Anyone up for a ride? Local cyclist is in it for the long haul

Photo by DAVE OLECKO/Advocate staff April 25, 2007 Red Deer cyclist Charlene Barach wants to perk some local interest in riding brevets -- to make the sport of randonneur cycling as popular here as it is in Europe and around the world. By CARL HAHN LIFE staff In France the roads are crowded with them, but in Central Alberta Charlene Barach is a lonely randonneur. She will likely puzzle a few store clerks in small communities this year, asking them to record the time on her brevet card and sign it. Virtually no one in these parts knows what a brevet is, or has ever heard of a randonneur. There aren't very many of the recreational long-distance cyclists anywhere on the Prairies. "In Alberta, maybe 20ish," Barach estimates. As the lingo might suggest, the practice started in France, well over 100 years ago. A randonneur (rambler, in English) is a cyclist who rides set distances within corresponding time limits. A brevet refers to events of shorter distances (a mere 200 to 600 km), while rides of 1,000 km or more are known as randonnees.

While living in Manitoba, Barach discovered the hobby, which soon turned into an obsession. She's already been randonneuring in France, and she travelled as far as Australia for the Great Southern.

"I was, and still am, the only female finisher of that (ride). The only female starter. The only female who has ever done it."

It was a big motivator for her to finish it. "They were quite excited about it."

Since Barach did her first brevet, she has done five to eight rides a year, attempting six randonnees and finishing four of them. That's quite a change from her first long-distance ride 17 years ago: two whole miles -- and she had to stop for a rest halfway.

She kept working at it though, and in 1998, at the age of 31, decided to try out bicycle racing. In a sport normally reserved for the younger crowd, she was far from the front of the pack. But there was one bright spot.

"I was winning my (age) category -- but I was pretty much the only person in it," she says with a smile. "I didn't enjoy it as much as I'd hoped."

She tried a few different types of races, and didn't mind doing time trials, where cyclists are sent out individually and timed, rather than racing head-to-head. But she still hadn't found her true heading until she pulled out an old newspaper article she had clipped on randonneuring.

Riding a brevet or randonnee is more like an endurance test than an actual race. While there is a time limit for completing the event, it doesn't require breakneck speeds, just consistent work with a few breaks. Everyone who completes it is the winner.

A 200-km brevet has to be finished in 13.5 hours, while a 600 allows 40 hours.

"What you do during that 40 hours is up to you," Barach says. "You can be on the bike, you can be sleeping. Whatever you've got to do has to be completed in that 40 hours."

It took a while for Barach to find Manitoba's low-profile club and get involved. In 2001 she rode her first 200-km brevet. That allowed her to try a 300, and by the end of the season had done a 400 and 600 as well.

Completing the cycle qualifies a person as a "super randonneur," allowing entry into the 1,200-km events.

But she didn't try that until 2002, when she cycled the looping course from Kamloops through Jasper and Banff parks and back to Kamloops.

The next year she went to France for the Paris-Brest-Paris 1,200, only held every fourth year, and attracting around 4,000 cyclists each time. The mecca of randonneurs was first run in 1891 -- earlier than the Tour de France.

There Barach found her own people: cyclists her age and older from all over the world, who enjoyed the gruelling distances without the competitive edge of racing.

"We form a bond with each other, so when you go travelling to other countries quite often you meet up with friends who you've cycled with."

In 2004, however, Barach moved to Red Deer to join her parents and to start studying education at Red Deer College. With no brevets in the area, she had to drive to Edmonton or Calgary to get her cycling fix.

Tired of all that driving, the following year she asked for sanctioning to set up her own 200-km brevet. She received permission, and sat down with a road map to plot a route.

Barach added a 300 last year, and this season is holding the full schedule of brevets from 200 up to 600. She has driven just about the entire route of each one, and cycled most of them, to ensure no serious problems would materialize. She ended up recycling her original plan for the 600 and rerouted it.

"I scrapped it because of lack of services. I had it heading way out east, and after you get east of Stettler there's nothing."

Unlike marathon runners, who are supported by hundreds of volunteers at water stations and timed by officials, randonneurs are self-sufficient, carrying all their own supplies, and money to buy drinks or food along the way. While busier events will have volunteers waiting at checkpoints to sign brevet cards and confirm the times, Barach has appointed towns on the route as checkpoints, and cyclists can simply ask store clerks or strangers on the street to record times and sign off.

So far she's had as many as eight riders, and as few as -- well, herself.

Even without companionship, Barach will be on the roads year-round, as long as the roads are clear enough to cycle. Aside from the travelling she's done and the people she's met, the value of randonneuring is it motivates her to keep getting back in the saddle, she says.

"If I didn't have this I would probably think, 'Oh well, it's winter; I'll just sit on the couch.'"

For more information on Alberta Randonneurs check www.albertarandonneurs.com, e-mail cycle@machka.net or call 346-2761.

Contact Carl Hahn at chahn@reddeeradvocate.com.

For Central Albertans who always wanted to be a randonneur but didn't know what it was, the chance to find out is May 5.

Charlene Barach is leading the season's first 200-km brevet that day, starting from the Tim Hortons at 67th Street and Hwy 2 in Red Deer. Participants will have 13.5 hours to cycle a route west of the city through Sylvan Lake, Bentley, Eckville, Leslieville and Rocky Mountain House.

It's actually the second brevet of the season, but miserable weather wiped out the first one April 21.

The 200-km route is good for beginners, Barach says, but the rest of her routes are of intermediate difficulty -- nothing like the hilly ride she recently finished on Vancouver Island. "Those are difficult."

A 300-km brevet is scheduled for May 12 (maximum 20 hours), 400 for June 2 (27 hours), and 600 starting June 9 (up to 40 hours).

While serious racers might scoff at the times allowed for brevets, Barach finds some of the time limits fairly tight. She spends about 36 hours cycling 600 km, but faster cyclists can afford to stop for a nap.

"As the distances go up, the difficulty increases, particularly because of sleep deprivation."

Most fit cyclists can manage a 200, though. She says triathletes like to use the 200s and 300s to keep their legs active, and recreational riders wanting to cycle "the century" (100 miles, or 160 km), can do that and a little more with the 200.

Unlike racing, randonneurs don't need fancy, expensive bikes, either. While they must have the necessary safety equipment such as helmets, reflectors and lighting for events that run through the night, they can complete the route on a mountain bike, tandem bike -- even unicycles.

"I have seen just about every human-powered machine out there on brevets," Barach says.