Author Topic: Has audax ever had an eddie Izzard character just do it?  (Read 5132 times)

Re: Has audax ever had an eddie Izzard character just do it?
« Reply #25 on: 12 December, 2014, 06:44:03 pm »
Bob Bialek is certainly another such character.

I've never met the chap but based on reliable reputation Bob Bialek is a VERY hard caver.

hellymedic

  • Just do it!
Re: Has audax ever had an eddie Izzard character just do it?
« Reply #26 on: 12 December, 2014, 07:59:55 pm »
Local rider here in MK and sometimes poster on here did LEL (09?) without doing any other audax rides.

I certainly signed the brevet cards of some first time Audaxers at the end of LEL 2005.

mattc

  • n.b. have grown beard since photo taken
    • Didcot Audaxes
Re: Has audax ever had an eddie Izzard character just do it?
« Reply #27 on: 12 December, 2014, 10:50:21 pm »
If youre quick enough, riding LEL doesnt need any Audax background.

Its no more impresive than Mo Farah (2012 version) doing a marathon a day (at Izzard pace) for 5 days!
Has never ridden RAAM
---------
No.11  Because of the great host of those who dislike the least appearance of "swank " when they travel the roads and lanes. - From Kuklos' 39 Articles

MercuryKev

  • Maxin' n Audaxin'
Re: Has audax ever had an eddie Izzard character just do it?
« Reply #28 on: 13 December, 2014, 12:06:06 am »
When I helped out at the Dalkeith control on LEL 2 x ago, there were quite a few riders came through that hadn't even ridden 100 miles before the event.  Just fit folk who like the challenge and the unknown.

Re: Has audax ever had an eddie Izzard character just do it?
« Reply #29 on: 13 December, 2014, 12:31:52 am »
Bob Bialek is certainly another such character.

I've never met the chap but based on reliable reputation Bob Bialek is a VERY hard caver.

Hi, Simon,

Yes, I think he problem made a lot of the caves himself, looking for the shortest route to some Audax starts.

Re: Has audax ever had an eddie Izzard character just do it?
« Reply #30 on: 15 December, 2014, 05:25:15 pm »
Hi, Simon,
Yes, I think he problem made a lot of the caves himself, looking for the shortest route to some Audax starts.
Ha!  You may well be right Peter :-)

I guess ultimately the moral is 'don't judge a book by it's cover'.

The guy Nathan may have been a keen TA member, soldiering every weekend.  Maybe he worked on the bins or a did heavy landscape gardening type work; I know a couple of lads who do that and it keeps them pretty tough.  Another bloke I've worked with is just a natural athlete, plays a bit of football and runs regulary'ish at a casual level but can still easily knock out a 1:30 Half Marathon if he wants too, which is reasonable keen club runner level.  Finally I learnt a long time ago to never underestimate the toughness, determination and level-headedness that a certain good friend possesses.

You just never know what people are doing away from cycling and/or what under-lying potential they have.

andyp

  • Andrew Preston
Re: Has audax ever had an eddie Izzard character just do it?
« Reply #31 on: 15 December, 2014, 09:17:46 pm »
I am trying to get my head around which is most important, physical or mental endurance.

as this is the question, FWIW here is my answer... I think mental endurance is the most important - there are thousands of riders who could easily do audax distances but don't because they don't want to, and hundreds who were only just able, and who have done it: clearly if you don't want to finish, you'll not start, or start and climb off somewhere and get a lift/hotel/train.

Physical endurance reduces, to some extent, the amount of mental endurance required for two reasons 1. getting the physical endurance requires hours in the saddle (or getting fit some other way) which requires / develops mental endurance. and 2 - although there will pretty much always be pain (and indigestion, and sleep depravation) involved in the early days, especially for distances over 200km, the fitter and stronger you are, the less it's going to hurt.

However, the idea that it's all about wanting it /mental endurance IMO is overplayed in sport in general, and in audaxing too - ultimately you've got to have the strength in your quads to get you round. The hillier the ride, the more important the power (and lack of excess weight) is. If your legs don't have it, they'll turn to mush, and even maintaining audax speed will be too hard. That said, you don't have to have that much in your legs to get round flattish rides*  at minimum speed, but you have to have a bit more fitness and a lower BMI than the average UK citizen.

I think that a advice to 'go for it' often underplays the need for a level of background fitness (and/or youth) to recover from big rides, and how much suffering will be involved if you don't have it. That's not to say it's bad advice, it's just that I don't think it prepares people for the suffering they're letting themselves in for, or helps them understand that the reason the riders around them aren't suffering anything like as much is that they've got 00's more long distance miles in their legs.

