GPX OR NOT GPX?

[wilkyboy]

The point is, why would an organiser choose to make it more difficult to enter an Audax? Why are they running an Audax for there own long established benefit, rather than for the benefit of those who may enter?

Carl, that's not the point at all. 

The real point now is this: do you bother to read what others have written and understand the very valid reasons that apply to the extraordinarily narrow selection of rides you posited as The Truth? 

We know why Ritchie mandates cheques — his reasoning is explained above and is valid.  We know why Colin doesn't provide GPS files for the Cambrian Series — he's explained that himself further back in this thread. 

We also know — and it's easy enough to check — that most if not all recent calendar events allow online entry and payment via PayPal, and most if not all provide at least a routesheet and usually a GPS file of some flavour — not always from the organiser directly I'll grant you, but there's almost always one available from somewhere put together by someone with the necessary skills.  Phil's percentages indicate potential shortfall, but most if not all can be sourced from somewhere, perhaps even here on yacf.

What I don't know is why you're insisting on pushing points that have already been discredited 

[Hot Flatus]

PayPal charges a fee. Payments can be reversed by rider without permission from organiser.. Cheque and postal entry permits some control over who gets an entry.

Three reasons why an organiser might choose it.

Cheques can be bounced by the writer, most banks charge a fee to do it.

Chequebooks are still a standard in the UK. If you walk into a bank and ask to open a current account you should be given a chequebook.
If you don't then you either haven't opened a current account, or you've specifically asked not to be sent a chequebook.

In the case of my Bank you have to specifically ask to for one, and their Basic account doesn't include one at all.

And clicking on the 3 Flex account types and then cheque book you'll see the text
"If you would like a cheque book you can request one online, over the phone or in one of our branches. "

The "Basic" Current account doesn't have one and you won't get one unless you change to a Flex account and ask for one:
https://www.nationwide.co.uk/products/current-accounts/flexbasic/features-and-benefits

Back in 2012 Nationwide were one of 2 out of 18 banks that still treated Cheque books as default
https://conversation.which.co.uk/money/cheque-book-bank-building-society/

Other banks may now vary.

Back in the day you had cheque guarantee cards which meant you could use the chequebook to pay for stuff in shops! https://youtu.be/gV-kY9JuqDE?t=87

Back in the day... 2004 when I worked in a computer shop, we always ran a Transac check on any Cheques, as such I processed one and had 5 customers decide to use their Credit Cards after all.
Cheque Guarantee cards usually only guaranteed up to £100

Bouncing a cheque because you've decided you dont want to ride an event you've entered and paid for would cost the entrant time and money.  Reversing a PayPal payment is fewer than 8 clicks of a mouse...no charge...no effort. It has happened to organisers.  Equally entering a PayPal event is fewer than 8 clicks....entering by post costs stamps and time and effort.

[FifeingEejit]

Bouncing a cheque because you've decided you dont want to ride an event you've entered and paid for would cost the entrant time and money.  Reversing a PayPal payment is fewer than 8 clicks of a mouse...no charge...no effort. It has happened to organisers.  Equally entering a PayPal event is fewer than 8 clicks....entering by post costs stamps and time and effort.

Aye, it'd be pretty daft to do it given the barriers; but you should have figured from this thread by now that I'll split hairs for the sake of an argument as what you wrote indicated it wasn't possible to cancel a cheque and therefore offered a win over paypal.

[Phil W]

Keep it up guys

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/_lOT2p_FCvA" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/_lOT2p_FCvA</a>

[nextSibling]

...it seems pathetic that Audax organisers don't...

You're talking about unpaid volunteers. You might consider dialing down the entitlement a notch.

[Kim]

But why should you have access to middle aged people to enter an Audax? That's just ridiculous.

Indeed, surely audax is a means of accessing middle-aged people.

[Chris S]

This thread just keeps on giving.

[Hot Flatus]

This thread is a mattc wetdream

Where the fuck is he?

[Carlosfandango]

The point is, why would an organiser choose to make it more difficult to enter an Audax? Why are they running an Audax for there own long established benefit, rather than for the benefit of those who may enter?

Carl, that's not the point at all. 

The real point now is this: do you bother to read what others have written and understand the very valid reasons that apply to the extraordinarily narrow selection of rides you posited as The Truth? 



We know why Ritchie mandates cheques — his reasoning is explained above and is valid.  We know why Colin doesn't provide GPS files for the Cambrian Series — he's explained that himself further back in this thread. 

We also know — and it's easy enough to check — that most if not all recent calendar events allow online entry and payment via PayPal, and most if not all provide at least a routesheet and usually a GPS file of some flavour — not always from the organiser directly I'll grant you, but there's almost always one available from somewhere put together by someone with the necessary skills.  Phil's percentages indicate potential shortfall, but most if not all can be sourced from somewhere, perhaps even here on yacf.

What I don't know is why you're insisting on pushing points that have already been discredited 

Funnily enough I do understand what others have written.

I must say that you, as an organiser, organise wonderful audaxes. For your permanent events you provide a good
description, full of explanation, enticement and assurance, you provide photographs and a gpx and a link to your website. For your calendar events you provide outstanding organisation, hospitality and compassion. Only the weather is sadly lacking. I just wish other events could be run to a similar standard.

I don`t understand how The Brian Chapman can be run under an AUK banner, but not to the same standard.  If the organiser wants to run it under his own terms, maybe he should go alone.

[Carlosfandango]

...it seems pathetic that Audax organisers don't...

You're talking about unpaid volunteers. You might consider dialing down the entitlement a notch.

That is a consideration, however AUK members pay for a service, membership fees have risen this year, AUK chooses how to treat volunteers, or to pay them. There`s no issue in paying IT consultants a fair few thousand for their services for example.

It`s nothing about my own entitlement, I`m one of the 50 year old grey/no haired folk already here. For me it`s how we encourage others.

In my opinion it would be an advantage for Audax to be more inclusive, to do things how potential Audaxers might want them done, look to the future etc

[Exit Stage Left]

I can remember the days before the Bryan Chapman was iconic. It was seen as a difficult ride by Southern English standards. I asked a rider of similar standard to myself if it merited the trip. He was equivocal. Very scenic in the northern section though.

Rapha took an interest in Brevets for a bit, they were trying to develop their own series under the 'The Continental' banner. That's when they made their Bryan Chapman film. They always seemed to attract dreadful weather for their filming efforts, snow in that instance, rain for their Assynt film.

It's always nice to have your hobby validated, but there was never an appetite for scaling it up. As Carlosfandango points out, it fills up with AUK members anyway.

[wilkyboy]

Only the weather is sadly lacking.

The smoke you're blowing is nice, I'll take that for the team, thank you    However, the weather — yep, we've had a run of four or five with somewhat out-of-the-ordinary weather conditions, unfortunately; I'm currently trying to find another supplier.

I don`t understand how The Brian Chapman can be run under an AUK banner, but not to the same standard.  If the organiser wants to run it under his own terms, maybe he should go alone.

BCM is an incredibly popular and wildly over-subscribed event.  I think he takes 140 entries, but could probably take twice that.  On one of my earliest write-ups I made the note that all members should ride BCM at least once.  Then I did the maths and worked out that I'd only get to ride it every 30 years or so if that were the case.

Ritchie and his family and volunteers do an astonishing amount of work to set up and run King's YHA, Menai Scout Hut and Aberhafesp Village Hall for the event.  Unfortunately King's is the limiting factor, as it's already creaking at the seams.  And so he chooses to filter entries to AUK-only, and, for him, he finds the way is to take postal entries and return any stray non-members who didn't read the entry conditions.  Could he do that electronically?  Probably, but then he'd get even more non-entries to return, and I suspect he's had one or two bad experiences in the past that is less likely in the paper-based world.

It's his prerogative, and given that it's the only event I think he has the energy to run in any single year, I'm not surprised he's chosen his own way of doing it and sticks to it.  And yet he still fills all the places year after year, so market theory says there's no real imperative for him to change.

