Sauratown 200 KM

Hosted annually by Richard and Joel Lawrence, the Sauratown 200KM kicks off NC Randonneurs USA events. Rich Giroux and I rode for the challenge, neither intending to ride any 300, 400, or 600KM brevets. This route is hilly and always windy, definitely a challenge so early in the year.

I'd delivered my 'dale to Rich's house Thursday eve and put it in his Volvo so, when we met up at MacGregor Village Shopping Center Saturday 05:15, we could depart immediately. ~1:15 to High Point with enough time to prepare to depart at the 07:00 start time. We departed to the traditional cheers of, "Bon chance, randonneurs!"

No, if we didn't have bad luck, we'd've had no luck at all. ~2 miles out, I ran over windshield glass and flatted my front tire. I swapped in my spare tube in ~10 minutes but we were now last, dead last. Very demoralizing.

At ~40 miles, we caught up with one straggler, then a recumbent, then four more riders. We all stopped at a convience store, then departed with one rider joining up with us as he'd lost his cue card and was clueless of the route. Fortunately for him, I'd spotted his cue card miles back and picked it up. I pulled it from my jersey pocket and handed it to him on the fly. Rich, not having noticed me pick it up, was astonished at this handover.

We three got ahead of the others, then Rich flatted his rear tire. The third rider assisted us until the others passed, we encouraged him to take off with them and not lag behind with us. He did so.

Luck now turns from bad to worse. Rich installed his spare tube and tire and started pumping, tube did not hold air. Removed tube, it had a small split due to a manufacturing seam defect. My spare in use, his spare defective, time to start patching. Rich extracted his repair kit from his under saddle bag, oh, oh, no tube of glue, no recollection why not. I, of course, had glue and started patching his two tubes and my tube as well as it would take no additional time, planning for the next flat. Rich installed the patched defective seam tube, pumped it up and we were on our way having taken ~45 minutes. We were now dead last and were to remain so the rest of the day.

The wind increased and become more of a factor minute by minute. Mostly from the WSW, mostly a cross wind for us heading N, it became a tailwind for the 7.5 mile NC-704 East segment and blew us to the control. We passed the control on NC-8 North to "dip" our wheels in VA, then U-turned to the control.

Richard and Darryl catered to us as we stoked our fuel tanks with PB&J sandwiches and fruit. Asked for a floor pump and they pumped my front tire and Rich's rear. I checked my tire and was shocked to find a Y-shaped hole the glass had cut. It didn't show up much under 90psi frame pump pressure but it looked like it would pop at 120psi. I removed the tire and booted the hole, see my boot. Replaced tire&tube and pumped it up again, OK to ride the remaining 55 miles now.

We left the control knowing we'd fly with a tailwind on the next 18 mile NC-704 East segment, definitely the nicest segment of the day. The wind shifted more to the SSW and we knew our fun would not last. We turned S at Cardinal Road and the rest of the 200KM, mostly S, was survival. Not much to report about this, we kept our heads down and pedaled as steadily as we could. We encounted another straggler two times but, each time, he departed before we did and we never rode with him.

~5:30, we arrived at the finish and a mostly cleared parking lot. A few riders including the one we'd seen were mounting bikes on racks and, amazingly, two riders were still out on the course. Joel fired his portable gas grill and grilled Rich two hamburgers and me two Boca burgers. Finally off the saddles and relaxing in chairs, we consumed our burgers, chips, and sodas. Richard and Darryl arrived and joined Joel in a discussion of who was still on the course. One rider arrived but the other was lost, may've abandoned and not reported doing so to Joel.

Rich and I packed up, thanked Richard and Joel for hosting the ride, and returned to Raleigh.

A definite challenge, we were happy to have completed the Sauratown 200KM, hope for better luck, much better luck, in 2007.