Perm events - Why no explanation of the route

[Delph Cyclist]

I do wonder if all of the permanent organisers are still active.... 

I do know that the Membership Secretary likes to check that all Perm Organisers are still current AUK Members each January.  Of course, Life Members remain on the membership lists until we know otherwise.

[Littlesox]

I fear this is another example of how unwelcoming AUK is to potential and new members. I believe we should be as open and welcoming to new thinking and new members as we can possibly be. When a newbie clicks on a link to a perm we should all want their first reaction to be "wow! I really want to ride that", not instead to be left confused and under-informed.

Can understand JamieD's concern and agree with Whitedown Man's comments fully. As a newbie 3 years ago, I couldn't make top nor tail of the Perm process and in the end went DIY. My view was making the decision to ride in excess of 100 miles had to be an informed one and that included having some gist of where I was likely to be going.

JamieD - don't know where you are in the UK, but if you want an interesting or challenging ride in Shropshire/Welsh Border areas, I'll happily sort you a route out, send you a GPX and let you know some good café stops.

[CrazyEnglishTriathlete]

I fear this is another example of how unwelcoming AUK is to potential and new members. I believe we should be as open and welcoming to new thinking and new members as we can possibly be. When a newbie clicks on a link to a perm we should all want their first reaction to be "wow! I really want to ride that", not instead to be left confused and under-informed.

Can understand JamieD's concern and agree with Whitedown Man's comments fully. As a newbie 3 years ago, I couldn't make top nor tail of the Perm process and in the end went DIY. My view was making the decision to ride in excess of 100 miles had to be an informed one and that included having some gist of where I was likely to be going.

JamieD - don't know where you are in the UK, but if you want an interesting or challenging ride in Shropshire/Welsh Border areas, I'll happily sort you a route out, send you a GPX and let you know some good café stops.

There would be more logic in grouping rides by geographical area (recognising that longer perms might be hard to tie down, but then longer perms are a minority of those entered) rather than by organiser.  Even if that was something as broad as "South West", South", South East, Midlands, Wales (possibly north, mid, south), etc I presume that would help.  Its worthwhile noting that many of the perms were set up pre-GPS, I took on the Cambrian series in 2007, but those rides were originally established long before - I'm guessing in the mid 90s or earlier and they were set up for the then technology - the main aim was to find available control points that could be used 24 x 7, especially on the longer riders.  Now you can carry about a device smaller than a pack of cigarettes that demonstrates exactly where you have been that makes such considerations redundant.  However, it shouldn't make your point redundant. 

The advent of paypal for perms makes it a lot easier, which (if I recall correctly was 2 -3 years ago), entry is just clicking on a link just as for a calendar event.

And as for challenging rides starting in the Welsh borders, Cambrian 1B (start from Clun or Newtown), Cambrian 2J (from Clun or Knighton), and Cambrian 2E (start from Knighton) might be worth considering.

[Wycombewheeler]

I fear this is another example of how unwelcoming AUK is to potential and new members. I believe we should be as open and welcoming to new thinking and new members as we can possibly be. When a newbie clicks on a link to a perm we should all want their first reaction to be "wow! I really want to ride that", not instead to be left confused and under-informed.

Can understand JamieD's concern and agree with Whitedown Man's comments fully. As a newbie 3 years ago, I couldn't make top nor tail of the Perm process and in the end went DIY. My view was making the decision to ride in excess of 100 miles had to be an informed one and that included having some gist of where I was likely to be going.

JamieD - don't know where you are in the UK, but if you want an interesting or challenging ride in Shropshire/Welsh Border areas, I'll happily sort you a route out, send you a GPX and let you know some good café stops.

There would be more logic in grouping rides by geographical area (recognising that longer perms might be hard to tie down, but then longer perms are a minority of those entered) rather than by organiser.  Even if that was something as broad as "South West", South", South East, Midlands, Wales (possibly north, mid, south), etc I presume that would help.  Its worthwhile noting that many of the perms were set up pre-GPS, I took on the Cambrian series in 2007, but those rides were originally established long before - I'm guessing in the mid 90s or earlier and they were set up for the then technology - the main aim was to find available control points that could be used 24 x 7, especially on the longer riders.  Now you can carry about a device smaller than a pack of cigarettes that demonstrates exactly where you have been that makes such considerations redundant.  However, it shouldn't make your point redundant. 

The advent of paypal for perms makes it a lot easier, which (if I recall correctly was 2 -3 years ago), entry is just clicking on a link just as for a calendar event.

And as for challenging rides starting in the Welsh borders, Cambrian 1B (start from Clun or Newtown), Cambrian 2J (from Clun or Knighton), and Cambrian 2E (start from Knighton) might be worth considering.

This would be the ideal, a lot of control towns are common between various rides, on the peak audax site, the map shows all the control towns and clicking one of the towns lists all the rides that use it.

http://www.delphcyclist.info/permanent.html

I'm not sure how straightforward this would be, but it would obviously need to start with each perm listing all the control towns on page.

[Delph Cyclist]

... the peak audax site, the map shows all the control towns and clicking one of the towns lists all the rides that use it.

http://www.delphcyclist.info/permanent.html

I'm not sure how straightforward this would be, but it would obviously need to start with each perm listing all the control towns on page.

I did that some years ago and it took quite some effort to find out how to add such pinpoints individually to Google Maps.  I could do with remembering what I did, as I need to add my new Scarborough 200 Perm.  There would have to be a better way to create a pin-point map of all UK Perms start/finish locations from a table, and for all I know there is such a way of doing it.

It would still need Perm Organisers to provide a list of all their start/finish locations.  I list all my Perm starts, but only because I want punters.  Perhaps some Perm Organisers aren't so keen to have riders.