Conference noted::bicycle

I believe you are going to have a record number of Charles River 
Wheelmen people:  Lindy King, Al Lester, Jim Merrick, Cathy Ellis (a 
mighty lady on a Terry) and John Tobin.  Many have PBP hopes.

I would be doing it except that I don't want to make all the other 
participants look bad (besides, I'm teaching Rdb so am too busy).

Oh well, Best of Luck to all.

	~Mike

    	I finally met John Ellis last night. He sent mail
    	yesterday saying he was going to be in the area to
    	ride BMB. When I first read the message, I thought
    	he said he was going to be at BXB (Boxborough), since
    	I hadn't heard/read anything about BMB 1990.
    
    	John came over to our place and ate some Veggie casserole
    	and some (good, I believe) raspberry pie. We talked while
    	we scanned the tape of this year's Tour de Trump. He hadn't
    	seen Bauer crash in the TT, so we covered that, too.
    
    	We talked about BMB and Terrible Mountain and Middlebury
    	Gap and Linda Bosquet getting hit by a car and all kinds of
    	stuff.
    
    	It was nice to finally get to meet and talk to John. Great
    	guy.
    
    	I'd like to kina follow some of the ride, but Saturday we'll
    	be looking for a new car and Sunday I'll be at the NVC crit
    	in Nashua.
    
    	Scott

    Ed,
    
    welcome to Oz.  I guess you are coming for DECWorld and that means
    Canberra.  There are some great rides around Canberra, if you get the
    time and can find a bike.  The Brindabella mountains to the West of the
    city are great for off road as well as on road riding.  They should be
    snow covered at this time of year.  I'd like to join you but I'm taking
    two weeks off to go skiing ( :-)  many times!)
    
    Richard.

    I changed my mind about going this year.  There are some other
    priorities right now, over and above pedalling my ass off
    on some long bike rides.

    Good luck to everyone - hope it's a nice ride.

    - Jim

    	I pity those riders today. No rain, but I imagine it
    	is pretty humid. That makes for some uncomfortable
    	riding.
    
    	Scott

	I think I passed them this morning on rt 62 around 6:00am. There 
	were two groups of riders, one just leaving Hudson and the other 
	in Berlin center. They had more stuff packed on their bikes than 
	I put in my car when I go away for a week. Not to mention Blinking 
	lights and orange reflectors. They didn't seem concerned with 
	aerodynamics either, since a few riders had water bottle cages on 
	their front forks. 

	The thing that suprised me was no support vehicles in sight. 

	Paul

re:	The thing that suprised me was no support vehicles in sight. 

BMB rules do not allow for personal support vehicles, and the ride's organization
provides little in the way of support.  Certainly no follow vehicles.  What
support that is provided is available at checkpoints that are supposed to be no
more than 60 miles apart.

The bottle cages on the forks may have been for batteries for the lights that 
are required.  I wouldn't carry a battery there since they're rather heavy and 
could affect your steering, but some riders find that acceptable (or the only
available space).

FYI, BMB is not a race, but a fast tour, and it is supposed to be ridden in a 
self-sufficient manner, thus the rule against personal support vehicles (PSV).  
Actually, a rider can have a PSV, but they can only meet at the checkpoints.
I personally find this rule to be rather unsafe, especially for a fast rider 
that wants to ride thru the night thru the mountains in Vermont. 60 miles 
between checkpoints will take even a fast rider 3 hours, more if at night or in 
the mountains or late in the ride.  That's a long time to be out there alone and
in trouble.  How overdue at the next checkpoint does a rider have to be BEFORE 
they start looking for him/her?  What about the rider that is between check-
points and realizes that s/he has to stop and rest and does so for a few hours?
Now this rider is overdue at the next checkpoint, and a search is mounted for 
no reason...  This is a bad and very dangerous rule, especially considering the
small turnout for the ride and the desolate and difficult terrain it passes thru.