...in terms of PBP I decided to do it in 2015 around this time of year in 2010. I'm sure (with hindsight) it would have been possible, but given my state of fitness then (an average club cyclist who'd done a few 200 audax events) - i didn't think doing a first SR and PBP the following summer sounded like enough fun, or that it was achievable enough. I'd much rather have done what i've did and built up season by season: 2,3, and then 400 in 2011, (Wessex) SR in 2012, LEL 2013, Mille Cymru 2014... with a plan to do PBP next year. Obviously there's risks to that strategy because you never know what's going to happen in life, but there is a risk that overdoing it leads people to get back from Paris and put their bike in the shed until the following spring  :o , or worse decide that long distance isn't for them, when in fact with a slower build up, and being less close to their absolute limit for less time, they'd probably have enjoyed it much more, and might regularly be riding long distances now.

Andrew
* the consensus seems to be that PBP falls into the general category of 'flattish'

Re: Has audax ever had an eddie Izzard character just do it?
« Reply #32 on: 16 December, 2014, 12:35:43 am »
...in terms of PBP I decided to do it in 2015 around this time of year in 2010. I'm sure (with hindsight) it would have been possible, but given my state of fitness then (an average club cyclist who'd done a few 200 audax events) - i didn't think doing a first SR and PBP the following summer sounded like enough fun, or that it was achievable enough.

Everyone's different ... but I do think that an average club cyclist who's done a few 200s is probably pessimistic if they reckon they *need* 20 months rather than 8 to build up to a well-organised 1k+ audax.

At this point in 2012, on top of a fairly low commuting base (6 or 7 miles each way) I had spent about 3 months building up from an extra 2 or 3 30 or 40k rides per month, some on my own, some with slowish CTC groups, and did a single 100k ride with a faster mob. I decided I was going to ride LEL, struggled round the Poor Student as my first 200, then rode the Willy Warmer at the end of the month with an extra 50k to and from home.

A couple more 200s, a failed Arrow, a 300 ECEd to 4, and then a weekend with back-to-back 200s and additional riding totalling just under 600k left me feeling I could get round LEL OK. I did the distance - but my inexperience showed in how I (failed to) manage my sleep and time in controls, and I finished out of time.

This year I've been fitter and more used to how to economise on time: I rode my first 600, got round the Irish 1200, and had an inglorious DNF on the Mille Cymru. I don't really struggle mentally on 200s (or, to a lesser extent, 300s) any more, though there's still generally a low point when I ask myself what on earth I'm playing at, but there were longish periods on the Mile Failte and on WCW that I found hard.

I think what I'm trying to say is that if, as someone of fairly average fitness and relatively low cycling mileage, can get to the point where an LEL failure is purely down to poor time management, then a long brevet ought to be within the grasp of most regular riders - if they choose. (That said, I've barely ridden for three months - I fear I'm going to struggle next year.)

wilkyboy

  • "nick" by any other name
    • 16-inch wheels
Re: Has audax ever had an eddie Izzard character just do it?
« Reply #33 on: 16 December, 2014, 02:39:32 am »
ISTR a post here some months ago, talking about a Welsh audax which picked up a hanger-on: on the outward trip, some riders got chatting to a bloke onna bike (I think he'd been out to the shops), who decided that it sounded like fun, so accompanied them to Anglesey and then back to the arrivee. I *think* that it was a >200km ride.
The yacf equivalent of snopes.com below, if I have remembered it right.
It was not quite as described and definitely not a novice rider. It was on Mike W's LLanfair PG 400 in 2013 (I think). On the outbound leg a rider who was out on a local loop picked up a few riders and asked what was happening, think we were somewhere on the coast near Abergele. He was in lycra, on carbon rims and had signed up for the Manchester > London ride at great cost. He was intrigued by us riding a similar distance but for around £200 less, and decided to use the opportunity to tag along and pick people's brains to get a take on training etc. I think he had to stop to buy lights somewhere on the outward leg as he did not have any with him. I remember meeting him on the return from Holyhead before parting company somewhere after Abergele on the return after he had probably clocked around 200km.

Yes, that ride, 2013.  His name was Wayne and he rode well over 200km: I remembered chatting to him at the Connah's Quay/Shotton control just as we entered Wales; he rode to Holyhead with another group and we picked him up on the way back before Penmaenmawr and dropped him off in Prestatyn.  Prestatyn-Holyhead-Prestatyn is a nice 200, Shotton's a fair bit further, and he'd already been out riding all morning.  I seem to recall he was very chatty -- certainly fit enough to ride and talk at the same time -- and very interested in it all, but ill-equipped in the lights dept even having stopped to buy some.  We still had 100km to go after dropping him off to get to arrivée.

Not really an Eddie Izzard clone, though.

And £200 to ride to London?  Crikey, that's twice the price of a return train ticket!
Lockdown lethargy. RRTY: wot's that? Can't remember if I'm on #8 or #9 ...

Datameister

  • EU Cake Mountain
Re: Has audax ever had an eddie Izzard character just do it?
« Reply #34 on: 17 December, 2014, 01:22:51 pm »
I am trying to get my head around which is most important, physical or mental endurance.

Failure enters the head many miles before it affects the legs