Author Topic: Audax without a car  (Read 35989 times)

Redlight

  • Enjoying life in the slow lane
Re: Audax without a car
« Reply #200 on: 13 March, 2021, 11:14:27 am »


And then there are the unplanned engineering works...

Yes - turning up to the station to see the words "replacement bus service" is disheartening enough when you're on foot. With a bike, it's an undinal incentive to turn around and go home.

This happened to me on my way to a Kent ride some years ago. I'd planned to take the train to the nearest station and ride about 5 miles to the start, which would have been fine. I'd have arrived at the start with the best part of an hour to take on some coffee and toast. In the end, I had to put my head down and ride to the start, got there some 45 minutes after everyone had set off and was lucky enough to find the organiser still there tidying up. I then had one of those days in which I got to each control just as everyone else was leaving.... including the finish.
Why should anybody steal a watch when they can steal a bicycle?

Re: Audax without a car
« Reply #201 on: 13 March, 2021, 02:12:13 pm »
The "train lottery" really exists! I'm sure of this partly because I've watched it get a lot worse over the past 12 years-or-so.

As noted earlier, when I first moved out to the sticks, we had a decent weekend train service. It’s not a planning failure on my part that I didn’t anticipate the service being eroded and downgraded in subsequent years.

It’s not just the lack of early trains that’s the problem now, but also the fact that they’re much slower - used to be just over an hour to London, now it’s over an hour and a half. That affects ability to get to events on time for the start.

And then there are the unplanned engineering works...

Even the east coast mainline has rail replacement buses.  They are cutting trees back near a railway bridge today.  When out on bike, I saw the rail replacement bus heading towards  that there London. It’s not even a Sunday.

Re: Audax without a car
« Reply #202 on: 13 March, 2021, 03:08:40 pm »
They've been using the current enforced quiet period to do a fair bit of work. There have been some closures because of work at King's Cross. There's a long-term plan that has switched many suburban services to St Pancras and beyond. With that done, they're relaying the spaghetti tracks into KX. It's all about increasing capacity. Whether that's now needed is a different question, but the railways could hardly have been expected to foresee Covid when they planned this strategy.

I rather think that some work originally planned for Sundays may have been pushed through while they had the chance.

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: Audax without a car
« Reply #203 on: 13 March, 2021, 03:15:48 pm »
I think they’ve been doing a lot of extra work on our line over the last year. I’ve only been up to London twice since the first lockdown started, and have made no other train journeys, so I may be out of date.

It remains to be seen what the service is like when/if we return to pre-pandemic levels of use. But I’d be surprised if they start putting on more and/or earlier trains at weekends. Getting to audax events by train may well end up being harder than ever.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

John Stonebridge

  • Has never ridden Ower the Edge
Re: Audax without a car
« Reply #204 on: 13 March, 2021, 03:19:58 pm »
Yes fair enough, Im going on my experience of vastly improved rail services - the East Coast Main Line specifically and services in Scotland generally are significantly better than in the past both as a regular foot passenger and when travelling with a bicycle.  Pricey mind but hugely better. 

That wont be everybodys experience though.
 

Re: Audax without a car
« Reply #205 on: 13 March, 2021, 03:59:43 pm »
The only event I've consistently ridden to and from is PBP.  I usually try to combine any distant event with a visit to friends, to make a weekend or long weekend of it.

Once, many years ago, I did cycle to and from the Welsh 600.  On the way home on Sunday evening, as the light was fading, I was so tired and confused that, at a crossroads, I had to stop & phone home to ask where I was.

Re: Audax without a car
« Reply #206 on: 13 March, 2021, 04:13:27 pm »
Going back to the Audax perspective, the KX/StP changes on the ECML are a bit of a pain. Going in with a bike to ride across to Liverpool Street (for Witham events) or Paddington (for Reading), KX is on the level. The suburban platforms at StP are down two floors...

But hey, I don't suppose that cyclists were a major factor in the plans, especially as, in peak times, it's all folders.

Re: Audax without a car
« Reply #207 on: 13 March, 2021, 04:32:23 pm »
I don't have a car, so don't drive to Audax, though I have from time to time considered hiring one.  If I did have a car, I'd probably use it and do more calendar events.  The only non local (less than 50 miles) events I've managed to get to on the same day have been evening starts and the Double Dutch, that's despite living spitting distance from a busy mainline station.
So, I only do a few calendar rides (Never more than ten in a year), stay over, ride at least one way (Sometimes as a DIY) and make more of it, I am an Audax tourist.
I did once accept a lift home and embarrassed myself by not knowing how to get there without using the cycle paths, I'd only lived here five years and the ring road was a complete unknown to me.

mattc

  • n.b. have grown beard since photo taken
    • Didcot Audaxes
Re: Audax without a car
« Reply #208 on: 13 March, 2021, 07:32:48 pm »
Quote
So, I only do a few calendar rides (Never more than ten in a year), stay over, ride at least one way (Sometimes as a DIY) and make more of it, I am an Audax tourist.
Yeah that's very much like me now. My calendar rides tend to be long ones!
Has never ridden RAAM
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No.11  Because of the great host of those who dislike the least appearance of "swank " when they travel the roads and lanes. - From Kuklos' 39 Articles

Re: Audax without a car
« Reply #209 on: 21 March, 2021, 04:47:49 pm »
As I've never run a car, the cost of a few nights' hotel stay pales into insignificance compared with the overall expense of car ownership.

This argument mostly works but my other half twigged to the plan before I could buy a new cargo bike (cheaper than a car) hotel stays (cheaper than a car) new bike to commute to work (cheaper than a car) nice pub meals while cycling (cheaper than petrol) garmin (cheaper than a car sat nav) a nanny to look after the boy while I was away cycling (cheaper than the car I need to get home in time) new cycling rain jacket (cheaper than a weatherproof car) and etc.

Still don't have a car, but I don't have any of the other stuff either :-)