What is a Brevet?
Around the times of bunkering down in my basement to weather the covid onslaught, I chanced upon a video on Amazon Prime called "London - Edinburgh - London" and began to watch. It told the story of a group of people who gathered from across the world in the capital of England with the intention, to ride to the capital of Scotland and back again. All within 128 hours. I was in absolute awe of these people. What an adventure.
Where do I sign up??? I had no way to find out what it was all about until I happened upon a banner hung up at a school on the ride whaich simply said "Audax UK". So I researched and that lead me to the stateside equivalent of Randonneurs USA. I set the target in 2021 to train myself to be on my bike as long as I could and in 2022 finally broke the 200km barrier myself for the first time. I was hooked and signed up for my first official brevet which was in January 2023. It was cold. It was rural with houses pumping out woodsmoke which got in my eyes. I didn't eat enough to fuel my legs. I finished though and couldn't wait to do it again.
Audax, a latin term for audacious is simply that. Bold, daring, and some would say, foolhardy.
Typically now used in the world of cycling for long distance non competitive events, these cover a multitude of distances from around 100km upto and including long multiday events known as "Grand Randonees" of around 1200km. Usual single day lengths however are in the region of 200 to 400 kilometers. Rides of 100 are called populaires, Rides of 200 to 600km are known as brevets. All longer distances are grand or super randonees
Another word commonly used in the lexicon of the sport is Randonneur or Randonneuring, indeed, STL Brevets is affiliated with Randonneurs USA as it's governing body and we stricly adhere to the rules, regulations and fair spirit laid down by Randonneurs USA.
All participants in STLBrevet events must be current members of Randonneurs USA in good standing.
STL Brevets endeavors to provide each rider with an opportunity to find challenging rides to suit their abilities whilst striving to do so in a safe manner while providing comeraderie, points of local interest and the ever changing scenery that exploring your local area on bicycle can bring. Typically, all rides take place with a time limit and each participlant must complete the ride at or above 15kph, this is more forgiving however to allow sleep stops at longer multiday rides.
A proof of passage upon completion is required to show the ride has been completed in the prescribed time frame. Usually these are stamps or clerk initials on a brevet card from controls along the route. Also a receipt of something purchased or ATM receipt can be used for verification or a photograph taken on a cellphone with embedded metadata can also show the bike and rider was at the predefined spot along a route. Differing proof of passage may be mandated on different rides, it is upto the rider and RBA to communicate what is accepted as proof of passage. With the onset of electronic GPS devices and apps such as Garmin Connect and Strava, electronic proof of passage is also now being widely utilized by events. However don't be surprised if a ride organizer wants it old school with a card stamps and the odd receipt showing you bought some chocolate milk and a honeybun at a QT.
So, with all that said, how far can you go?