Luis Bernhardt on the 2017 Gold Rush Randonnee 1200 km
Photo: Deborah Ford

Luis Bernhardt, on a Roll
by Eric Fergusson

Can we take a moment to talk about Luis Bernhardt?

I was surprised to see Luis' name on the Granite Anvil 1200 finisher's list. I knew that he had just been in the UK riding London Edinburgh London (1500 km). I knew also that he had done the Gold Rush Randonnée 1200 earlier this year in California. This rivals the sort of big distance scheduling that we're used to seeing only from Ken Bonner.

I then checked the BC randonneurs database to get a picture of what else Luis has been up to in 2017. The answer is that he's been traveling to rides all season long. In addition to the three ultra distance brevets, he's been riding in Washington and Oregon, including brevets with the Desert River Randonneurs in Eastern Washington and Oregon. In fact he has done all of his 2017 brevets (so far) outside of BC.

Did you know that Luis is BC Randonneur member number 5? That's right, he was the first rider to show up at a brevet following the Paris Brest Paris 1979 , when Dan, Gerry, John and Wayne pioneered randonneur cycling in BC and in Canada. Luis rode BC brevets from 1980 to 1987, and then he disappears from the database. (His cycling interests had moved to track racing.) Suddenly in 2009, after a 22 year absence, he was back.

September 13, 2017