Has audax ever had an eddie Izzard character just do it?

[Banjo]

A few years ago most of us will remember Eddie Izzards amazing back to back 43 marathon runs with no training .

Has there ever been a similar phenomenon in the audax world ?

[Tull924]

I once managed 43 marathons, boy was I sick afterwards, peanuts everywhere

(I think they're called Snickers nowadays)

[Wobbly]

Not sure what you're asking Banjo.

I did PBP in my first year of Audaxing (i.e. no "training") but I'm sure there are plenty of others who (foolishly) have done the same.

Maybe I should have done it in drag...

[eck]

The first time The Adventure Show filmed an audax event, the production company got one of their presenters, Dougie Vipond (one time drummer on beat combo Deacon Blue) to do the 300k Snow Roads. He was used to doing 50 mile rides quite briskly (17-18mph) but had no experience of longer distances.
Despite early mechanicals and feeding problems, he did get round well within the time limit. 

[Banjo]

That was a credit worthy achievment by Dougie Vipond but he was far from a novice cyclist if he could do fast 50 milers.

I was wondering if anyone with almost no experience had completed an Audax.

I am trying to get my head around which is most important, physical or mental endurance.

[Banjo]

Not sure what you're asking Banjo.

I did PBP in my first year of Audaxing (i.e. no "training") but I'm sure there are plenty of others who (foolishly) have done the same.

Maybe I should have done it in drag...

Prior to doing your qualifying rides for PBP  what was your longest ride?

[red marley]

As impressive as Eddie Izzard's achievement was, the pace at which he ran the early ones (10 hours typically) was such that each marathon was a very different kind of event to that of most runners. I think it would be more difficult to pull of a similar feat with Audaxing given the maximum time cutoff.

[fuaran]

Eddie Izzard said he had done 5 weeks of training before the marathons. Don't know if he had done any running or other fitness before that.

[Ningishzidda]

That was a credit worthy achievment by Dougie Vipond but he was far from a novice cyclist if he could do fast 50 milers.

I was wondering if anyone with almost no experience had completed an Audax.

I am trying to get my head around which is most important, physical or mental endurance.

I have a couple of stories.

In about 1937, a chap Bernard Hayes from Birmingham bought a bicycle and rode the next Friday from Birmingham to Plymouth and back on the Sunday to visit his girlfriend.

In about 1938, another chap from Birmingham, Alfred Lee, borrowed a bicycle to ride with his brother’s cycle club ( The Speedwell ) from Birmingham to Rhyl and back within the hours of daylight on a July Sunday. He never rode a bicycle again.

[LEE]

In 2001, the year before my planned LEJoG, to test whether I could cycle 100 miles a day, I cycled to my Father-in-Law's in Manchester without any prep (I was a non-cyclist in 2001).

It was 200 miles in 2 equal days.

I made it but I was reduced to going up and down stairs on my arse and hands for 2 days afterwards.  To say that 200 miles came as a shock to my leg muscles is an understatement.

The following year I did about 6 longish training rides (40 miles to work and 40 miles back, six times) over 2 months and I was fine on a 9 day LEJoG.

It doesn't take much prep really, however no prep at all can leave you incapacitated, as I found out.

Eddie Izzard's achievement is amazing, and the fact that some days he was on his feet for 10 hours makes it even more so.
(A top class marathon runner could "jog" a marathon in under 3 hours)
Getting up in the morning, when you are losing toe nails, and realising you are going to run another marathon, again, needs some serious determination.
Fitness is no use without determination on Endurance events.  I doubt that few PBP DNFs are down to a lack of fitness and yet 25% don't finish.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

PBP DNF rates are typically 1 in 7 starters for 'good years' and up to 2 in 7 for 'bad years'.

[Exit Stage Left]

Achilles and knees are often the problem, then there's Shermer's Neck. One big stumbling block is saddle sores. The skin you sit on hardens up.
You can't just turn up and do PBP it requires qualification rides of 200, 300, 400 and 600 kilometres. You could just turn up and do LEL without much training. There were a couple of ladies I filmed at the start who were essentially doing that. I think they made it to Edinburgh, but dropped out after encountering the big hills and headwinds on the Telford Road.

[Veloman]

I am trying to get my head around which is most important, physical or mental endurance.

IMO it is mental endurance and having no brain is a great help (and I speak from experience!)

Riding a bike at a steady pace is relatively easy on the body compared to the pounding of running.  Neck problems, knees (big gears?) and other assorted niggles that become a major feature can multiply in importance if the head allows that to happen.  Of course, the derriere is of critical importance on any long ride.

I've seen lots of situations, both cycling and in other areas, where the person was capable of carrying-on, but the mental willpower had completely dissolved, and they did not achieve what they hoped to achieve.

[Frank9755]

Quite a few people have done LEL as their first Audax without having done loads of cycling beforehand.  Rimas / zigzag and Andy Allsop spring to mind. 

[Mr Larrington]

Von Broad otp did his first 200 in November 2006 and finished the 'orribly wet 2007 PBP.  All on a self-built recumbent.

[mrcharly-YHT]

I was regularly riding to work and back before I did my first Audax, but an Easter arrow of about 425 km with headwinds was very different to 50miles in a day.

That was when I discovered my back won't let me do things like that. 

[jsabine]

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.

[Aunt Maud]

That's a nice story jsabine.

[Euan Uzami]

It would be an absolutely lovely story - if it wasn't bollocks.

[Exit Stage Left]

It's true, I've seen the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4h0WMhzA6Y

[jsabine]

It would be an absolutely lovely story - if it wasn't bollocks.

Surely not? You're spoiling my illusions about the veracity of absolutely every word posted on here.

(The fallibility of my memory for what I think I've read is, of course, entirely irrelevant.)

[Peter]

Such characters do exist but they are rare and a bit special.   A few years ago, Danial Webb ran a new very hilly 100+k from Todmorden (about 3AAA, I think).  A chap turned up on what looked like a single speed (I may be wrong) BSO with straight bars.  He was in day clothes and a pair of huge army-style boots.  I think he was called Nathan.  There were some pretty good riders on that event.  Nathan finished in the first two or three.  I have occasionally seen him trundling about dressed pretty much the same, but not recently.

Bob Bialek is certainly another such character.

[tubbycyclist]

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.

[Cycling Daddy]

It's true, I've seen the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4h0WMhzA6Y

Oh EPAC no doubt

[RichForrest]

Local rider here in MK and sometimes poster on here did LEL (09?) without doing any other audax rides.