People and machines will look different if you compare them with a quarter of a century between them. I guess I am now one of the hairy-nosed older gits I saw when I started, just out of my mid 30s. Maybe I'm less ebullient than I was then because audaxes are no longer an exciting novelty and I am tired. People like me in their early to mid 50s dont wear what looks like kit from the 60s because we weren't born then, let alone riding. Equally bikes once exotic are now the norm, and even long term stalwarts of audax (at least many of them) are open to their adoption. People can ride what they like, and some just like riding the bike they have always ridden, whereas others recognise that technology progresses in cycling just as it does in cars, televisions, aircraft, houses, and every form of engineering.
It strikes me that people on a hybrid and baggies are more likely to be welcomed now. I've seen a more diverse entry over the past few years with routes of entry from places other than CTC. This is in part due to internet spreading the word but also a growing interest in endurance (ultra) events coupled with bikepacking, and on/off road hybrid events (see TINAT as a great example). Audax is now touted in the cycling press as a 'must try' for cyclists, whereas it used to be a secret. In fact I'd never heard of audax until 2005, via this forum's predecessor, despite me reading the cycling press all my life.
