AAA RRtY Elevation Calculation for DIYs

[HeltorChasca]

Blimey. How’s that for a few acronyms?

Be gentle please. Newbie alert. Having just recently achieved my RRtY award I would now like to plump for one with altitude.

I completely get the definition but I am lost when it comes to calculating the scoring of the AAA points. I live in a hilly area but to get easy distance on my standard DIY 200s, I make use of the nearby Somerset Levels, Salisbury or Bristol 2 Bath Railway Path.

Do I need to devise a route that ONLY includes lumps or can I have some flat ‘rest’ sections?
Can I just make 100km+ lumpy?
What elevation do I need over 200km?

Obviously if I am going to be doing 12 in a row I want to economise on the amount of climbing I do. Explain carefully please. Maths is a weak point. Thanks everyone.

[grimpeur du sudocrem]

There's quite a bit of info on these pages: http://www.aukweb.net/results/aaa/aaavnts/ and http://www.aukweb.net/results/aaa/aaawds/

Two things spring immediately to mind:

1. Unlike with RRtY there is no minimum distance for qualifying AAA events, so if you're looking to economise on effort then create some routes (or ride calendars and perms) that are shorter than 200km but have AAA points.
2. If you're doing DIY routes, you'll have to DIY by GPS as DIYs by brevet card are not generally eligible for AAA points.

Good luck! I'm 7 months into my first AAARtY attempt. In theory, I've done the hard months, in practice, it can still all end in tears!

[HeltorChasca]

There's quite a bit of info on these pages: http://www.aukweb.net/results/aaa/aaavnts/ and http://www.aukweb.net/results/aaa/aaawds/

Two things spring immediately to mind:

1. Unlike with RRtY there is no minimum distance for qualifying AAA events, so if you're looking to economise on effort then create some routes (or ride calendars and perms) that are shorter than 200km but have AAA points.
2. If you're doing DIY routes, you'll have to DIY by GPS as DIYs by brevet card are not generally eligible for AAA points.

Good luck! I'm 7 months into my first AAARtY attempt. In theory, I've done the hard months, in practice, it can still all end in tears!

Much appreciated. Cool. Got the GPS validation gist which is how I do my DIYs but the info on less than 200s is something I didn’t pick up. Thank you.

[grimpeur du sudocrem]

Happy to help!

All my AAA rides for my current AAARtY have been sub-200k - except for one which was well over 200k by the time I'd ridden in from home, but I entered it as a perm rather than creating a DIY for the whole ride, so only got validated for the 160k and the 2.75 AAA points of the perm (which was fine with me).

If you are creating DIY routes, you could always base them on existing AAA calendars and perms and the add on the ride to/from home. That way you can be pretty confident they will qualify for AAA points before you ride them, provided the AAA section is at least 100km long (as per the rules linked to in my previous post).

If you create your own route from scratch, you (theoretically) run the risk of getting your calculations wrong, riding it, and then only finding out after submitting for validation that the AAA man doesn't agree. Maybe others with more knowledge of DIY AAA than me can give guidance to avoid this!

[Ivan]

As the AAA Secretary, I'm happy to take a look at a planned route and advise on its suitability - it might be easier to start from this rather than trying to digest the various bits of information scattered between the old and new sites, which I do want to rationalise at some point in the future, as even I get lost or confused trying to figure stuff out at times.

To answer your specific question, the amount of climbing for a 200km is 2800m to be fully AAA, but the rules also allow a minimum 100km section (with 1500m of climbing) within that, and you can have anything in between as well (eg 150km with 2175m) - as you can see, it can get maths heavy quite quickly!

[HeltorChasca]

As the AAA Secretary, I'm happy to take a look at a planned route and advise on its suitability - it might be easier to start from this rather than trying to digest the various bits of information scattered between the old and new sites, which I do want to rationalise at some point in the future, as even I get lost or confused trying to figure stuff out at times.

To answer your specific question, the amount of climbing for a 200km is 2800m to be fully AAA, but the rules also allow a minimum 100km section (with 1500m of climbing) within that, and you can have anything in between as well (eg 150km with 2175m) - as you can see, it can get maths heavy quite quickly!

Much appreciated indeed. So roughly speaking if I use the magic conundrum of 100/1500 or 200/2800 as a litmus for a route, then send you the file, all should fall into place? A friend reckons RWGPS is the most pessimistic gauge on altitude so thats a good planner to go by. I like the way he phrases that.

Then at the time of submission, advise my DIY organiser I wish to claim AAA points?

This seems easier than I thought. Phew. Thank you.

[Wycombewheeler]

I'd add an extra 10% on the climbing to be comfortable. I don't think I've ever had a ride fail to qualify for points although I have had one or two come back with a quarter point less than I had planned. So a bit extra seems like a prudent approach

What's the process for claiming these AAA awards? I had an email bounced back from the aaa@audax email address. I sent in a AAA SR claim in October but don't appear on the list

[Ivan]

Claims for AAA awards should be made to aaa@audax.uk. It's possible that whilst the role was vacant some emails ended up in the spam folder and were purged before I could get to them so please resend it if you haven't had a response. However, I need to get the 2018 results finalised for the next Arrivée this week and will move onto updating interim 2019 RoHs after that, haven't actually made any visible changes yet, so that's all I've been telling claimants so far.

Similarly, on the subject of spam, if you think you are missing AAA points for DIY rides from the beginning of season (say before Jan) drop me a line, but note that I don't generally respond to AAA DIY track submissions, I just add the climbing on once it's been validated by the PermSec, so there can be a several week delay before any AAA points appear.

I would generally recommend a fixed 50-100m extra climbing margin to be safe, but that depends on what you are using to plan the ride - 10% is a lot once you go over 200km.

[HeltorChasca]

Incoming 

[HeltorChasca]

Extraordinary stuff from the AAA dungeon. My 116km Route has the approval of AAA royalty already. Thank you Ivan.

[grimpeur du sudocrem]

Great stuff - happy climbing!

Also takes away my remaining excuses for not creating a DIY route.

[S2L]

Strava must have updated their altitude calculating thing, as recently the figures from mapping match quite well those of the official AUK AAA tool. That means I have been able to plot DIY with the right amount of elevation to yield points.

As per comments above, if you go for DIY longer than 100 km, you need at least 100 consecutive km with 1500 mt of climbing. I normally plot the hilly 100 km part of the route, check the altitude and if happy then I plot the rest. The rest can be flat as a pancake if you wish, or hilly to increase the AAA section and the points awarded.

It's a shame AAA has such small following in AUK