Anyway, if you're looking for inclusiveness to draw in new audaxers, then picking on the foibles of one of the very oldest, biggest, and longest annual events is still missing the point.  It's at the other end of the distances — the BPs and short BRs — that the differences are felt for newcomers.  And that is exactly why we do make the effort to provide the good descriptions, the enticement, the assurance, the photos and the GPS files, the hospitality and compassion, the flowers on the tables, and the noteworthy caik 

Not forgetting, of course, that to the outsider every event looks like an AUK-run event, but really it's more of a franchise model: individual organisers are responsible for everything for their own event except entries (and even some take that on themselves), brevet printing, validation, homologation and insurance.  So all 100-odd orgs have to somehow be able to do everything — that's a big ask!  Clearly some organisers have more time, and some have more talent, but we're all volunteers, and most of us busy with other stuff too.

[Carlosfandango]

Colin has sent me a PM explaining his situation with the Cambrian series, it`s an epic project that he`s updating. I`d like to apologise to him. I was using his perms as an example and despite being an utter git I don`t want to make personal attacks. Could AUK perhaps provide him with some assistance?

[Hot Flatus]

Volunteering volunteers to do yet more work. Nice one.

Tell you what, why dont you help him, or indeed help Ritchie?

[wilkyboy]

Colin has sent me a PM explaining his situation with the Cambrian series, it`s an epic project that he`s updating. I`d like to apologise to him. I was using his perms as an example and despite being an utter git I don`t want to make personal attacks. Could AUK perhaps provide him with some assistance?

I thought about that, but then thought that I don't actually know which roads and lanes (and Wales is mostly lanes, even the A-roads) that Colin would want the routes to follow.  By the time he had told me, he might as well have mapped it himself.  It strikes me as one of those no-simple-answer human-labour-sharing problems.

[Carlosfandango]

I`m not that much of a nice guy though, I`m not here for Chis S`s entertainment, feet up, popcorn and beer. Cheeky F****r.

And where`s fboab to tell me she`s been riding since they invented the boneshaker and she doesn`t need any Johhny come latelys telling her how to ride a bike?

[Hot Flatus]

I`m not here for Chis S`s entertainment, feet up, popcorn and beer.

So what are you here for?

[Wycombewheeler]

I did my first 200km ride in 1982 - virtually before bicycles were invented let alone GPS - and started using a GPS in 2010 (Im now on my 2nd Etrex 30).  Its my primary method of navigation now. 

I'll always aim to carry a paper route sheet just in case, much the same way as I'll carry a space blanket and a folding tyre in my bag too but they are all just insurance policies hopefully not to be called upon but reassuring that they are there.

As a relatively uncomplicated soul I normally navigate by gpx track only, occasionally supplemented with waypoints for controls, though thats not normally needed.  A control will normally signify that a significant change of direction is about to occur and that (along with details on a brevet card) should make the vast majority of controls reasonably obvious. 

Ive read the whole thread and I'm surprised that nobody appears to have explicitly mentioned what I think is the main advantage on using a GPS over hard copy which is that it makes me significantly faster.         

It was riding with Maverick at night on the very wet HBKH ride in 2010 - him with a GPS and me with a sodden and soon to be papier mache route sheet - that made the penny drop.

Not having to get hard copy PoP has also made for far better quality DIY rides of which I do plenty.

Paper route sheets also vary wildly in format as they tend to reflect an organisers preference. 

There was a point a few years ago when I thought it possible & desirable to not produce hard copy routesheet but Ive since been convinced of their merits. 

I think some of the info in the thread also explains why a number of riders missed the Dunblane control on my recent 400km.  Id added the controls as POIs on the gpx track but if Im reading it correctly these didnt show on some GPS devices (I must admit that I didnt event know you could do this until I first rode an event where wilkyboy had done this and the controls appeared on screen).

If anybody can help me out so that I can make controls more evident to GPs-ers in future do let me know.   

I find the best way is to sit with the route sheet before leaving for the event and create a gps track for each section from control/info to next control/info. The benefit of this is that I don't cruise past info controls, and I always have a countdown to the control/info in the corner of the map screen. Not a distance to the end of the ride or a distance to a random turn that has been marked as a point of interest. Also i will have a better understanding of the route by creating my own tracks. I like to know how far i have to go until i can expect food/water so if I am feeling hungry or running short of water I don't stop unnecessarily 5km before the control. Sometimes I don't get round to this and sometimes that bites me. as when a info is labelled with a settlement name which is not apparent while riding, but totally obvious on the map.

the points of interest appearing on the screen is affected by the zoom level as i understand it, so marking them as point is not foolproof, but if takes real effort to ride past the end of the track you are following.

