SPAUDAX

[3peaker]

Audax goes Sporty?

Did you (anyone) notice a CW events listing (p73) show a new ‘type’ of Event? ‘Spordax’, explaining it as a sort of cross between Sportif and Audax, where you ride an event without road directions but are issued with a route card/sheet or a GPX download.  Oh yes, they mention price too, much lower than Sportif and more in line with Audax; well, there is a thing.  Oh yes, Dartmoor and 10,000ft/100m (3300m/162km?).

So, what’s new? I was riding Audax that way (no GPX) in 1982, as training for my TT ambitions, blasting off the front and finishing a 200 in around 8hrs-with m/gs and lights. Yes, I have aged and slowed and ride more comfortably now, but out there, there are still the young and fast, streaking to times of my younger days.  They just do not stop long at Controls and stuff their pockets with energy bars. In my case it was jam-butties and glucose drink.

Is it Marketing? Are the Sportif types realising they are being haved?  High prices, no season points league, just a tray of high-energy goodies every 40km to save back-pocket weight. And a load of Kudos, showing off their 7kg Carbon creatons and bragging rights.

Last season (and proposed again this season) my road Club, Cheltenham & County ran a Club Sportif series, with no planted directions and a paper routesheet. Routes were 60m on decent, local-ish roads, so did not need the high-research we Organisers put in to provide picturesque, laney, cross-country routes and Controls.  Only £2 and very popular too.  I suppose they were re-labelled Reliability Rides.  But is that not where we came in as Audax?  So, we have gone full circle and re-invented the joy of bring ‘on yer bike’.

This Spordax or should we spell it Spaudax might bring in a few converts from the ripped-off brigade and restore justifiable popularity to some great riding opportunities. It is happening now, especially on sub-200km events.

(written whilst holding on a call to Air Maroc (for 1hr) to be told my flight to Morocco has been (D)ashed off)

SteveP

[MSeries]

I think it was bound to happen. Cycling clubs and AUK have missed a trick. Clubs generally are stuck in tradition, AUK 'suffers' because it's a voluntary organisation. These new breed of sportif riders don't know much about the scene in the UK and just want to ride like the pros they see on TV. They have an opinion about Audax, garnered from forums from information put about often by dissenters of the activity. Audax generally doesn't present a good image, usually a rageddly bunch of riders in ill fitting, bland clothing, carrying old fashioned saddle bags. Not really the image that the new breed wants to aspire to.

[Philip Whiteman]

That is a very interesting account and one that I have been anticipating for quite a while.   Sounds like something that AUK could hearily adopt if it wishes to encourage new riders to our activity. But that would require some reconsideration to deregulation and the loss of current orthodoxies.

There is certainly a great call for the decommercialisation (even for charity events) from the sportive calender. Very few actually justify the cost and there have been some scandalous events placed on the calender by some pretty poor operators.   Whilst not quite a spaudax, a friend of mine, Paul Prince has famously organised a £10 sportive, known as the Mad March Hare.  This event has demolished the dubious myth that the high costs are required to cover event expenses.  However, it did not go quite as far as they non-waymarked idea.

Whilst around well before sportives came onto the seen, I dare say that the Shropshire Highland Challenge could easily fall into the spaudex category.

So what would audaxes have to do in order to spaudax:

- provide dedicated webpages and online entry;
- provide limited en-route back up support;
- provide en-route and HQ catering;
- provide GPX downloads;
- deregulate the upper-speed restriction;
- introduce an 'electronic Brevet Card'?  (need to think about that one).
- scrap info controls.

....go on the marketing offensive to dismiss the often unfounded views of audaxers and demonstrate a sporty nature to the activity, as well as an activity for all.

[rogerzilla]

Isn't the upper speed restriction 30kph?  Not many riders would actually challenge that - unpaced - on a long hilly course, and those that could would probably be doing proper races instead.  Isn't the limit also mainly to make the staffing of controls more predictable, i.e. you can ride faster but the cafe might not be open when you get there?

Timing chips are getting a bit non-audax though.

[De Sisti]

- scrap info controls.

+1. I hear you.

