Travelling for Audax?

[felstedrider]

I agree, Andy is a thoroughly splendid chap. He is yet another who decamped from Kent, leaving a hole in the organising roster (he was running the Fairies Five when I first rode the 300 way back when, but luckily another organiser was found for those when he moved on - San Fairy Ann is fortunate to be a club with a strong audaxing contingent).

Anyway, Kent's loss was Scotland's gain. 

I saw Andy at the finish of the Arrow on Saturday and he was in good form.   I must make the trip North and do one of his rides.

For anyone who used to do the Kent rides I was very sorry to hear of the death of Colin Mildwater last week at the age of 82.   I rode with him many times.   I recall sitting on a wall somewhere near Chepstow on an El Supremo ride, drinking coffee from the flask that he always carried.

[LiamFitz]

One thought (I'm not suggesting to the OP that he should run his own events)... becoming an organiser really isn't too challenging and if you want to set up a 200km ride for 25 people starting in a car park and with a postal finish it is still possible. AUK has a system for coaching newbies and I know my regional organiser is very supportive.

We do need to encourage people to get involved. Even if people here offer to help out with a bit or do some route checking it makes it easier to ensure that dark spots on the AUK map get filled. Maybe a few of the people on this thread have a favourite route they think would make a great audax which they'd like to share with the community as a new event?

[αdαmsκι]

To add to what LiamFitz has said: it's fine to organiser one calendar ride per year.  It can sometimes seem that to be an organiser it means running at least 6+ events each year, that isn't the case. Any additional calendar event, esp. in areas where there aren't many, is welcome. And if, say, three people in an area started running events that could mean three summer 200s (eg May, July, September).

[ravenbait]

I'd hope that a reading of the thread would make it clear that I am giving consideration to organising myself, however I think it would be wise to ride at least one before contemplating organising any.

Sam

[ravenbait]

Also, FYI, not a bloke. Don't worry, I'm not offended, just thought you might want to know.

Sam

[Jeff E]

You can of course ride an AUK DIY - EVERY WEEK  from your OWN front door.   No travel needed, nor accommodation.   A fantastic route is guaranteed (you chose it).   IF…it doesn’t meet your own high standards, you can amend it each time you ride it, until you are happy with the finished article ( by which time you’ll probably want to plot a 2nd choice or even a 300 !).     Weather is also guaranteed to be of your choice (ride any day of the week).   You will be that much fitter and confident when you are able to actually get to a Calendar Event

AND if you do decide to share your route once a year as a Calendar Event, then you will have very little extra work to make it happen.    You can move your Start from your home to a Car Park with Toilets, and have the Arrivee in a nearby Pub, with Sandwiches laid on, paid for out of the entrance fees.   You don’t NEED Controllers at the Controls, and you can even ride the Event yourself on the day, once you have handed out the Brevets, if you can find someone to attend to the Arrivee.

[ravenbait]

You can of course ride an AUK DIY - EVERY WEEK  from your OWN front door.   

Which is why I've also been asking about DIYs.

Sam

[Lightning Phil]

There’s this audax permanent up that way

https://www.audax.uk/event-details/537

[LiamFitz]

AND if you do decide to share your route once a year as a Calendar Event, then you will have very little extra work to make it happen.    You can move your Start from your home to a Car Park with Toilets, and have the Arrivee in a nearby Pub, with Sandwiches laid on, paid for out of the entrance fees.   You don’t NEED Controllers at the Controls, and you can even ride the Event yourself on the day, once you have handed out the Brevets, if you can find someone to attend to the Arrivee.

I suspect that's how a lot of calendar routes started life! And why calendar events are such a great way to discover quirky lanes and back doubles that wouldn't be obvious just plotting a route on Ride With GPS. I love that feeling on an event I haven't ridden before of "blimey. I'd never have guessed that that road led here.."

[ravenbait]

You can of course ride an AUK DIY - EVERY WEEK  from your OWN front door.   No travel needed, nor accommodation.   A fantastic route is guaranteed (you chose it).   IF…it doesn’t meet your own high standards, you can amend it each time you ride it, until you are happy with the finished article ( by which time you’ll probably want to plot a 2nd choice or even a 300 !).     Weather is also guaranteed to be of your choice (ride any day of the week).   You will be that much fitter and confident when you are able to actually get to a Calendar Event

AND if you do decide to share your route once a year as a Calendar Event, then you will have very little extra work to make it happen.    You can move your Start from your home to a Car Park with Toilets, and have the Arrivee in a nearby Pub, with Sandwiches laid on, paid for out of the entrance fees.   You don’t NEED Controllers at the Controls, and you can even ride the Event yourself on the day, once you have handed out the Brevets, if you can find someone to attend to the Arrivee.

