I’m back online again. We’ve had a power outage caused by heavy snow bringing our power lines down.
Well, we seem to have stirred up a bit of interest in riding Round the Year. As always, the choice to ride is first and foremost the rider’s and if you think you can ride a 200 or an AAA event safely during January, then go for it. Just bear in mind that you could put not only yourself at risk, but also your would-be rescuers, and in certain conditions that’s not heroic, just selfish.
If you don’t want to count a second Feb event as your January ride - then don’t. I’ll only count it as a valid ride if you claim it as such. For myself, I would be unsatisfied with a Feb substitute so I wouldn’t claim it, but I thought it was important to take unnecessary pressure off anyone from making the wrong call.
I don’t believe this relaxing of the rules devalues your other Round the Year claims. There’s already a great deal of inequality in the RTY. Twelve flat 200s are a lot easier than one containing an SR series, or a PBP, or 12x600s, or rides with AAA points. But they are all equally valid. The months themselves have a variable number of days, and either 4 or 5 weekends each. So counting to the 59th of January is just one more inequality. Anyway, we’re not competitive, so how others get their RTY award should have no bearing on you - it's a personal challenge.
Why make this ruling change now? Unbelievably, not all AUKs visit YACF, or even have access to the internet, and I think it important we don’t treat these as 2nd class RTYizens. Arrivee is just about to go to press, so we had the chance of making a “stop press” announcement, so we went for it.
Will we make similar allowances for injury, illness or prolonged periods of “normal” bad weather? Absolutely not! (And people have asked from time to time!) We’ve only made this change now because large stretches of the whole country have been under snow and ice for more than 3 weeks, with another week or so to go, and that’s just dangerous. Driving to other parts of the country isn’t a valid option (in my opinion) - if your local conditions are bad, it’s perhaps irresponsible to drive to somewhere else just to ride your bike for a hobby.
Which part of “is your journey really necessary” do people not get?
But notice - we've cancelled nothing. This is no nanny-state nonsense. You make your own call on weather to ride (pun intended).
Anyway, I’m hoping to dig my way out of the house soon, although probably not in time to ride the Mere 200 this weekend. I hope no-one has mailed me anything important as I’ve not seen a postie since 18th Dec.
Phew!