I was volunteering at two controls (the Seekrit one and then moved on up to Brampton). My impression is that a lot of the full value riders, novices and old stagers, tend to linger too long at controls and finishing in time rapidly becomes more and more unlikely.
Even if you don't have a ride plan, you MUST keep an eye on average speed (both rolling and by total elapsed time) and MUST have a realistic control plan and stick to it. On this ride if you lingered just 10 minutes longer at each control than planned, a total of over 3 hours is lost - which for full value riders is a game changer.
The other big time loser for some that I saw this time was poor bike preparation and lack of tools/knowledge of how to fix things yourself in the middle of a 100km stage.
P.S. In my 20+ year, R100,000 audaxing career I've never specifically "trained" for an event (hell, I'm no athlete), but there are structured build ups to big rides. For me each ride is training for the next. My DNFs have been due to unresolvable mechanicals or medical matters (mostly heat related). I think I would have been struggling on this ride with the heat had I not had to play the Covid card and reluctantly DNS just a couple of weeks before the start.
Control lingering is ever problematic for for full valve riders. With increased tiredness and lack of sleep there is an understandable yearning to rest-up at controls so time is easily eroded. It's a difficult cycle to break [nice pun there!]. I'm yet to break 89hrs for PBP!!! [with little to no sleep]. An increase in speed is the only answer really.
Qualifying rides are obviously handy in giving you some idea where you're likely to be in relation to finishing in time on a longer event. And Audax
is a race - not against anybody else, but it's a race against time. That's the whole point of it. It's a challenge to finish a ride within a designated time frame.
And bike preparation is another important factor.
I worked as a mechanic at Bernard Castle in 2013, and at St Ives in 2017, and I would say, before I say anything else - I had a great time. Always on the go, always busy and loads of mechanical issues all over the place. It was never a problem.
But.....the amount of junk that made it's way onto the bike stand was quite extraordinary sometimes. Mechanicals can happen to most prepared of riders, and sometimes it's just bad luck, but to start a ride like LEL with gears all over the place, worn tyres, crap brakes and fraying cables is just asking for trouble. I remember on more than one occasion, riders standing around waiting for me to get through the back log of mechanicals so they could get back on the road.
Phil Dyson, the big chief at Barnard Castle in 2013 was never comfortable with what was going down. He thanked me at the end [as he did everybody else] but said [in relation to what I was doing] "we've given more than the call of duty here, it's supposed to be about self-reliance". He had a point. I've no idea what the literature said about bike maintenance this time around about what is expected and what should or shouldn't be provided. Offering mechanical help is a good thing and a ride-saver for some, but it shouldn't be there to pick up the pieces of bad preparation. It's a waste of everybody's time.
