I rode the 200 km Brevets de Randonneur Mondiaux (BRM), a self-supported bicycling event organized by CK Hymer in Linköping. This was my second BRM, after the Anchetty BRM I rode in February, in India. Since I hadn't been able to finish that ride within the cutoff times, I was keenly looking forward to completing this ride. I started off on time and reached CK Hymer's club building at the same time as Henrik, the organizer. He answered my questions on the checkpoints and informed me that there might be people I could team up with, for the ride. We started on time, at 0800 hrs and rode briskly, averaging close to 30 kmph. At around the 90 minute mark, we were greeted by the first set of climbs, and I was immediately in trouble; I chose the wrong gears and found myself falling back very quickly.  Henrik and Clas helped me along and I was able to rejoin the pack. When the next set of steep climbs arrived, I found that I didn't have the juice to stay with the pack. Clas and Henrik enquired whether I'd be fine, riding on my own, and when I said yes, they wished me luck and accelerated out of view quickly. Earlier this month, when I did my 100k ride along the Stangan, I'd suffered a lot of knee pain as the saddle height had been too high.  Even though I'd lowered it since then, I felt it was still a bit on the higher side, as my knee had started complaining again. This time though, I had my Allen key and reduced the saddle height a little and found that it greatly improved my comfort. I made it to the first checkpoint at 65.3 km at Ringarum, at 1054 hrs (odo: 72.5, avg 23.33). I pushed myself as much as I could, to make it to the short distance for the next checkpoint at 84.9 km. Finding the correct place to get the stamp for the second checkpoint at Valdemarsvik involved a bit more of hunting and I got it at 1152 hrs (odo: 87.2, avg 23.25, segment avg 16.98). The two stops for the stamp at Valdemarsvik, totalling more than 15 minutes and the short distance between the first and second checkpoints distorts the average, which was more around 23 for that stage. After Valdemarsvik, I'd been warned that I would encounter headwinds, and they had not been exaggerating! While I don't have the exact wind speeds, they were oppressive and with a series of steep climbs and descents, the headwind meant that my descents were far slower than they could have been and the climbs were agonizing. I remembered Opendro's writeup about the 'Bliss in the hills' ride in which he'd described in detail the calculations he did to arrive at the speeds he ought to maintain. I decided that this was the best way; I'd only push as much as I needed to and stay in the hunt, rather than burning out and ending up with a DNF. I knew that latest time for the Rimforsa checkpoint was 1912 hrs, but I had to reach there latest by 1700 hrs, to have a realistic chance of finishing the final leg of 50 km within the cutoff time, and for this, I needed to average 16 or above for the remaining distance to Rimforsa.  After an hour, I had indeed disposed of 16 kms but my legs were paining more. In all this, my heartrate was as peaceful as Swami Vivekananda's might have been, had he been subjected to a lie-detector test! My legs were suffering more, meaning I wasn't able to push as much as my heart could support. I gave up the big-ring completely and only stuck to the intermediate and small rings (triple crank) and upped the RPM instead. I was now spinning at 85-105 RPM and my legs were not complaining as loudly anymore. There were minor notes from the knees about the higher cadence, but I knew that it would be ok. When I was about 33 km from Rimforsa, I fell victim to the only major glitch in the GPS route when I was advised to deviate left into an unpaved gravel road. Fortunately, before long, I realized that the course was wrong, when the GPS insisted that I ride into a marsh! I returned to the main road and calculated that I only needed to maintain 15.5 kmph, to get to Rimforsa by 1700 hrs. I set about it and with the increased cadence strategy working,  I arrived in Rimforsa at 1658 (odo: 170.5, avg 19.41, segment avg 16.4). I now knew that barring mechanical problems, I had a very realistic chance of reaching Linkoping on time. Considering that there was still a considerable amount of wind (and a few steep climbs that I wasn't aware of yet!), I gave myself three hours to knock off the remaining 45 kms. 'Rimforsa by 5' was replaced by 'Linköping by 8' as my mental mantra. I called Clas to inform him that I had managed to make the Rimforsa checkpoint on time and that I could be expected to arrive at the CK Hymer office before close of time.  Arrival into Linköping was a moment I savored because I knew that there were no more climbing! Though finishing was now a formality, I stuck to my 'stay off the big-ring' rule till I was a mere two km from the finish line. I pulled in at 1940 hrs (odo: 216.0, avg 18.33, segment avg 15.16).  I was tired, but happy at getting my firt successfully completed BRM. Ride stats on Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/288114939/ A picture I took while on the way to Rimforsa: