There is a special sport called randonneuring -- long-distance, endurance bicycling -- which is an international avocation for thousands of bicyclists worldwide.  These cyclists, called (appropriately) randonneurs, are defined by Randonneurs USA as "a hard-riding bicycle enthusiast who is trying to complete sanctioned long-distance bicycle events inside a certain time allotment." http://www.rusa.org/ Typical of these events are brevets -- tours of 200+ kilometers (about 120+ miles), which need to be completed within an established period of time.  In the Washington D.C. area, our local randonneur organization is the Potomac Peddlers Touring Club. http://home.earthlink.net/~jtkuehn/dcrand/

Crista Borrás  and Chuck Wood, two DC-area randonneurs, have for several years now, been leading weekly training rides for those cyclists who are interested in long-distance cycling in general, and in preparing for the formal randonneur events.  Riding their trusty tandem along the back roads of Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, Crista and Chuck (and friends) give the beginning and advanced cyclist the opportunity to improve their skills as cyclists -- from physical stamina, to bike mechanics, to enduring the challenges of weather, and to plain old fashioned bike etiquette -- by organizing and leading weekly tours.

Now here's the cool part - the tours are free!  Crista has developed an amazing collection of cue sheets for a vast number of century (i.e., 100 mile) tours in the area surrounding Washington D.C.  She organizes a tour for BOTH Saturday and Sunday, and sometimes when there is a three-day weekend, three (count 'em!) THREE tours!  When you attend a "Crista & Chuck Tour" you're given a cue sheet and a map to insure you can get from point A to point B with no trouble.  Crista always makes sure the tours wind their way to fast food and convenience stores (and typically a very tasty lunch spot) along the way so all her tours are self-supporting.  At the end of the tour we typically have a nice sit down dinner at a local establishment. The other cool part is that there is no pressure to keep up with the "pack" -- you ride at your own pace, be it fast, moderate, or slow.  Most folks do all three in the course of a typical tour (though, for some reason, they seem to go fast down hill, moderate on the flats and slow uphill....). So there is NO pressure to perform at a given level. Your goal, at best, is completion. Period. 

Oh yeah, the most important part -- if you want to be on the mailing list for notices of each week's tours, just email Crista at: cborras@fulbright.com. Or you can check out this website by clicking on What's New? later in the week to see what's coming up.

Now if doing a century seems daunting, her tours typically include short cuts allowing a rider to do fewer miles.  The only thing a rider really needs, therefore, are sufficient tools, bike supplies, and cash (and maybe an emergency snack or two) to provide self-support along the way.  This reliance on your own mechanical prowess and the availability of Twinkies at your typical 7-11, Sheetz, Royal Farms, Highs, etc., are the essence of the randonneur experience.  As a result, most bikers bring along a universal tool of some sort (e.g., an Alien -- http://www.tool-shop.com/topeak/alien.html -- honest, we don't own stock in the company!), spokes, tubes, a frame size pump (for quick & easy pumping), patch kit, and a chain repair supplies (just to name a few items).  

The bottom line is that unlike the pretty boys in the Tour de France, we have NO domestiques or SAG wagons.  Though Lance, Greg, George, Marco, and Eddy (to name just a few) would be more than welcome to ride with us, in truth, they'd probably need to "junk up" their bikes to fit in.  Typical randonneur bike style tends toward bike racks and big bike bags (though not always!) to lug the gear and supplies you need to handle whatever the elements, the road, or your bike dishes out. 

The primary purpose of this website is to give you some details on what to expect on a Crista and Chuck tour and to let you know what a great opportunity it is to bike with us.  In the left column you'll see several links under the INFO heading that'll tell you what to expect and how to prepare for a C&C tour. 

In addition, a secondary purpose of this site is to create a place to share with others pictures taken on the tours we've been on.  Most of the pictures posted on this site were taken with an Aiptek Pen Camera, or a Largan XP Chameleon, at 640 x 480 resolution, or a Canon PowerShot S300 at 1600x1200 and reduced to 640 x 480. Then, when processed, the images were tweaked and saved as JPGs with 50% - 90% compression. Note -- several of these pictures are therefore in a high-resolution format, but they are NOT located on the website to save space. Therefore check with us if you'd like a high-resolution version for printing, and we'll let you know if one is available.  Note that he pictures on these pages are actually "thumbnails" of the real photos, with the thumbnails being only about 5,000 bytes per picture, but the real photos are about 50,000 - 80,000 bytes each.  To access each picture, just click on it and you'll see the larger version of each picture. To save the larger version of each picture on your hard drive, just click the picture using your right mouse button and you'll see a menu that let's you "Save Picture As."  

Finally, this webpage is optimized for viewing at 800 x 600 dpi resolution on your monitor. If there is anything you'd like to see changed in this website (including deleting any pictures you think don't show you at your best!) just email carolanne214@cs.com. See you on the road!

30 June 2002