Chicago Randonneurs

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Comment by kiltedcelt yesterday

@Eric Peterson - I'd be very interested in doing some populaires out that Wheaton/Naperville way. I live smack in the city like James Blackheron, and frankly my idea of fun is not so much to pack my bike up and drive 4+ hours to ride somewhere. I pretty much hate driving these days. It might be nice if there was a way to take a train from in the city out to near where the populaire would begin, and then be able to get a train back into the city. Still, Naperville/Wheaton area isn't too far to drive, so I could stomach that if it meant throwing the bike on the car to get out there. I'm just not going to go out of my way to drive half a day somewhere to ride my bike.

Comment by Eric Peterson yesterday

There are shorter randonneuring rides called populaires as mentioned by spencewine, with typical distances of 100K or so. I've not created any such rides, but it is on my list to do so. Such rides would likely start/end in Naperville, or perhaps Wheaton which has METRA service where the cars hold more bikes than the BNSF in Naperville. I would start rides out here because I think an important feature of such rides is to get out of urban areas.

Comment by James BlackHeron yesterday

The populaires sound very interesting.

I used to drive between Madison and BRF on a fairly regular basis.  It's pretty close to a 2 hour drive from there.  It takes me about 2-1/2 to get to Madison from my place in Logan Square (just off the Kennedy) to Madison on a GOOD day if traffic isn't bad or there are no construction delays (There has been construction on I-90 for as long as I can remember, at least since 2004 or thereabouts when they put in the open road tolling.)  

I'd say plan on nearer to 5 hours from here to there even if you don't plan on stopping for gas or to pee.  The again I'm a pretty slow driver.  

I don't speed much.  YMMV.  Just a head's up.

Comment by Dan Diehn yesterday

Sorry that was supposed to be "back to back" days.

Comment by Dan Diehn yesterday

For another option, albeit a little less convenient, the Minnesota Randonneurs are holding Populaire brevets on back to back to back days on July 20 and 21 in Black River Falls, Wisconsin. Its about 4  hours from downtown Chicago on I-94. At this point, I'm not sure how well attended it will be.

Comment by David P. on Sunday

Dang - that one looks like a nice ride, but I'll have friends visiting.....

Comment by spencewine on Sunday

GLR doesn't have any but I think what you are looking for is a "populaire." Eric Peterson has much better advice, I'm sure as I've never ridden one, but these seem to run somewhere between 100-120km.

The best option in the area is to sign-up for one of the many century or lesser rides. Keep in mind though that on a century, you will have support and usually many riders and a brevet is completely unsupported with few riders. You can find yourself riding long stretches or the entire ride alone. Que sheet reading is a key skill.

Comment by Marcusn on Sunday

Ha! I'm very much of the same state of mind. There seem to be many century rides in the area in summer, and this one (http://www.activatorcycles.com/activator-limestone-metric) is organized by my local bike shop, so I'll very likely be riding it on my LHT.

Comment by kiltedcelt on Sunday

Are there any "beginner" type brevet/randonee events that one can go on to get an idea of what it's like without having to commit to something as big as a 200 or higher k ride? Mini-brevet for newbs so to speak?

Comment by spencewine on June 2, 2013 at 7:01pm

Posted a ride report here.

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