[MSeries]

Scrapping info controls is easy enough. Just get a volunteer to sit in a car and stamp the card. I've done plenty of events without infos. Or make the event over distance using other 'manned' controls. Doesn't even have to be manned, get a receipt or hang a stamp/punch on a string somewhere, orienteer style.

Upper speed is there because it's not a race, to make no incentive to go faster.

[De Sisti]

Scrapping info controls is easy enough. Just get a volunteer to sit in a car and stamp the card.

Even that is not necessary. Just don't have the info question on the card. Easy innit.

[MSeries]

Scrapping info controls is easy enough. Just get a volunteer to sit in a car and stamp the card.

Even that is not necessary. Just don't have the info question on the card. Easy innit.

then routes are likely to be well over distance using 'proper controls' <- that's sometimes the alternative

[saturn]

Popularising audax is probably not on AUK's agenda sadly. The level of bureacracy seems to continue to increase with the possible affect of pi**ing organisers off and making the events less enjoyable for participants.

A popular local audax that ceased to exist a couple of years ago because (allegedly) the organiser couldn't be bothered with changes required to correct the fact that it was potentially under-distance. At the moment my club is having to faff around with the routes for our audaxes which are well established and extremely popular (c350 entrants). I'm working on a section of the 150km event which is 36km long with a shortest possible distance is 33km but I need to increase it to 41km because if someone was minded to completely avoid the specified route and ride on busy main roads they could complete the event in less than 150km.

So that'll mean a change to a route that's popular (only today a cyclist at a cafe having spotted our jerseys approached us to tell us so)  plus a dreaded info control in that section added to the info controls that'll have to be introduced in other sections. We can't get controllers to sit in car park because we run 4 events on the same day and the standard of catering at the HQ plus the support at all the other controls already requires a small army of volunteers.

It's only a 150km audax FFS - who's going to 'cheat'? There are no AUK points or AAA points at stake and even if they did they've only gained a ride towards a trivial personal award comprising a certain number of 100's or whatever. On sportives (at least the small ones I've ridden) there are no checks to make sure you follow the whole prescribed route including every easily avoided hill and yet nobody seems to take short cuts because they don't want to short-change themselves - ok so on a sportive half the field would get lost if they didn't follow the arrows but that wouldn't stop someone who was intent on 'cheating'.

One thing audax should learn from sportives is that it's just for fun, participants don't want to cheat and even if they do, who gives a fcuk?

[LiamFitz]

Interesting post.

If I had this as a marketing brief I'd be tempted to say don't worry about trying to come closer to the Sportif model as they clearly fill a gap in the market.  Instead I'd big up the positive aspects of Audax - sociability, self-sufficiency and availability.  I'd also add some odd things like  people gawping at you as you ride through towns at 3 am, but that's probably telling too much about my private hell.

And I'd get people to try out one event - that's what I did and I was hooked back in 2002 on the Stevenage End of Summertime...

I sense there are lots of people out there who ride alone on their nice bikes who would welcome a challenge.  We just need them to turn up for a few 100's...

Liam

[dasmoth]

Timing chips have always seemed like a bit of a "last year" solution to me.  Why not GPS-validate the ride?

[MSeries]

Most of the sportif riders I see on the Etape des Dales really don't look like they are having mcuh fun.  

Audax events don't need timing chips, they are not timed events as such, so long as you are not to quick and not too slow.  A clock at the finish is fine. Changing that, that is, recording times, will fundamentally change the whole ethos of the events and make them competetive.


Who wants to change things anyway ? The sportif riders or the audaxers ? Each group is free to enter the others events, or just go for a bike ride. BUT, the OP was about sportifs becoming more like audaxes, not the other way round, so it seems that audax isn't all that bad/wrong. It's what you make it, we are all AUK, there is not Wizard sat in the Emerald City dictating how things are. There is the AGM and a committee but the events themselves are run by organisers who can use infos or checkpoints or manned controls as they see fit.

[Weirdy Biker]

My local club has a very active group of sportive riders who get obsessed with local sportives but completely overlook audax.  It's an image thing.  People aspire to do the South Downs Challenge (or some other generic name with challenge on the end) that they read about in Cycling Weekly/Plus etc.