[Carlosfandango]

I`m off a long weekend away, so you`ll have to entertain yourselves for a while.

I`ll be back next week to try and insult someone else and send a few others into an apoplectic frenzy.

Anyone else who wants to see a bit of "attitude", well I`ll see you outside on an Audax sometime.

[mzjo]

Everybody thinks the way they do it is the one true way.
It's not. Just like your bike is not the one true bike.

Excellent, I do love it when people make my point for me.

Maybe this is the problem. If that was your point you had put it very badly, because what it reads like to me is that everyone else is doing it wrong. Which is erm, interesting, because some of those other people have been doing it for a few years, differently and successfully. Hence my questioning your experience.

Just because someone has been doing something a long time, doesn't mean they have been doing it right. Just because I've found a solution that works for me so far doesn't mean it will always work for me, or that it will work for everyone. The problem is we have a number of people making claims such as:

Nope.  Paper routesheets are accessible to the greater proportion of the potential audience. 

A route sheet is accessible in so far as anyone can print one, assuming they own a printer. But the reality is, what is written on the route sheet is pretty cryptic. For your first event where you are not only worrying about the fact you're riding twice the distance you've ever ridden before, you're now trying to work out what all the codes for each turn mean. You're also trying to read text, at speed, that is mounted on a vibrating shaky platform, or your arm, or where ever it's mounted, potentially through rain. And this is before you have the issue that not everyone on an event speaks the same language, nor takes into account issues with dyslexia. Yes everyone can print a route sheet, doesn't mean everyone can actually use a route sheet.

 I'm sure there are many people for whom a routesheet Just Works™, they understand it, they are familiar with it, but to assume that everyone will find a similar level of ease with such an item is naive at best.

For me a GPX file Just Works™, it's technology I am familiar with, I understand it, and I know the quirks of how to use one. It also doesn't require me to have a printer, so when I stop off in the middle of Denmark on the way back from Hell, I can just load the GPX on my phone, sync to my Wahoo, and get riding. No need to decipher the Danish instructions, just follow the dot on the screen. Same when I turn up in Bruges, or Groot-Bijgaarden, or Bunnik.

I wonder how many cyclists under 40 have a bike computer like a wahoo or a garmin, but don't have a printer...

To bring this back to the original question, I think that an ability to search by if a GPX is available should be an option on the website, and I would even go so far as to say it should be one of the priority features for searching for events. But I would go further and suggest that AUK should make it recommended best practice that organisers should provide a quality GPX for their rides. We've spoken at length about how we can make audaxing more inviting to people that aren't old white men, I'd suggest that the routesheet and it's complexities is something that for many could be a barrier to entry. A GPX removes that barrier.

I am hoping to do an UK audax in 2020 (missed chance in 2019), for me it'll have to be a ride that provides a good GPX, and it'll have to be a ride that is BRM. I appreciate I am a minority in these specific requirements however.

J

PS I gave you my Palmares, you never answered my questions.

I am over 60, white , male who owns a printer, doesn't own a GPS for the bike (although I have one that claims dual utility car and "randonnée") and hates his "smart?" phone (and doesn't ride UK Audax). How the heck have I got to page 8 before QG tells me I am in the wrong place? Thanks I'll stop wasting my time.

[quixoticgeek]

I am over 60, white , male who owns a printer, doesn't own a GPS for the bike (although I have one that claims dual utility car and "randonnée") and hates his "smart?" phone (and doesn't ride UK Audax). How the heck have I got to page 8 before QG tells me I am in the wrong place? Thanks I'll stop wasting my time.

Where did I say this?

J

[wilkyboy]

I am over 60, white , male who owns a printer, doesn't own a GPS for the bike (although I have one that claims dual utility car and "randonnée") and hates his "smart?" phone (and doesn't ride UK Audax). How the heck have I got to page 8 before QG tells me I am in the wrong place? Thanks I'll stop wasting my time.

