Audax and the ATM

[vorsprung]

we owe it all to ...

[rob]

At the end of a very wet solo DIY 600 some years ago I used a cashpoint for my penultimate PoP somewhere the other side of London.   By this point I had lost the feeling in the end of my fingers and most of the grip.   I couldn't grab the card when it was pushed back at me and the machine kept it.   Cue massive tetchy strop in the middle of the street and spending the final 50k wondering what I would use for my final check.

[Ian H]

...Cue massive tetchy strop in the middle of the street...

I had a cash card for several years before the first ATM appeared within reach.  It was about 20 miles away in Yeovil.

On a Friday evening we decided to go and try it out, so jumped on the tandem and rode over.  It's a hilly route. 

We got there, I put the card in the slot.  The machine swallowed it and flashed a message to say my card had been retained and to please contact my bank.

We rode home, penniless.

[Bianchi Boy]

In the early 1980s I had a friend who removed the maximum amount for days and days and said his account was some stupid large amount of money. When this was queried by the bank he said he did not know what they were talking about and the bank agreed to forget amount the matter as long as he signed a none publicity agreement.

Ah those were the days. The bars in Leeds have never seen drinking like it since.

BB

[CrazyEnglishTriathlete]

ATMs IMHO are still the most reliable form of control.  Most of the small shops in Wales appear not to have checked or set the clocks on their tills in the last decade or so, leading to relatively random times on any proof of passage.  (I only get to see receipts from Wales as that's where the perms I organise are, so someone will have inform me whether the characteristic of every shop having its own time zone extends to the rest of the UK).

[Ian H]

I am always unreasonably pleased to find some emporium which still has a rubber stamp.

[Greenbank]

Exactly. A good chunk of the PoP I provided over the years provided no real proof of place AND time.

[Cudzoziemiec]

But, joking on the last few audaxes I have done, I have mentioned that Audax UK should get in touch with the banking organisations to have an option installed on ATM machines to just print a POP. Just insert your card or type in Audax membership number etc, select POP from the menu and hey presto, a piece of paper comes out of the machine with name, date, time and location printed on it.

While I think this is an excellent idea I feel it would never happen. Much better to accept photographs with location turned on. The meta data will store the date and time and if you get a place sign it will position it. This will only need the agreement of the Audax organises and no need to include the banks in a software change. Some phones will also store the gps location - even better!

BB

Even better, accepting GPS-tagged photos would mean literally anywhere could be nominated as a control. No need for it to be an ATM, it could be anywhere in the town or village. Or it could be a road junction, farm gate, or simply a stretch of road. Or a field. It would be like a GPS track, come to that.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Some other countries accept photographs as controls, whether GPS-tagged or not.
<photo of bike or person that includes the sign at ...>

[CrazyEnglishTriathlete]

Some other countries accept photographs as controls, whether GPS-tagged or not.
<photo of bike or person that includes the sign at ...>

Coming soon to the UK, when I get the paper work for the Cambrian Super Randonnee sorted out. 

Unfortunately we don't tend to have neat little signs with the name of a Col and its height at the top of our climbs, its either a windswept bit of grass and heather that, in typical hill fog conditions looks like any other mountaintop, or a gate next to a stone wall set in a geologically unbelievable amount of soft gooey mud and day-old cow turd.  So I've gone for statues of Welsh politicians, train stations, a castle and the occasional chapel. 

The exercise has proved how much you can miss when entering a town after 60km of wilderness looking for an open cafe, as looking for suitable spots opened my eyes to the history and architecture of places such as Llanidloes.

At least a clock tower or a 200 tonne statue of Wellington is unlikely to disappear overnight as shops, pubs, and ATMs have a tendency to do these days.

[mattc]

Some other countries accept photographs as controls, whether GPS-tagged or not.
<photo of bike or person that includes the sign at ...>

At least a clock tower or a 200 tonne statue of Wellington is unlikely to disappear overnight as shops, pubs, and ATMs have a tendency to do these days.

Of course perm organisers in the past would very often accept these less "routine" P-ofPs. It seems to have faded away as a practice. In May I did 1500km on the continent entirely validated with rubber stamps

_{(see rants passim about the killing-off of trad perrms ... ramble ramble ... )}

[hellymedic]

[Ancient Relic] The punched cash cards my bank issued in 1976 did not issue receipts...

I did not do Audax rides then (and I don't know if the nascent AUK had started doing Permanents).

[LittleWheelsandBig]

AUK perms started several years later.

[Bairn Again]

A bit of a first for me...

On my last Perm, I tried to take out £10 in Braemar.
The machine clunked and ground and clunked some more, before barfing up an error message:

"ATM Failure. Cannae coont out the cash. Ye've nae been charged for this fuck-up".

But the receipt still showed the necessary, as Eck will have seen.

The banks have an established frequency of refilling ATMs based on use. 

This means that the ATM in Braemar gets filled every four years. 

 

[Phil W]

The banks have an established frequency of refilling ATMs based on use. 

This means that the ATM in Braemar gets filled every four years.

Is that in time for PBP qualifiers?