Audaxes

vernon said:

Having drawn a line at 200km for Audaxes I find my drawn to the permanents
section of the Audax website and the mesh sections where I can plot a series
of longer rides. I recognise that there is a major difference between
riding a permanent and riding a calendered event in that one tends to be
alone on a permanent. As my sole 200km ride was with a 'wing man' how do
other riders cope with a long solo ride?

I enjoy doing them, but I find it's a lot harder to sustain audax pace
over a long distance than riding a calendar event. I've had three
attempts at 400km permanents this year and failed each time. Twice I
completed (considerably more than) the distance but been out of time,
and once I bailed out and took the train home to avoid being too late
for work. The main problems were navigation errors, which cost time and
add distance, and sleepiness which costs time and can be dangerous if
you don't eventually stop.

Quoted message said:

Looks like 300km and possibly a 400km rides will be on the books for next
year......

I'm sorting out a series of 100km rides to do before the end of the year and
can't believe the urge to do them.

I'm itching to see next years events list.

A question - I've looked up my rides on the Audax site and have found that I
have got 2 points. Are these altitude points?

No, these are distance points for the York 206 on 3rd July and mean that
you are officially recognised as a randonneur by AUK. Although you have
four rides totalling 558km you only get points at the rate of 1 per
complete 100km for single rides of at least 200km. Altitude points are
shown in the last column. You haven't got any registered on the site but
it's never perfectly up to date.

--
Dave...

Dave Kahn said:

vernon wrote:
I enjoy doing them, but I find it's a lot harder to sustain audax pace
over a long distance than riding a calendar event. I've had three
attempts at 400km permanents this year and failed each time. Twice I
completed (considerably more than) the distance but been out of time,
and once I bailed out and took the train home to avoid being too late
for work. The main problems were navigation errors, which cost time and
add distance, and sleepiness which costs time and can be dangerous if
you don't eventually stop.

The problem we had on our epic Leeds-Cambridge ride which wasn't an
audax but was our own 600 was that lack of organised controls meant we
failed to eat enough to fuel us adequately for the next day/second half
of the ride. We traveled through nottingham shire and Lincolnshire
following a lot of the LEL route - the problem with this was that for
LEL village hall and schools provided the controls and food stops, but
of course we didnt have this luxury and there simply weren't any other
places to get anything. We were late finishing the first half partly
due to a miscalculation of the route length - it was quite a lot longer
than we had thought. Because we were late finishing at Cambridge Youth
Hostel we went straight to bed without eating. This was a mistake as
next day we were tired and had to stop every hour for food/rest - I
think we had about three breakfasts! We ended up getting the train back
from Peterborough because lack of fuel the day before had taken it's
toll. I was exhausted. Planning your own stops for food/water and rest
is more difficult on longer rides or on certain routes where you may
not find anywhere to stop, or where you are cycling through the night.

vernon said:

Having drawn a line at 200km for Audaxes I find my drawn to the permanents
section of the Audax website and the mesh sections where I can plot a series
of longer rides. I recognise that there is a major difference between
riding a permanent and riding a calendered event in that one tends to be
alone on a permanent. As my sole 200km ride was with a 'wing man' how do
other riders cope with a long solo ride?

Looks like 300km and possibly a 400km rides will be on the books for next
year......

I'm sorting out a series of 100km rides to do before the end of the year and
can't believe the urge to do them.

I'm itching to see next years events list.

A question - I've looked up my rides on the Audax site and have found that I
have got 2 points. Are these altitude points?

Cheers

Vernon

I have 44 AUK points, non of these have been attained solo. My longest
solo ride was my Stage of the Tour of Britain And Home ride, 137 miles.
I did my Humber Bridge ride, 135 miles alone last year too. I find
motivation the hardest thing about riding alone which is why I started
doing randonees. Why don't you aim for (some of) the West Yorkshire SR
series next year, the events are well organised and the routes are
pretty good. You'll know alot of the places, i like this, it makes me
feel better if I am familiar with the area. I'll be doing them. I am
also planning a DIY 400 Perm next year, Thorne - Edinburgh then perhaps
2 x 200 YH Darts to get home. Watch this group for details.

Blonde said:

Because we were late finishing at Cambridge Youth Hostel we went
straight to bed without eating.

Big error.

Quoted message said:

This was a mistake as next day we were tired and had to stop every
hour for food/rest - I think we had about three breakfasts! We
ended up getting the train back from Peterborough because lack of
fuel the day before had taken it's toll. I was exhausted. Planning
your own stops for food/water and rest is more difficult on longer
rides or on certain routes where you may not find anywhere to stop,
or where you are cycling through the night.