Even so, I wish I were riding it... sort of :^)

Kevin

    I did BMB last year and having done it, I'm glad I did it to keep in
    practice for the 1991 PBP, but, I doubt I'll ever do it again. Charlie
    Lamb's organization of the event was poor at best. The French at PBP got
    the whole route on one, count'em, 1 sheet of paper front and back.
    Charlie's directions for '89 BMB was a major novel rivalling Stephen
    King's "IT" in size and not nearly as entertaining. Considering the
    importance the International Randonneurs has placed on BMB for '91 PBP,
    Charlie and company had better be doing a lot better than last year.

  <<< Note 1692.7 by BCSE::KLASMAN "ALL-IN-1 DESKtop for PCs. dtn 381-0731" >>>
                      -< Lights, PSVs (or lack thereof) >-

>re:	The thing that suprised me was no support vehicles in sight. 
>
>FYI, BMB is not a race, but a fast tour, and it is supposed to be ridden in a 
>self-sufficient manner, thus the rule against personal support vehicles (PSV).  
>Actually, a rider can have a PSV, but they can only meet at the checkpoints.
>I personally find this rule to be rather unsafe, especially for a fast rider 
>that wants to ride thru the night thru the mountains in Vermont. 60 miles 
>between checkpoints will take even a fast rider 3 hours, more if at night or in 
>the mountains or late in the ride.  That's a long time to be out there alone and
>in trouble.  How overdue at the next checkpoint does a rider have to be BEFORE 
>they start looking for him/her?  What about the rider that is between check-
>points and realizes that s/he has to stop and rest and does so for a few hours?
>Now this rider is overdue at the next checkpoint, and a search is mounted for 
>no reason...  This is a bad and very dangerous rule, especially considering the
>small turnout for the ride and the desolate and difficult terrain it passes thru.

I've ridden BMB twice (some stupid things have come up and I had to bag
it this year at the last minute) and feel that the rule has been reasonable.

In the past 2 years, the ride was done "audax style" to avoid having riders
strung out all over the place, so that the organizers could sweep the course
and not leave anyone out in the middle of nowhere for very long.

This year, people are restricted from leaving Middlebury before midnight
to cut down on logistics up to Montreal and back a bit, but otherwise
people can ride as they please.  There should be enough organizers that the
course will be swept pretty promptly.

Basically, it's annoying and unfair to self sufficient riders to have
other riders with support vehicles getting assistance along the way.

If you don't want to take risks, then ride with other people - there is
always a wide range of abilities to go with, so one is never very far from
other riders.

- Jim

re: 

Basically, it's annoying and unfair to self sufficient riders to have
other riders with support vehicles getting assistance along the way.

Since BMB is not a race, the concept of fairness doesn't enter the picture.
Annoying it may be, but no more annoying than for the independent rider who is
faced with the choice of either waiting to ride with others, or pressing too 
hard to ride with others, or risking his/her neck to ride alone at night.

Wayne Phillips rode alone in RAAM a few years back and nearly died when hit by
a hit-and-run driver (probably done intentionally, too)  I believe this 
happened in the desert, where the only real danger was other people.  BMB has
much greater dangers that don't involve people at all.  

The women's leader in the Johnstown NY 24-hr race in 1989 was hit (at night) by 
a hit-and-run driver and was left to die in a ditch.  She suffered a compound 
fracture of the leg, among other things.  Fortunately, some other rider saw her
helmet in the middle of the road and figured something was wrong.  Who knows 
what could have happened had she not been found.  This was on a 32m loop, with
2 checkpoints about 16m apart.  Much easier to monitor the riders on this course,
but its still an exceptionally dangerous course to ride at night, due to the 
darkness (no lights at all on 95% of the course) and constant hills.


A local rider was attacked in broad daylight on a local century.

What are we trying to prove here... how hard we can push ourselves, who fast or 
how far can we ride, or who can take the most foolish risks?

Kevin

    Re .8

    Let me understand this;  the route sheets were too detailed therefore
    BMB is so poorly organized that you won't ride it again??