They either don't know or don't care about audax events that are just as tough, no matter how much you try and portray them as fun.  Anecdotally, they view audax events as "too hard" or "can't be bothered using a route sheet" or "too basic" or "too small".

[saturn]

BUT, the OP was about sportifs becoming more like audaxes, not the other way round,

That's not the way I interpreted...

This Spordax or should we spell it Spaudax might bring in a few converts from the ripped-off brigade and restore justifiable popularity to some great riding opportunities. It is happening now, especially on sub-200km events.

My point is, this won't be achieved by adding excessive info controls nor through making events a pain to organise through petty bureaucracy.

Edit - I'm not talking about making changing audaxes to make them more like sportives but I'd rather not change established popular events to make them less enjoyable or risk their very existence.

[vorsprung]

Maybe AUK should deregulate all events below 200km

There's no need for short events to have brevet cards and all the cruft

[border-rider]

Brevet cards are part of the fun

I do think there's perhaps a case to be made for being a bit more relaxed about routes of BP events though.  And maybe even BR.

BRMs may be a different matter though.  I can see the reasons for those to be policed a little more vigorously.

[Philip Whiteman]

Maybe AUK should deregulate all events below 200km

There's no need for short events to have brevet cards and all the cruft

This is a very good suggestion.

A degree of deregulation could still be applied to 200km+ events.  For example, allowing organisers to remove the speed regulations, as they are best placed to know how, when and where controller's presence is required.  

A bit more lassez-faire is required for the benefit of both organisers and riders!  That way events could be more tailored towards their potential audiences, as not all audaxes are the same.  

[Karla]

So what would audaxes have to do in order to spaudax:

- provide dedicated webpages and online entry;

Mike Wigley, Oliver Wright, Chris Crossland and a couple of others I can't think of, we love you!

- provide limited en-route back up support;

But..but...but...[shocked spluttering] it's all about self sufficiency!

- provide en-route and HQ catering;

Like Spring into the Dales yesterday, plenty of HQ food and bananas en route?

- provide GPX downloads;

Again, like SITD yesterday?

- scrap info controls.

I agree with Mr Nesbitt here, hang a stamp on a post like in orienteering.


So you see, some enlightened organisers are doing a lot of these things already.  Funnily enough, yesterday's Spring into the Dales ride proved extremely popular!  

(Oh and while I'm talking about it, big respect to Arch from Cyclechat for being the only person ever to do it on a recumbent.)

[Manotea]

In practice BPs are deregulated insofar as organisers have enough leeway in setting minimum speeds et al to ensure all can complete the event.

As MV says, the Brevets are part of the fun and by introducing controls and timescales provide a stepping stone to BR events, which from an AUK perspective is what they are there for.

More to the point, without the Brevet a BP is just a bike ride...

[MSeries]

Edit - I'm not talking about making changing audaxes to make them more like sportives but I'd rather not change established popular events to make them less enjoyable or risk their very existence.

are people really changing established events to make them less enjoyable ? or is it to make them fit with the regulations ?  

We had this debate before. The organiser doesn't have to make the event an AUK event  if he doesn't want to follow the regulations of AUK. He can't have it both ways. I don't know whether the bureaucracy is petty or not, I suspect it's there for a reason. I wouldn't say calling a route making sure the minimum distance between controls is the declared distance is petty. Where do you draw the line, is 110km OK ?

[MSeries]

Scrapping the awarding of points would solve all this. Event organisers could host events however they choose since they'd be worth nothing relative to others. Hang on, they already can do this. So why do these organisers want their events to be part of AUK and yet not want to follow the regs ?

[MSeries]

More to the point, without the Brevet a BP is just a bike ride...

It sounds to me that this is what some people really want, not audax. And that's there now.

[Karla]

Yebbut then you don't get your route on a website, as part of a national series with a national AUK brand.  You may as well just go on a club run.

[MSeries]

Yebbut then you don't get your route on a website, as part of a national series with a national AUK brand.  You may as well just go on a club run.

Yup.

[Steve GT]

Most of the sportif riders I see on the Etape des Dales really don't look like they are having mcuh fun.  

Having done that route I can safely safe it was not sun at all! In fact it was one of the worst days I have ever had on my bike. Fun - no, sense of achievement - Mega.