PBP Info Night
February 11, 2015, Victoria
by Mike Croy

People often say that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery and when I proposed to put on this evening as a way to get information out to those wishing to ride PBP I can easily say that I took the idea right out the books of our former outstanding island coordinator Ray Parker. Back in 2007 when I was just discovering what Randonneuring was about I attended a meeting in James Bay hosted by Ray and a few other very experienced Randonneurs who had completed PBP and was intrigued enough to go home and convince my wife Brynne that we should at least try the upcoming 100 km populaire and that it was actually a really good idea. Well to say the least thanks to that night we have gone on to ride a few big brevets, none which have included PBP but we have had some serious fun in the meantime and met some amazing people from all over the world and made some lasting friendships.

With this year being a PBP I proposed another evening similar to what Ray had done back in 2007 and felt it would be a helpful service to those planning on going and for those riders who might just curious about randonneuring in general. This time around the club was extremely fortunate enough to have two very gracious Randonneur's step up and offer their services to ensure the evening was information filled. I would like to pay special thanks to Graham Fishlock and Jim Runkel for the immense effort they point into the power point presentation they made, both of them spoke highly of PBP and there talk was extremely informative. I had personally planned on speaking about the event myself but felt I could not do it any real justice having not been and not planning on going this year. Jim and Graham also spent sometime with the audience after the presentation answering any questions that arose after we showed the 2007 official PBP movie and I think it's safe to say everyone left the presentation with a little more information then they came into the evening with whether it be about PBP or Randonneuring including myself!

Some of the overall highlights of the night were the attendance of the event which I think was up from last time, Pearkes Recreation center which was a great venue for a presentation of this nature, we had around 6 new people off the street who were very eager to join the club and a few even thinking of doing PBP (having never even done a 200 km brevet themselves) There was even one fellow who rode over from Vancouver to attend the meeting and has never ridden a brevet with the club yet and the amazing work of Jim Runkel and Graham Fishlock cannot be mentioned enough as the night would have been far less without their contributions and last but not least Brynne and little Steven were working the volunteer recruitment angle pretty heavily, all of which I am extremely appreciative as it makes my job as the route coordinator immeasurably easier as we go into an important year.

So thanks to everyone who attended, (going to PBP or not) and to those who helped with the evening as without their hard work the night would not have been such an amazing success as it was. Hope to see you at the next up coming brevet on March 1st which is the Chili 200.

Cheers

Mike Croy
Vancouver island route coordinator

February 19, 2015