Yes, 200km permanents are not too bad, but long distance ones are tough
and require a bit of planning.

The biggest mistake I made with Twickenham - Cambridge - Wisbech -
Boston - Lincoln - Beverley - Selby - York was starting at 10pm. I was
feeling sleepy before I'd even got to Cambridge. I got through that but
had to go through a second sleep crisis the following night in the
Yorkshire moors. Not only did it slow me down but I kept losing track
of the route sheet and where I was.

On all three permanents my biggest navigational mistake was relying on
Microsoft Autoroute to find the shortest way. I exported the directions
to a spreadsheet then went through them line by line against the
Autoroute map to refine them and get rid of the idiocies where it says
"turn left, bear right, bear left" when it means "just keep going". I
then formatted the spreadsheet into a beautiful route sheet and off I
went.

These instructions work like a charm for mile after mile often finding
superb short routes on deserted lanes. Then suddenly you are completely
lost. The turning that's supposed to be there isn't or the next
instruction just doesn't make sense.

On the 3rd 400km attempt - Twickenham - Crediton - Salcombe I plotted
the Autoroute co-ordinates into a GPS. Again it worked like a charm
except for three places where the GPS was telling there should be a
turning, but there wasn't. I lost large amounts of time trying to
re-establish the planned route when I would have been better off just
picking up road signs.

It wasn't until I was going over the route of the Kidderminster Killer
in detail that I realised what was wrong. Comparing the Autoroute maps
in detail with the Ordinance Survey ones, they are quite simply wrong
in several places. Sometimes they have a junction displaced by a few
hundred metres, sometimes they have a footpath marked as a road, and
sometimes they show a road forming a cul-de-sac where it actually makes
a T junction with another road. I'm sure it was a map error like this
that got me hopelessly lost in the roads north of Wisbech on the York
attempt. A turning simply was not where it was meant to be and I
couldn't pick the route up again.

It also explains why Autoroute had me turning off the main road, and
after a very slow and puzzling quarter of a mile re-emerging about 100
yards further up. On the Autoroute map that ludicrous detour is shorter
than following the very slight bend on the main road.

A quirk of all this is that it's theoretically possible to declare
underlength routes and get them approved. I believe the AUK route
police use Autoroute to determine the shortest route between two
points. By making use of the false cul-de-sacs and Autoroute's refusal
to connect two roads by a footpath or bridleway you could conceivalby
find routes that are significantly shorter than the Autoroute minimum
distances.

--
Dave...

Quoted message said:

No, these are distance points for the York 206 on 3rd July and mean that
you are officially recognised as a randonneur by AUK. Although you have
four rides totalling 558km you only get points at the rate of 1 per
complete 100km for single rides of at least 200km. Altitude points are
shown in the last column. You haven't got any registered on the site but
it's never perfectly up to date.

I won't be getting any this year then as I don't have any AAA point scoring
rides outstanding.

Hope to get a lot more points next year.

Quoted message said:

I have 44 AUK points, non of these have been attained solo. My longest
solo ride was my Stage of the Tour of Britain And Home ride, 137 miles.
I did my Humber Bridge ride, 135 miles alone last year too. I find
motivation the hardest thing about riding alone which is why I started
doing randonees. Why don't you aim for (some of) the West Yorkshire SR
series next year, the events are well organised and the routes are
pretty good. You'll know alot of the places, i like this, it makes me
feel better if I am familiar with the area. I'll be doing them. I am
also planning a DIY 400 Perm next year, Thorne - Edinburgh then perhaps
2 x 200 YH Darts to get home. Watch this group for details.

I'll be aiming to do some of the longer calaendered events but was mainly
wondering how a solo long distance ride compared with an accompanied
ride. I essentially rode alone for my 2 X 100km and 1 X 150km rides
without any problems. The 200km ride was a different kettle of fish and
had it not been for the company of the only other participant I think I
would
have packed at aroung 160km. The defeat would have been in my head not
my body.

vernon said:

I won't be getting any this year then as I don't have any AAA point scoring
rides outstanding.

I thought you'd done at least one ride with AAA points?

Quoted message said:

Hope to get a lot more points next year.

Excellent. You can make a start almost immediately as next year starts
in November.

--
Dave...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I won't be getting any this year then as I don't have any AAA point

scoring

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

rides outstanding.

I thought you'd done at least one ride with AAA points?

I started but didn't finish. A comedy of errors conspired to see me:
getting lost in York, making a late start, failing to catch up with anyone
within the first 30-35km deciding to pack after conquering White Horse Bank
albeit in three chunks with a couple of heart rate stabalising breaks. I was
a tad off colour and couldn't face the other two climbs even though they
probably were not as bad. Still ended up doing 70 km .

