Completed a 200k on Sunday, this being the last brevet I'm doing before PBP. Very nice weather for a change, remained cool and overcast for most of the day except for a few sunny stretches. Mostly quiet rural roads, but also lots of rolling with very few flat sections -- kind of a short PBP simulation, I suppose. It's interesting to see all the kinds of bikes that people bring to these shorter brevets; this time around I saw a couple of foldies, one tandem, and one fat bike.
Most notable incident of this ride was being nearly chased by a herd of (bisons? oxens?). We were on a short climb when I noticed them on the other side of the road, separated by metal rails. At first I only thought it was odd how they kept looking at us, then they started to move and sped up to a run towards a gap in the fence behind us, so I thought "oh maybe they're just scared and waiting for us to pass before they cross the road or something."
And then once they got onto the road they started moving uphill -- in our direction. lol. 1-minute interval time, haha. But it seems they didn't really give chase (or if they did, maybe we outran them or they gave up very soon???). What an interesting experience, a lot more unique than being chased by dogs.
