Originally Posted by
downtube42
The next three weekends I'm intending to ride a 400k, 300k and a Fleche. The first two are PBP qualifiers, so pretty much needed. This on the heels of a three weeks of business travel including a week sick in a hotel with COVID. I have 50 miles of riding in the last month.
It's going to be rough.
300k done, though not without some drama. At the first control - the requisite Oregon Randonneurs pic of zipties on a post - I reached for my phone to find... no phone. Left in my car, 20 miles back and 700 feet down. That meant no credit cards to buy food, leaving me with just the $20 bill in my flat repair kit. Pro tip: If you're going to carry a dollar as a boot, make it a $20 just in case. Next question: can I ride the remaining 167 miles on $20 and the food onboard? Possibly, but not comfortably. Next question: can I find a rando to borrow cash from or otherwise sponge off the next 12 hours? Turns out, yes. I was alone at the moment, but came across an SIR rando at Safeway a few miles down the road. I told my story, she handed me a $20 and went on her way. Game on. Next stretch was to the Oregon coast at Cape Meares for some spectacular ocean views. On down to Pacific City, where I ran into more randos at a coffee shop. I borrowed a phone, txted my wife so she wouldn't freak out that my non-moving dot at the start, and reconnected with the $20-sharing rando with whom I finished the route. The weatherman lied; horrible headwinds down the coast didn't materialize, 8 hours of predicted rain turned into 2 hours if light drizzle, and the sun made a rare, prolonged and atypical April appearance in the sky. GPS trace sufficed for proof of passage. 13:43, $5 left out of $40. I'll take it.
Oh, you can actually ride a 300k without a cell phone in 2023. Who knew?