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Hope to get a lot more points next year.

Excellent. You can make a start almost immediately as next year starts
in November.

Ah...that makes sense of a Nov 5th deadline quoted by one of the permanents
organisers.

Quoted message said:

I aim to chug through the autumn and winter with 50-100km rides. I'm
saving myself for a more strenuous 2006 :-)

Last year's New Year's ride was a 28 mile loop from Reeth to the Tan Hill
Inn Keld and back.
Trying to find an equally bracing ride for this New Year.

Vernon

vernon said:

I think I would have packed at aroung 160km. The defeat would have been in my head not
my body.

How can you pack a 200 with 40km to go? Don;t you have to get back to the start to get home, or get the car or whatever?

BTW the Horseshoe Pass 200 I did on Sunday (my third audax, first as an AUK member) was really really good, even if I did ride really badly, drop my GPS at 40kph and get lost 2 miles from the end and so miss out on a PB of 9hr15 which turned into a 10hr15 again).

Top laugh! Next up is the Eureka 200 next month.

bfn,

Tony B

Tony B said:

vernon said:

I think I would have packed at aroung 160km. The defeat would have been in my head not
my body.

How can you pack a 200 with 40km to go? Don;t you have to get back to the start to get home, or get the car or whatever?

I had ridden a few 100 milers before my first 200k; at 160k my legs
simply gave up, I had no choice but to finish even though I wanted to
pack. The trick seems to be (with me at least) to break the ride down
into packets, so the last however many k is just another bit like you
have just done.

Quoted message said:

How can you pack a 200 with 40km to go? Don;t you have to get back to the

start to get home, or get the car or whatever?

Catch a train back to the starting point - dead easy really :-)

Quoted message said:

BTW the Horseshoe Pass 200 I did on Sunday (my third audax, first as an

AUK member) was really really good, even if I did ride really badly, drop my
GPS at 40kph and get lost 2 miles from the end and so miss out on a PB of
9hr15 which turned into a 10hr15 again).

I ride a 200 at a much more relaxed pace than you and don't have a problem
with bailing out of any ride Audax or otherwise if there's a station close
at hand.

vernon said:

I ride a 200 at a much more relaxed pace than you and don't have a problem
with bailing out of any ride Audax or otherwise if there's a station close
at hand.

Apologies, I don't mean to sound like I'm incredulous about packing; it's the actual logistics that I'm interested in - for when I pack!!!! ;-) What do you do once you decided "that's it..."

bfn,

Tony B

Tony B said:

vernon said:

I ride a 200 at a much more relaxed pace than you and don't have a problem
with bailing out of any ride Audax or otherwise if there's a station close
at hand.

Apologies, I don't mean to sound like I'm incredulous about packing; it's the actual logistics that I'm interested in - for when I pack!!!! ;-) What do you do once you decided "that's it..."

On the Cabrach circuit I got very close to packing at just gone the
half way mark. The reason I didn't was that I would have either had to
get my wife to drive three hours to pick me up, or ride most of the
rest of it to get to the nearest station.

...d

MSeries wrote:

I am

Quoted message said:

also planning a DIY 400 Perm next year, Thorne - Edinburgh

I'm still up for this, when was the rough date period for this BTW? El
Supremo now has a 400 in May which is tempting.

Tony B said:

Apologies, I don't mean to sound like I'm incredulous about packing; it's the actual logistics that I'm interested in - for when I pack!!!! ;-) What do you do once you decided "that's it..."

Strictly you inform the finish controller that you will not be
finishing (there is a phone number on the brevet card). Then make
your own way home.

My DNFs

1. 1997?? On the first ever Glamorgan Glory (100km flatish (Day after
Best of British 200km 3900m 2.75AAA) I got lost on the way to
Llangynwyd. Asked a local who really should of known where it was but
she didn't. (I was less than a mile away from the control). I didn't
know the Bridgend area years ago so I retraced the roads I had used
the day before on the British to get myself back to home. A harder
route than the actual ride. Phoned the finish controller that I would
not be finishing.

2. 1999? On the Welsh Desert Reverse (200km o.5AAA). Descending
around Llyn Brianne my brake fails and I crash into a cliff above a
sharp bend. I broke my left wrist and cracked the middle finger on
the right hand. I continued to Tregaron where I discovered I could
not cut my beans on toast and decided to pack. I told a friend to
tell the finish that I would not be returning. I decided it would be
easier to ride to Carmarthen than the mountain roads back to the start
at Brecon. So I leave the route. At this stage I did not know my
wrist was broken. I just thought it badly bruised (which it was). The
cracked finger on the right hand was causing me more problems. I was
changing the right hand gear with my broken left hand. I really,
really hate cattle grids. I get to Carmarthen get on a train in the
wrong direction. I get on the correct train at Whitland. When I am
at home that evening I get a phone call from the organiser, Ruth
Allen, trying to find where I was. She complained that I had not
contacted the finish directly as I should have. She seemed more
concerned than annoyed when she discovered I was hurt. The following
day I wake up with my wrist twice the size I expected so I took my
bruised wrist to casulty where they told me it was broken. The
cracked finger could look after itself.