At the risk of segueing into a different topic. if you're doing mandatory (i.e. GPS) routes for DIY, because making an advisory route that doesn't have a massive difference between minimum rideable distance and actual, "Yes, but I want to ride on these roads," distance is super hard [1], I presume there's a bit more work to do to turn that into a calendar event? Like, there isn't the equivalent of mandatory routing for a calendar event?

That's probably a really stupid question and I should go read a manual. But it's sunny outside and I need to take Shackleton to the farm shop for some salad.

Sam

[1] Round these parts there aren't many roads to choose from. We are hemmed in between the coast and the Cairngorms, and there are effectively 3 parallel roads for travelling North-South, one of which is the A90. All three of these roads come together in Stonehaven at the north end and Dundee at the south end (actually, the third runs out at Edzell). The A90 is a nasty dual carriageway that has multiple RTAs every month, more of them fatal than is reasonable, and I wouldn't expect or want anyone to ride on it, but it wouldn't be illegal. Heck, they run TTs out of Fordoun that go up and down the A90. Devising a route that doesn't end up slithering onto the A90 when checking minimum distance is impossible without more than the one control every 60-80km recommended.

I quite like the idea of starting a route at Fordoun village hall (car park, toilets) and sending it south to look at Pictish symbol stones and haunted castles, but that bloody dual carriageway!

[citoyen]

Like, there isn't the equivalent of mandatory routing for a calendar event?

But there is!

Most AUK rides assume a free route between controls but there is the option for organisers to make the route mandatory. In theory, this should be enforced with the use of secret controls.

[Pingu]

There’s this audax permanent up that way

https://www.audax.uk/event-details/537

That's just as much of a PITA as Galashiels. 

[Paul H]

Devising a route that doesn't end up slithering onto the A90 when checking minimum distance is impossible without more than the one control every 60-80km recommended.

I'm not an organiser, so don't know how hard a recommendation that is - However as a rider, I'd say most events exceed that if you include the Info Controls. Three POP control plus three Info's seems to be pretty common on a 200, sometimes more or less.  How many strategic info controls would it take to make your preferred route the shortest? 
Just looked at the calendar rides I've ridden or entered this year - total controls/distance
6/200
5/300
6/100
7/160
5/200
14/400
Plus one, Bomber County, where I lost count! I know info's are unpopular with some riders, but if they're kept obvious and simple, I don't find them any inconvenience.

[mattc]

I believe the Stirling 600 heads up the area in question? Have a look at the control count on that 

[FifeingEejit]

I believe the Stirling 600 heads up the area in question? Have a look at the control count on that 

Take a guess what road those infos are needed to keep riders off.

I have similar problems with the A9 too for my routes, Andy asked me to put an extra control in between Dalnachardoch and Calvine on the 300 which ended up being a car control but can be done as info.
2 infos in the space of 6km though....

[John Stonebridge]

My experience is that the validation of minimum distance as part of the process that gets an event from idea to actual event has increased ie improved in recent years. 

The lack of even a peer review check was something that took me by surprise when I first started organising events in 2009. 

Now even an organisers assertion that "yebbut nobody in their right mind would go that way" doesnt cut it, hence events having far more info controls.

I was trained up by the likes of George Berwick and John Connaghan to check my card so that I always know details of the next control so you know exactly what you are looking for in advance esp if its an info, in many cases a stop isnt even required (unless its the full eleven digit phone number of the parish clerk on a noticeboard several feet back from the road and looks like it was printed in grey size 6 font circa 1982  for example  .)   

I rode a calendar 300km on Saturday that had 10 controls including start / finish and it was no big deal - a quick snap on my phone and I was away within 30 seconds or so 

in fact the bit of the ride that I found most testing was the longest single leg of 58km. 

[Lightning Phil]

There’s this audax permanent up that way

https://www.audax.uk/event-details/537

That's just as much of a PITA as Galashiels. 

Why? It routes through the north east, so must cut down travel significantly.  You don’t have to start perms at the official start as I’m sure you know, nearest control or any location you can get receipt start / end. Otherwise if organiser does e-brevet or proof of passage via GPS it can all be sorted through that to start / finish anywhere you choose  on the route.

Now you can do e-brevet only perms I’ll be adding some new ones that didn’t work before, as no suitable place for receipts. The calendar versions using infos in those locations.

[mattc]

My experience is that the validation of minimum distance as part of the process that gets an event from idea to actual event has increased ie improved in recent years. 

