Congrats to Fifty Barns & Royal Athols Riders!
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Jake Kassen
May 11, 2026, 7:22:03 AM (9 days ago) May 11
to NERds
Hey NERds-
This past Saturday 11 riders started and 9 riders completed one of the more epic 200/300ks in recent history. The forecast called or rain starting in the afternoon and temps getting into the lower 60s. The forecast was far too optimistic.
When riders departed Concord, the temp was in the upper 30s. By 7am, the rain had started.
I drove to Tweeto's in Ashburnham to meet the 200k riders as the store doesn't open until 10am. The five five riders were in good spirits if not already wet. The temperature had only risen by a few degrees at this point.
From there I went to the Tully dam to wait for the 300k riders. The rain alternated between hard and soft but there was never a moment when it stopped. The highest temperature I recorded was 54. At this point there was only 5 riders continuing the 300k out of the ~17 that had registered. (Normally we see 20-30 starters for this route.)
As the 300k riders came and left, everyone was in surprisingly good spirits. There was some impressively crunchy drivetrains. The rain did start tapering off between 8-10pm but was replaced by thick fog with the large potholes becoming small pools.
Volunteer Jeff was back in Concord and met most of the returning riders. At just before 1am, everyone had finished. For a few, this was their longest brevet distance to date. For two riders from California, this was their first time riding in Massachusetts. Welcome to New England!
Thanks to Jeff for volunteering and everyone who braved the weather to start the ride. Even for NER, this event was an outlier in terms of how lousy the weather was for so long.
Results for this and all NER events can be found at http://results.ner.bike
Jake
This past Saturday 11 riders started and 9 riders completed one of the more epic 200/300ks in recent history. The forecast called or rain starting in the afternoon and temps getting into the lower 60s. The forecast was far too optimistic.
When riders departed Concord, the temp was in the upper 30s. By 7am, the rain had started.
I drove to Tweeto's in Ashburnham to meet the 200k riders as the store doesn't open until 10am. The five five riders were in good spirits if not already wet. The temperature had only risen by a few degrees at this point.
From there I went to the Tully dam to wait for the 300k riders. The rain alternated between hard and soft but there was never a moment when it stopped. The highest temperature I recorded was 54. At this point there was only 5 riders continuing the 300k out of the ~17 that had registered. (Normally we see 20-30 starters for this route.)
As the 300k riders came and left, everyone was in surprisingly good spirits. There was some impressively crunchy drivetrains. The rain did start tapering off between 8-10pm but was replaced by thick fog with the large potholes becoming small pools.
Volunteer Jeff was back in Concord and met most of the returning riders. At just before 1am, everyone had finished. For a few, this was their longest brevet distance to date. For two riders from California, this was their first time riding in Massachusetts. Welcome to New England!
Thanks to Jeff for volunteering and everyone who braved the weather to start the ride. Even for NER, this event was an outlier in terms of how lousy the weather was for so long.
Results for this and all NER events can be found at http://results.ner.bike
Jake
Andrew LaMarche
May 11, 2026, 4:41:36 PM (9 days ago) May 11
to New England Randonneurs
Seriously big kudos to the finishers. I was riding a 100k gravel perm in VT in similar conditions and kept thinking about the randos out tackling the brevets.
It was very fun to watch you cross off checkpoints in the eBrevet app!
Andrew
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