    Re .10

    Yes, BMB is not a race.  It's a challanging ride, and can be ridden in
    daylight with little trouble, or ridden with other riders.  The mishaps
    you describe do not apply to the situation on a Brevet.

    If you want to prove how far you can time trial in 24 hours there are RAAM
    qualifiers and the like, some of which *require* a support vehicle.
    That's one of the reasons that I haven't ridden some of those
    events, since I don't have someone with a support van to follow me
    around on these rides.

    I feel that since it is designed after PBP, and is not a solo time trial
    that it is not unreasonable not to allow support vehicles.  Of course,
    this is in "theory", while in "practice" some Europeans did get assistance
    along the course in PBP from what I hear.

    Anyhow, this is probably not the right place to debate this - you should
    get in touch with Charlie or Hauke and try and convince them that
    support vehicles should be allowed (perhaps only at night.)

    - Jim

    If you asked me for the time and I told me how to build a LCD quartz watch
    would you think I was poorly organized? No, you would think I was
    either a tremendous geek or I didn't understand the nature of the
    problem or both. I don't think Charlie or Hauke are geeks; their nice
    guys. I do however think their organizational skills are going to have
    to honed on the strap of better planning.
    
    GS

    83 hours 11 minutes.
    
    Better organized but still not well organized.
    
    Rained, some.
    
    Cathy Ellis finished in 71:52.  Yes, I know she's one mighty lady,
    she did 408 mi in 24 hr in Capron, and 373 in Edinburg, no drafting.
    
    Well, gotta catch a plane.
    
    ed

I was driving on rt 122 in MA on Sunday morning in the Barre/Petersham area and
I saw a number of cyclists.  Were those BMB riders?

Rich

    I also saw several riders on that road.  The ones going west were not
    us.  Most of the ones passing me were "us."
    
    Our characteristics included: multiple waterbottles (up to 5); a pack
    of some sort perhaps weighing as much as 10 lbs, could be seat pack,
    fanny, handlebar; lights; some fenders.
    
    There might have been personal traits of determination, fatigue.
    
    If you saw any two hour athletes, you know, no water bottle, stripped
    bike, that wasn't us.
    
    We were in the BArre-petersham area from Saturday night to Sunday 4:30
    pm.
    
    ed

    
    When I have access to a faster netlink, I'll say more, but 
    BMB90 was for me a strangely enjoyable ride.  Finished on a
    lyrical sunny Sunday morning, 10:38am.
    
    PS: That's 58:38 elapsed time, only about 20 hours behind the
    winners, from California (who did BMB kind of as a race).  :-)
    
    Interesting discussion in the previous replies.
    
    -john

    Ahem, John, I see you hadn't recovered yet.  That appears to have been
    78:38 elapsed.
    
    Even in Oz, I can figure that out.
    
    ed

    
    And g'day to you!
    
    Of course, you are right Ed.  I was trying to factor in the
    time-warp effects of using the aero seatpost.  :-)
    
    -john

    
    This year's Boston-Montreal-Boston had 77 finishers out of
    92 starters, for an 83% finish-rate, according to Charlie Lamb,
    who organized BMB'90 along with Jeff Vogel (NYC).
    
    BMB'90 had recommended stages, but the checkpoint opening-times
    allowed riders to ride through if they wanted, catching as little
    sleep and as much mileage as they desired.  I rode the stages,
    as in BMB'88, and I think only a handful did not.  More about them later.
    The stages were a bit different from '88 (and '89):
    
    Day   Miles        '88               Miles        '90
     1     228 - Wellesley-Middlebury VT  236 - Wellesley-Middlebury VT
     2     206 - Rouses Point NY          190 - Rouses Point NY
     3     160 - Ludlow VT                210 - Brattleboro VT
     4     160 - Wellesley                113 - Wellesley
    
    This year's first stage went out Mass. route 62 to Barre, rather
    than out MA/NH route 119 - adding a few extra miles on that stage.
    The second day's route through Quebec was somewhat shorter than
    in '88, making for a much nicer route.  I ended up liking these
    stages, though it made Day 3 a challenge to look forward to, what
    with 210 miles including Middlebury Gap, Andover Ridge, and Terrible
    Mountain in one fun-filled day.  :-)
    
    This made for three days of doubles, more or less, culminating in
    a "breeze" (relatively speaking) into Boston on day 4.  
    