The lack of even a peer review check was something that took me by surprise when I first started organising events in 2009. 

Now even an organisers assertion that "yebbut nobody in their right mind would go that way" doesnt cut it, hence events having far more info controls.

I don't really mind Info controls either, but I think AUK has gone too far with this [I setup events roughly from 2010-to-2015, but I've been on event "teams" for much longer].
Now events that have run for 20 years are having extra Infos forced on them - whilst in France you can do a BRM where the routesheet route is only 199km (and secret controls are pretty much non-existent over there.)

As well as remembering that a sense of perspective would be useful, AUK should look at banning certain roads; works on TCR, a tried-n-tested formula. But this is not the place ...

[Wycombewheeler]

Like, there isn't the equivalent of mandatory routing for a calendar event?

But there is!

Most AUK rides assume a free route between controls but there is the option for organisers to make the route mandatory. In theory, this should be enforced with the use of secret controls.

the problem with secret controls is staffing them for the duration, too close to the start and they become pointless, too close to the end and the open times stretch for nearly 10 hours on a 300.

I don't know if you could get away with putting a great big sign up as a secret info control.

I did hear an anecdote about a secret controller setting up not on the actual route and still collecting some of the riders.

[FifeingEejit]

There’s this audax permanent up that way

https://www.audax.uk/event-details/537

That's just as much of a PITA as Galashiels. 

Why? It routes through the north east, so must cut down travel significantly.  You don’t have to start perms at the official start as I’m sure you know, nearest control or any location you can get receipt start / end. Otherwise if organiser does e-brevet or proof of passage via GPS it can all be sorted through that to start / finish anywhere you choose  on the route.

Now you can do e-brevet only perms I’ll be adding some new ones that didn’t work before, as no suitable place for receipts. The calendar versions using infos in those locations.

Tain is a vey very very very very very very very very very very long way from anywhere, even inverness which is a bloody long way from anywhere too.
The 126 miles between Inveralmond and Tore roundabouts is the longest non-motorway clearway in the UK.

Also, scottish geographical names are a bit like Englands definition of North.

The "North East" is Dundee to the Moray Coast but some would argue that it's actually the Highland part of that (north of the mounth) and south of that is just Angus
Ben Klibreck is in the "Far North" (Anywhere north of Inverness really)

[jackt]

Slightly OT, but is there any history of calendar events where there are more than one possible start points?

I live in Abergavenny and loads of events come through here but none start here, despite there being quite a big cycling community locally. I have often wondered whether it would be possible to have a start here, and use the Abergavenny control as an intermediate control for the riders who start in, say, Tewkesbury, Cardiff or Bristol, and vice versa. The start times could be the same or staggered. Probably undue complexity, but I was wondering if there have ever been events run this way?

[LittleWheelsandBig]

There have been a number of simultaneous 600s using the same route and controls but starting in different locations. LEL has done the same in past decades. They have worked well.

[FifeingEejit]

the problem with secret controls is staffing them for the duration, too close to the start and they become pointless, too close to the end and the open times stretch for nearly 10 hours on a 300.

Although not a secret control, I had people out on carrot hill from 6pm to 11pm (last riders rather than closing time which was 12) in the last third (another anti-A90 control), having the car control on 160km gave us a good idea of roughly when we'd need to have the control open (I had set the max avg speed to 25kmh with this in mind)

[ravenbait]

Why? It routes through the north east, so must cut down travel significantly.  You don’t have to start perms at the official start as I’m sure you know, nearest control or any location you can get receipt start / end. Otherwise if organiser does e-brevet or proof of passage via GPS it can all be sorted through that to start / finish anywhere you choose  on the route.

Now you can do e-brevet only perms I’ll be adding some new ones that didn’t work before, as no suitable place for receipts. The calendar versions using infos in those locations.

I did check, and it actually routes around the far north-west of Scotland, and the starting point (the closest point to me) is north of Inverness, more than 150 miles away.

Sam

[CrazyEnglishTriathlete]

It's easy to underestimate how large Scotland is.  I took CET junior on a hiking trip based in Inchnadamph north of Ullapool (from sunny Basingstoke) and Gretna Green was the half-way point of the journey.

People also underestimate how wide the south of England is - its the same distance from Dover to St Austell as it is from Basingstoke to Gretna Green.  Hence the challenges that riders in Kent and Cornwall can face in getting to events.

Even when you are more centrally situated, there can still be challenges with finding the right event at the right time (fitting around family and other commitments).  I will travel 100km+ to most of my events this year - but fortunately do have a train network (although Cross Country trains north are suspended - that's a very ironic word - for two months because of a sinking bridge).