hippy, good to meet you briefly at the end - there's no need to say well done on your first 200km audax to the reigning UK 24 hour champion but great to see riders of your calibre out on the road at these events. See you at another soon I hope. In our group there was a good mix of the 'new to audax' but still pretty quick, and some old steel in the shape of laid back rich and Paul from the SWRC. We stuck together from Quainton and all finished pretty much together aside from some minor route / traffic issues in the final 10k, returning a respectable 8'45" in what turned out to be a beautiful, if a little blustery, day out on the bike.
It's a new route but it generally delivered some great scenery, pretty villages an Oxford looked stunning in the sunshine. Navigation was a bit tricky in places, the track out of Didcot was 'interesting' but all in all well done to the organiser, the start / finish control on the lido was a great success, and this is a welcome addition to the calendar. We came back along the A40, it was fine but the loop in to Southall and back to Ruislip was a bit odd in my opinion, it's petty busy around there on a Sunday afternoon. I'm sure an extra 10k can be added out in the countryside somewhere to avoid this. But, many thanks again to the organiser and helpers for putting on this great event.