DIY cards

[Ian H]

Just to let people know that Danial and I are both offering DIY cards online for our areas. Mine, Southwest and S Wales are available from www.ukcyclist.co.uk, Danial's, rest of Wales and Midlands, from Danial's Cycling Pages.

[tonyh]

Thanks Ian, nice and easy, bargain price, good website. Entries to follow.

Tony

[DanialW]

Two points:

1. If you've been waiting on cards this week, be assured they're on their way. I took advantage of my unplanned day off work to clear my horrendous AUK admin backlog.

2. Ditto if you're waiting for returned cards to show on the AUK website.

2. The price of DIYs has gone up, so I now charge £3 each, or £15 for 6. There's also a £1 surcharge on Paypal payments.

[Martin]

as I've just taken on my first Perms can someone explain the protocol re postage;

are riders expected to send an SAE with the entry form?( I always have) thus if they pay by Paypal I should add this on.

and when they return the card should they also send another SAE? do I send both to John Ward after validating? I may have to revise the fee.

[Ian H]

as I've just taken on my first Perms can someone explain the protocol re postage...

I don't expect postage for DIY card orders. I do expect SAEs for card returns. I charge extra for Paypal to cover their charges.

[DanialW]

As above.

The one quid paypal surcharge covers the paypal fee and the postage for the batch of cards, give or take a few pence.

[crwydryn]

Some questions from a newcommer,

There are 8 windows on a normal Brevet card. Does that limit me to 6 controls with a start and finish?
I would like a few more than that, at least 8 plus start and finish.

Can you just buy the cards in advance and apply for a DIY at a later date when things are comming together?

I am in Ian's area if that makes any difference.

[Greenbank]

There are 8 windows on a normal Brevet card. Does that limit me to 6 controls with a start and finish?
I would like a few more than that, at least 8 plus start and finish.

What length ride? 8 controls should be good enough for a 400 probably even a 600. It's probably too many controls for a 200.

My 400 down to Cornwall has 7 controls (including start/finish), so did the Dun Run and home as a DIY 400. My DIY 600 used 6 plus a calendar 300 but that was due to the convoluted route of the first 300km.

It's not a hard limit though, just staple another piece of paper inside and draw on some more boxes.

[crwydryn]

No its only a 200k

However I dont like cycling on Dual Carriageways, I am too lazy to cycle across the tops of icy mountains and I dont want to exceed 230k on the 200k Audax.

So 11 controls seemed an easier option.

[Ian H]

DIY cards have 12 boxes in total. One of my regulars adds little hinged pasted flaps with extra boxes. A bit excessive for 200k, but there you go - he does the distance.

[Greenbank]

Fair enough, it's your ride.

I guess it comes down to a simple trade off, my usual DIY 200 has 3 controls other than the start/finish control as it's a simple out and back ride. Putney, Cambridge, Putney would be under distance, and each leg would be too long at 95km or so, so I need one control in the middle on each leg to pull it up to distance and shorten the maximum leg length and it becomes: Putney, Broxbourne, Cambridge, Broxbourne, Putney.

8 extra controls, at a generous 10 minutes a control (I faff horribly), would add 80 minutes, in which time I could do another 30km. So 200km with lots of faffing at numerous controls == 230km with less faffing at fewer controls.

[mattc]

8 extra controls, at a generous 10 minutes a control (I faff horribly), would add 80 minutes, in which time I could do another 30km. So 200km with lots of faffing at numerous controls == 230km with less faffing at fewer controls.

Don't forget you are recovering while you "control", but not while riding.

So it's not a straight trade-off.

[MSeries]

Fair enough, it's your ride.

I guess it comes down to a simple trade off, my usual DIY 200 has 3 controls other than the start/finish control as it's a simple out and back ride. Putney, Cambridge, Putney would be under distance, and each leg would be too long at 95km or so, so I need one control in the middle on each leg to pull it up to distance and shorten the maximum leg length and it becomes: Putney, Broxbourne, Cambridge, Broxbourne, Putney.

8 extra controls, at a generous 10 minutes a control (I faff horribly), would add 80 minutes, in which time I could do another 30km. So 200km with lots of faffing at numerous controls == 230km with less faffing at fewer controls.

One way rides and out and backs require fewer controls than loops. My next 200 had to have some silly intermediate controls added to persuade Autoroute and hence the organiser that I'd do the distance. My actual route will not be any different but I'l l have to stop in Leeds after 9km to get a receipt ! Besides the start and finish this one has 6 controls four of which are on the 'corners' of the route, the other two are just passing through places to add a couple of hundred metres to make the distance up. I my version of AR it was about 3km over, in the organisers version it was 600m under. On the day I'll ride about 20km extra I expect.