    Next installment:  How the Riders Fared.
    
    -john

    
    Hey, are there any support crew Digits or Digettes out there?
    
    Maybe they have a story to tell!
    
    -john

    
>>    Hey, are there any support crew Digits or Digettes out there?
    
>>    Maybe they have a story to tell!
    
  	Nope,
    
    		Just us chickens waitin for John's next 
    	installment to hatch :)
    
    					_Jerry

    Go for it, John. After such a heroic effort, you get to tell us all
    about it.
    
    Next time, also come and push your bike all the way to Nashua
    
    regards,
    
    JP

>>    Day 0: Mont Vernon to Nashua
    
>>    (17:00) Bike back the 25 miles to Spit Brook Road from a day-long
>>    woods meeting in Mont Vernon.  Spend the evening enhancing nutrient
>>    levels (with two cheeseburgers, in anticipation of 4 days' healthy
>>    food on the trail), rigging my lighting system, and polishing my
>>    bike (in anticipation of the wonderful weather that must follow :-)).
  
    	John,
    		Having been a 3 yr. resident of Mont Vernon (N.H. I
    presume) and having a trained eye for potential Woods Meeting sites
    I noticed two things wrong with this.  1.)  There is no reference to
    the heretofore infamous Mont Vernon hill (Route 13), obviously just
    a *mere* hill by your standards, but this hill has caused many a Granite
    State Wheelperson to shudder in shear horror at the thought of having
    to climb it to get home. 2.)  There is virtually no public accomodations
    for a Woods Meeting in Mont Vernon.  Even the locals refer to  the
    Mont Vernon General Store as the Mont Vernon *Mall* since it's the
    largest building (except for some of the houses on the rich hill)
    in Mont Vernon.  Fess up John...was this a bona fide boondoggle :)
    					_Jerry

    
    Jerry,
    
    You are right, Mont Vernon is a tiny place.  Actually, though,
    I *was* discussing actual Computer Science with an engineer at 
    his home (which is why I had stretched my legs up the memorable
    Mt. Mont Vernon that morning).  :-)  I was staying in Nashua.
    Of course, the scheduling of this session was very nice for BMB, too!
    
    -john

    
    RE: .-4
    
    Hey, JP!  How's it going?
    
    Thanks for the encouragement!  You will doubtless appreciate
    the travail with Quebecois in the next installment.  :-)
    
    Your personal name makes you sound like real Randonneur material.
    After all, being sleep-deprived by twins should be ideal training.
    
    Remember the motto: "Real randonneurs sleep in the saddle and
    eat eggs and green beans" (PBP-fare ... rather than quiche).
    
    -john

    
          Well so far I, for one, am beaucoups impressed!
                              
                            8^)
    
                                                   Steve
    

re: Mont Terrible

While I was riding the Mt Greylock century I heard about some people climbing
Mont Terrible in a thunderstorm.  (I believe that it was Rose Kostin that was
giving this account.)

Rich

    
    RE: Mont Terrible
    
    That could well have been so (a thunderstorm climbing Mont Terrible).
    I saw Rose a couple of times, notably Friday morning as we left
    the Middlebury checkpoint.  It was a stretch for her, but she did
    a great job (a BMB finisher after little more than a year cycling).
    
    -john

    
    Brattleboro (2:30am) Wake up.  (3:00am) Breakfast.  (3:30am) Depart.
    Bob, Melinda, and I are joined by Charlie Lamb, resplendent in his
    neon green jersey, who decided to ride the last stage with us.  He
    is a welcome, fresh presence ... although he may have gotten less
    sleep (as organizer) than we (as riders).  Charlie had also ridden
    the first stage, in about my time, with something like a 13-21 cluster.
    
