Come celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first Audax Club Parisien allure libre 200km brevet in 1921. Randonneurs and randonneuses around the world will be riding and celebrating the centenary of what we call “randonneuring.”

Unlike other 2021 brevets, this event will be a mass start with the clock starting at 7 am. 

Control cards will be sent upon registration for you to print yourself. You can download the route sheet to print (& gpx file) from the links to the left.

The route follows familar roads out to the valley, halfway will be at Birchwood dairy and the finish at Steamworks Brewery.

A little background—the Audax Club Parisien was founded in November of 1904 to participate in the new audax 200km endurance rides that were starting to take place. Audax signified always riding in a group at an average pace of 16-18 kph, and with a road captain who kept the group from going too fast, together the entire time. The rides often lasted from dawn to dusk and were fairly popular around the Paris region in the years before World War I. Upon a successful completion of the ride, participants were awarded a certificate or diploma (brevet in French) for their athletic feat—no small thing in that bygone era of dirt roads, cobblestones, and primitive bicycles.

Following the war’s end in 1918, some of the ACP members wanted to ride faster than the steady audax pace, while others wanted to include group hiking activities on the club calendar, and some were adamantly opposed to these changes and wanted the club to remain true to its group cycling origins. Club meetings became pretty heated affairs and in the summer of 1921 it
all exploded. A majority of the ACP members voted to start doing allure libre or free-pace brevets that allowed riders to choose their own pace so long as they stayed inside the minimum and maximum speeds, and they could ride alone or in a group—the same as we
do today. Following the vote, the audax cyclists angrily decamped and formed their own organization, as did the hiking contingent.

So, there was no more audax in the Audax Club Parisien. On Sunday, September 11, 1921 the ACP held its first free-pace brevet of 200km. The route was a big loop that went west and south of Paris to Dreux, Chartres, and then back to Paris. Twenty-six randonneurs and randonneuses completed the ride in the time limit, arriving at intervals at the finish control. Brevet #1 was issued that day, starting a continuous string of numbered brevet results that we
still earn today. The free-pace randonneuring format gradually spread around France during the 1920s and 1930s, and then around the globe starting in the 1970s. Here we are in the 21st century, still riding and earning our brevets while choosing to ride our own pace and with however many people as we wish. This is the formula of the Brevets de Randonneurs Mondiaux, or BRM that you see on the front of RUSA brevet cards sanctioned bytheACP.

In 1921 the world was just coming off an awful pandemic that killed millions of people, while we are still in one ourselves; it is curious how history can repeat itself. Perhaps our covid-concerns will be ameliorated by next summer, but for now it will be best to remember to use safe social distancing methods on all our brevets, including the big birthday bash. (At the ACP’s centennial in 2004, they held a 200km audax brevet with over a hundred riders cycling shoulder to shoulder, just like they did in 1904. That obviously won’t be a good approach to this coming year’s rides...)

Happily, September 11 falls on a Saturday in 2021 so please think about riding a BRM centennial 200km and join in the big celebration.

Special Centenary medals from ACP to be awarded at the finish.

Pre-ride report:

Everything went well no need to make any route changes due to construction for the first time this year! You will encounter some small sections of roads that are under construction though but they are very short sections, take the lane and you will be fine. 

Railway crossings, there are many of them on this route. Use caution on all of them please. Most are diagonal crossings, deep ones! Around Fort Langley I have seen the tracks break bones and wheels, when in doubt do as the sign says and walk your bike across.

Other than that it’s a pretty straightforward route with plenty of windy scenic roads and a nice little climb just before the madatory ice-cream stop at Birchwood.

All information controls will be on the back of stop signs just like most of the brevets this year.

Link below are photos from the pre-ride on September 6, 2021

 https://photos.app.goo.gl/4SjJiZu4APXmP9cf9

I had a good ride, found the route quite pleasant and I hope you do also.

Cheers,

Nigel