As noted in the recent VeloWebLog post on randonnée planning, careful placement of controls can make or break a randonneur route.
This is especially the case on longer rides. Sleeping space arrangements and drop bag facilitation are a chance to make courses more friendly for riders who include rest as part of their event goal.
Stephen Hinde mentioned that routes built around a central location, such as a motel, can simplify planning in this respect, and his original BC Randonneurs’ Gold River 600 was organized in this way.
Though a route to Gold River, using part of the original iteration forms the ultimate brevet in the Chemainus-based Hell Week series, run since 2007, the original—based in Campbell River—was run only once, in 2005.
At the time, I was still something of a closet randonneur and occupied that space in the busy room that served as “control central” at the Campbell River Lodge.
My chief navigator Amanda Jones and I kept busy from day one … or rather, the day before, driving north from Victoria to Campbell River and west to Buttle Lake, at the turnoff to Gold River. We arrived at the campsite there well after dark, abandoning plans for a spaghetti supper in favour of a hasty cheese plate.
Early next morning, we drove the remaining fifty-kilometres through the highlands of Strathcona Provincial Park (British Columbia’s oldest) on Highway 28, then down to tidewater beyond the town of Gold River, on Muchalat Drive. Here, on the edge of sparkling Muchalat Inlet, we set up control #1, in the warmth of the rising sun.
Once the last riders cleared the control, our official duties were complete, leaving me free to leapfrog along, hunting for the illusive rando photo prize.
This spectacular first stage—200 km, back and forth through the mountains of Strathcona—would be the most continuously strenuous part of the ride.
Back in Campbell River, while randonneurs circled down to Buckley Bay, organizers gathered at a local sushi restaurant to socialize over sashimi.
Carol Hinde’s cellphone rang. Big problem. The first rider back from the initial 375 kilometre loop had discovered a wrong turn on the route sheet.
It wasn’t a major issue, as the miscue sent riders into a cul-de-sac, a fairly obvious mistake. Nevertheless, we decided it was our duty to alert riders heading toward that intersection. Could we get there before them?
As night fell, Amanda and I headed out in the old Honda Accord, route sheet in hand—Amanda’s hand, that is—as we attempted to reverse directions out to the scene of the crime.
Suffice to say, it was no easy task to navigate backwards through the labyrinth of unlit Comox Valley roads. We saved a couple of riders an unscheduled detour, but the largest group had finally ridden into cellphone range, alerted by Carol at the last minute.
This little adventure illustrates another caution in the aforementioned planning guide: you can never check a route too often before making it live. Experienced organizers will admit it often takes a few years to work out bugs. Hence my caution about running untested ideas as Paris-Brest-Paris qualifiers.
The next morning, I emerged from my refuge beneath the coat rack to see riders off on the last leg, a loop down to Cumberland, a second visit to Buckley Bay and back to Campbell River. Our task was to surprise riders with a secret control. We chose a picturesque spot, at Tsolem Spirit Park, west of Courtenay.
I snapped photos as the opportunity arose. The weather remained perfect for photography and a long bicycle ride on beautiful Vancouver Island.
Brevet Results | Another Campbell River-based 600: Northward Ho!
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What, no rain? Looks like a fun route!
Few of those roads have been explored and included in brevets lately. It was a canny route, to get enough distance between loops around Campbell River and Comox, both of which I think were visited three times, without breaking the rule against travelling the same road/same direction.
Of course, one can generally count on more pacific Pacific weather in May.
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