Where did I say this?

I'm not sure you did — mention was certainly made of white old men, but I don't recall you saying that white old men aren't allowed, just that they're not the only ones who ride audax, at least that's what I recall.

As to what mzjo quoted and then responded to, it seemed like the response would've been better placed against a different quote.  I think he just wanted to say something — anything — in order to waste his own time and then complain that he's wasting it and tell us all that he's going to stop wasting it.  Seems a bit silly, really 

[Ben T]

Back in the day... 2004 when I worked in a computer shop, we always ran a Transac check on any Cheques, as such I processed one and had 5 customers decide to use their Credit Cards after all.
Cheque Guarantee cards usually only guaranteed up to £100

Back in the day (1997) when I used to work in Spar there was this old woman who always used to come in and pay by cheque.
She didn't want to use her cheque guarantee card because she "knew the owner". There was always this stupid charade whereby she used to cantankerously insist she didn't need it because she knew Nick the owner, and I always used to cantankerously insist that she provide it because everyone else had to. The stand off usually only ended either when Nick came round and told me she didn't need to, or after she realised Nick wasn't going to come, and huffed and puffed and dug it out of her bag.

[S2L]

That is a consideration, however AUK members pay for a service, membership fees have risen this year, AUK chooses how to treat volunteers, or to pay them. There`s no issue in paying IT consultants a fair few thousand for their services for example.

AUK members pay for a third party insurance, access to the points/award fayre and a magazine.
Any money they pay to an event organiser, has little to do with AUK. In fact if you decide to DNS well in advance, AUK won't get a penny of your money (no card, no validation = nothing for AUK). If you finish, then AUK will get roughly a pound of your money.
Volunteers agree to help an organiser, nothing to do with AUK, in fact AUK doesn't even know who does what. AUK provide cards and validation, end of. I always expect volunteers to do it because they enjoy it, rather than as a chore. Expectations to perform a task (being that organising or helping out) to a decent standard are legitimate, but typically it is natural selection... if an event is badly run, it is unlikely to happen again

[lmm]

I find the best way is to sit with the route sheet before leaving for the event and create a gps track for each section from control/info to next control/info. The benefit of this is that I don't cruise past info controls, and I always have a countdown to the control/info in the corner of the map screen. Not a distance to the end of the ride or a distance to a random turn that has been marked as a point of interest. Also i will have a better understanding of the route by creating my own tracks. I like to know how far i have to go until i can expect food/water so if I am feeling hungry or running short of water I don't stop unnecessarily 5km before the control. Sometimes I don't get round to this and sometimes that bites me. as when a info is labelled with a settlement name which is not apparent while riding, but totally obvious on the map.

the points of interest appearing on the screen is affected by the zoom level as i understand it, so marking them as point is not foolproof, but if takes real effort to ride past the end of the track you are following.

Interesting. For me both the distance to the next turn and the distance to the arrivee (so that I can pace myself) are a higher priority than the distance to the next control (perhaps because I mostly ride X-rated events where there isn't always supplied food at controls); of course with controls marked as points the distance to the control is available as well. I suppose the point is that controls-as-waypoints only works if the organiser is restrained about marking non-controls?

(On the last event I rode, wilkyboy of this thread marked the controls but also a handful of recommended cafes between controls - I remember a sequence of three marked villages, each more or less 20km after the last, that were pretty much indistinguishable for my purposes but one was a control and two were "just" cafes. I think I may have bought some haribo at the control village for the receipt and had a proper coffee stop at one of the other two - I honestly couldn't say which was which. Would you have wanted a countdown to one but not the other? No judgement, just wondering how other people treat these things)

Personally (as someone at the full-value end), ideally I do want to cruise past the info control, if the info can be observed from the saddle. I do want the controls to be obvious but I don't want to have to fiddle with my device at each. I don't know what device's screen or zoom level you're talking about (I rely on audio prompts rather than screen).

(Obviously if it turns out that the thing that's most useful to most people with their devices (and/or is easier for the organiser) is separate tracks for each stage then I'll accept that I have to stitch them together myself just as you split up the tracks yourself)