    The first hills into NH (route 9), down through Chesterfield (route 63),
    and into Massachusetts (route 119 then MA 78) have patchy fog, but
    no traffic, so the descents through fog aren't as horrendous as they
    might have been.  :-)  It is serene and pleasant, upper 60's.  Nearing
    Barre, we pass Lindy, who went off on her own and slept near Orange.
    
    Barre (7:00am, mile 62)  At the Barre checkpoint, we've done a metric
    century already, and explore the lobby and restrooms of the baroque/
    victorian (and now burned down?) Barre Hotel.  It is now becoming
    sunny and quite a cheerful day, as we plunge down the Barre drop-off
    and hit the remaining hills as if they are mere bumps, spurred on
    trying to keep up with Charlie.  Our only incident is being passed
    by a car near Berlin - the driver says a biker behind us (Lindy)
    has parts falling off her bike.  It turns out it is her front shift
    lever braze-on.  Fortunately, the big climbs are already behind.
    
    On US-20 in Weston, we pass happy Sunday bikers.  Melinda is tempted 
    to join a ride of her local club - only a 20 mile ride, she suspects, 
    but we might be able to collect a second t-shirt for it!  But we zoom
    on into Wellesley by 10:38am, and Jeff Vogel (co-organizer) takes our
    picture in front of a large banner - a fate reserved for every BMB
    finisher.
    
    As a practical measure, we adjourn down the street to a place that
    serves home-made ice cream and we each inhale a frappe.  (For nutritive
    value of course.)  And that's that... all that remains is to wait for
    the picnic, talk with the early arrivals (such as the Californians,
    Cathy Ellis, et al.), and applaud the other riders streaming in.
    
    I'm almost tempted to do another BMB... :-)
    
    -john

    
    So that mysterious mild-mannered fellow who kept following us,
    snapping our pix at uncomfortable moments, and making many scribbles,
    has surfaced.
    
    Yes, Christopher Koch's piece on Boston-Montreal-Boston '90 has
    just come out in the December '90 issue of Bicycle Guide.
    
    The photos are very nice, and it's a reasonably well-done piece,
    if the goal is to expose the cycling-public at large to this type
    of event.  Its shortcomings are mainly omissions, probably because
    of space constraints.  But it succeeds in giving the flavor of the
    event - the psychology, the trauma, the whimsical insanity.  :-)
    
    A few minor comments:
    
    - Jeff Vogel, co-director for BMB'90, isn't mentioned - while Charlie
      and Hauke are.  At least I don't recall seeing his name.  He also 
      is a PBP veteran (of course), and "won" BMB'88 by riding through
      the final night in true randonneur spirit while the rest of us
      sweated in the Ludlow youth hostel.  :-)
    
    - The two Californians who polished off BMB'90 in 48 hours are only
      obliquely mentioned as two of the three 10am starters - that they
      were fast enough to catch up to the 4am starters.  Of course, not
      only did they catch up, they beat all the 4am starters!
    
    - The first-day "American" style of riding individually and "dropping
      your buddy on the next hill" is contrasted with the lock-step PBP
      Euro-club team togetherness.  This is true.  However, it's well to
      footnote the drawback in sticking together, especially if you are
      just buddies, rather than a well-drilled riding troupe.  Charlie
      warns PBP hopefuls not to wait for others - he says it cost him
      quite a few hours when he did PBP'87.
      
    - David Wall's (I think that's the name) reaction against the 4am
      starts sounds funny, if he's a RAAM veteran.  Those guys don't start
      at 4am, admittedly ... they probably haven't gone to bed by then
      for their 90 minute snooze!
    
    - In a tangent to my write-up, the cloudburst that soaked Melinda Lyon 
      in the BG piece was the one that caught Melinda, Bob Cadwallader, and 
      myself as we neared the Ludlow checkpoint.
    
    All in all, I have to confess I'm pleased to see BMB, RAAM, et al. 
    get such a spread in a major cycling publication.
    
    -john