I completed my first 200K brevet, in 12 hours, with the Manitoba Randonneurs, on May 12, 2001, on my 40lb Mongoose Mountain bike!! 

Late in the year, I remembered that I had cut out an article from the newspaper about something called “Randonneuring” quite a few years earlier.

I dug the article out, reread it, and decided that was what I wanted to try. It took me a couple months to track down the club in Manitoba – they weren’t well advertized – and in the spring of 2001, I decided to try my first 200K brevet. If it went well, I would do the 300K … but I wasn’t committing myself to anything.

About a month before the 200K, I tore the rotator cuff in my left shoulder, and the only bicycle I could ride was my heavy Mongoose mountain bike because it didn’t require me to put weight on my left arm. So, I rode that first 200K with my mountain bike! I was very tired, but I enjoyed the ride and decided to do the 300K.