3. 2002? On a Dr Foster Summer Saunter (200km flat) I was riding
around a roundabout near Chepstow. I looked over my shoulder to see
where a friend had got to and crashed into the elbow of the road I was
turning into. Crunch. I dust myself down and continue a little way
then get a puncture. I fix the puncture. It is very dispiriting
watching ones blood drip onto a new inner tube so I decided that was
enough turned round and caught a train from Caldicot back home. Walk
over to the finish and tell the end controller that I am a DNF.

4. On this years Wye Bother (200km rejected for AAA points) .
Descending the Glyn a spoke brakes and the rear wheel becomes badly
out of true. Straightening it was more than my roadside skills so I
decided it would be better to take it to my tame wheel builder who
would do a good job and save the rim. I would ceratinly need a new
rim if I tried to ride it with my bad retruing. I walk to Merthyr and
catch a train back down the valley to home. Later in the day when the
finish control would be manned I call the number on the brevet card
asserting my DNFness.

5. Last Saturdays Ferryside Fish Foray (220km mostly flat). Puncture
led to chain failure detailed in another current thread about
punctures (Gorgonzola). Train home. Take bike to shop for new chain
and wheel (reason unrelated) . Walk to finish control and wait for
controller to arrive. Nasty surprise for Robin when he arrived
shortly after, he thought I was a quick finisher. I explained I was a
DNF and chatted for a while.

[several unexexpected DNS this year too]

Tony B said:

Apologies, I don't mean to sound like I'm incredulous about
packing; it's the actual logistics that I'm interested in - for
when I pack!!!! ;-) What do you do once you decided "that's it..."

When I packed on the Brimstone 600 at about the 320km mark it was
simply a question of riding the 70km or so back to the start. :-)

--
Dave...

On Wed, 19 Oct 2005 12:06:31 +0100, Ian Blake <NoNotMe@NotAnywhere>

Quoted message said:

3. 2002? On a Dr Foster Summer Saunter (200km flat) I was riding
around a roundabout near Chepstow. I looked over my shoulder to see
where a friend had got to and crashed into the elbow of the road I was
turning into. Crunch. I dust myself down and continue a little way
then get a puncture. I fix the puncture. It is very dispiriting
watching ones blood drip onto a new inner tube so I decided that was
enough turned round and caught a train from Caldicot back home. Walk
over to the finish and tell the end controller that I am a DNF.

I must have phoned. Bassaleg(Newport) is a long way from home (Radyr,
Cardiff).

dkahn400 said:

Tony B said:

Apologies, I don't mean to sound like I'm incredulous about
packing; it's the actual logistics that I'm interested in - for
when I pack!!!! ;-) What do you do once you decided "that's it..."

When I packed on the Brimstone 600 at about the 320km mark it was
simply a question of riding the 70km or so back to the start. :-)

This is a problem as I see it with 600's, many either go back or very
close to the start and then away again. The only one I ever did was
120km from the Z stop to the start or 280km to complete the ride.
Taking 100km to go between Newmarket and Bury St Edmunds when the main
road was 20km also took some soul searching, there was an info at the
furthest point though.

Fixed Phil was offering the info control answer at Lambourn the other
day for sale (there were no takers, the ride was well worth it anyway)

Also sprach MartinM [email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

This is a problem as I see it with 600's, many either go back or very
close to the start and then away again. The only one I ever did was
120km from the Z stop to the start or 280km to complete the ride.
Taking 100km to go between Newmarket and Bury St Edmunds when the main
road was 20km also took some soul searching, there was an info at the
furthest point though.

Fixed Phil was offering the info control answer at Lambourn the other
day for sale (there were no takers, the ride was well worth it anyway)

Golden Tints 200 had a control at the start after 96 km. Motorcars were
parked round the corner, out of sight of the control. Temptation to load
Trice into motorcar and do remaining 106 km by diesel engine strong, as
there were, IIRC, two info and one get-a-receipt controls in the second
half...

I resisted.

--
Dave Larrington - <http://www.legslarry.beerdrinkers.co.uk/>
World Domination? Just find a world that's into that kind of thing,
then chain to the floor and walk up and down on it in high heels.