I was looking round at cycling film festivals, and I happened across the Cycle Touring Festival near me in Clitheroe.
http://cycletouringfestival.co.ukI wondered if I might make a short film about Audax, and where it crosses paths with touring. I’d made a film comparing Audax with The Tour de France, but what about touring?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZLSwv8_hP0I did my first Audax because my club-mates suggested one. I was already doing Time Trials, and the Fleet Moss Audax was a sort of large club run at the end of the season, a crowning point to the season.
I ‘d got into TTs because I wanted a bit more fitness through the summer, and it was an extension of the gym-work I was already doing.
The bike I used was the Raleigh Record Ace that I’d bought ten years or so before. That was a good quality bike for training and light touring. I adapted it for the TTs by taking the mudguards off, fitting faster tyres, and removing the pannier rack. Reversing those modifications made it into an ‘Audax’ bike.
I’d done some touring on the Record Ace, notably in Brittany and Sicily. I’d fitted a Sun Tour ‘Alpine Gear’, which was a 14/34, 5 speed block, matched to the usual 52/42 chainset. The more usual gearing was 14/28 and six speed. I wasn’t concerned about speed while touring as it was in company with my partner Heather, and we rode at a pace which was a compromise between the both of us.
Our tours described a meandering path, stopping at points of interest, and camping at the end of the day, or finding a B&B. What planning there was tended to be about the weather. Both of us were a little frustrated that the other didn’t ride at the same pace, but we didn’t want a tandem.
Audax solved the problem of our mismatched speeds, as we didn’t have to ride together. It also removed any of the minor arguments about what to do next, as that had been decided. The freedom of pure touring has its attractions, but group touring can involve a lot of negotiation.
Audax in the UK is ‘allure libre’, meaning ‘at a free pace’, albeit within the limits of 15kph minimum and 30kph maximum. There’s a paradox in accepting constraints as freedom, but the alternative is ‘Pure Audax’ where a strict pace is adhered to, led by a road captain, with a whistle. That ’s a European thing, but there’s an element of that in Cycle Touring Club outings, which aim to stick together more than Audax does.
Audax can look like touring, a lot of photos of an Audax would look like individuals on a tour, others would look more like a race. Writing about Audax reads a lot like writing about touring. Articles about tours appear in Arrivee, the Audax UK magazine, and Audax articles appear in touring magazines. Films about touring and Audax have a lot of crossover as well.
Audaxes have the additional element of time restriction, and that introduces an element of jeopardy into the rides, which lends structure to stories, introducing an ‘Around the World in Eighty Days ‘ feel. Touring stories tend to emphasise contact with the landscape and culture along the way, but there’s a porous barrier between exploration and tourism, it’s very rare that we’re the first to pass along any way.
Again there’s a paradox. Audaxes are organised by local people, on a non-profit basis, so participation is a form of cultural immersion. There isn’t the barrier of commerce which turns the visitor into a commodity.
These are a few of the ideas which came to mind in considering how to present Audax to an adventurous touring audience. I thought that the biggest argument against Audax would be the lack of individual agency. That Audax is about paying for an entry, and then doing what the route-sheet says.
However, I wonder if most of the decisions we make on a ’tour’ have been made for us in the literature that inspires us, and the nature of the facilities that we encounter. In the same way that most student backpackers end up doing the same thing.
What do others think about Audax as Cycle-touring?
