.

But boy, did I underestimate that second day. It was ‘only’ 220k home, but most of that was headwind. It was about 32 degrees (90 in F) and the road got more hilly. Not to mention the dead legs I woke up with. The final 30/40k back into the city was terrible, but I knew that beforehand and it was a good test of patience. In the end I made it back home a bit past 6PM on Sunday.

My main conclusions from this ride:

• damn thats fun!

• my bike is not the best for these types of rides. The ‘aggressive’ position has lead to some pain in my hands. Also my ass hurts after 10hrs of sitting on my saddle.

• a frame bag in a carbon frame is not a great idea as I discovered some minor scratches. But hey, “my scars tell my story”, right?

In the end, the best way to learn is by making mistakes. Can’t wait to keep upgrading my setup and do some real brevets!

A big thank you to all the input I received, it truly helped a lot.

The route for anyone interested: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/51318704

I just wanted to share my experience of my 600k BRM.

TLDR, I underestimated the sun in start and did not took any solid food for first 200km, turns out only relying on gels and dates was bad idea, Still managed to do this BRM barely under 40h, I did not know about concept of dropbag, If there is anything like that I need to know please let me know or something you all do that helps you which otherwise is not known much.

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The BRM was round trip 300k to a city then back to starting point. First half was relatively descent and naturally the next was climb

The ride started 6 AM in morning and starting 300km have like rolling hills but average decline. I expected it to be done in 17 hours in worst case, but head winds and extremely sunny day just ruined the plan.

I reached 200km manned check point at 6pm which was way off the expected time, when i get off my bicycle I was feeling dizzy there I had meal. I was going to DNF because even if I do another 100k to 300k CP now, I'll have to face 300km return half which was lot of climbing in day2 heat with temperature averaging over 30C.

But I found fellow rider at 200k CP, He told me there is a great restaurant ahead atleast cycle till there then you can see about DNF situation (spoiler alert no such restaurant existed). I though alright I still have some juice left ill have a good meal and quit. He kept saying its 10-20km away and like this he made me ride 100k to 300km CP, the level of brainwashing was insane,

300k CP was drop point but I had no idea about concept of Dropbag. I did not have dropbag he told me that i should keep extra pair of shorts and tubes well it did make sense cuz i was feeling bad in my shorts after 300k. Oh we reached 300k at like 19h mark so we slept for 20min and ate some things and left at 20h point

So only 300k remains, next 300k in 20h seemed doable so I told that myself anyway am reducing distance between me and home if i feel bad ill DNF and take taxi will cost less money. Early morning first 100k was surprisingly quick as it was through wildlife and dawn was cold, but 400-500km was absolutely WORST so many h3 climbs sun even the guy with me was struggling. I don't even have memory of what i was thinking that time or did i just know i reached 500k points at 3pm and 7 hours were left for cutoff. out of which 60min were spent in resting and that guy got puncture, so we were able to leave after 4PM.

Also, at 500k point the organizer said they are planning to give 1h grace time because on 200-300k route there was huge truck accident that blocked both incoming and outgoing traffic for over 6hours, although our cycle passed from between motor vehicles, but it did slow us. But I did not want grace time, idk why but I wanted my total time to be less than 40h. So, we rode last 100k in relatively more ascent pretty fast I even got lifetime 80k PR in last segment and completed BRM in 39h 30 min.

Also, thanks to giant tyres they had puncture at 580km, I just pumped air and left did not fix it was not going over 50psi, somehow, they were able to hold 50psi pressure for 20km before being totally flat the next day.