Arrivée est arrivé!

[mattc]

_{(arrived this morning - was I last?)}

Is there a case of Spooner-Mis-identification lurking within the hallowed pages?

I'd also like to challenge J.Dyson's tips - so he uses a schedule on 1000k+ rides, does he? So why so dismissive of mine on MC1k? Is the whole PBP section a case of Do as I say, not as I do?!? We should be told ...

Also - bit puzzled by the reprinting of Sheila's advice about PBP start times etc - is this because some members won't have received the 2011 handbook?

[MattH]

Is there a case of Spooner-Mis-identification lurking within the hallowed pages?

Yes - though I'm not sure which one of them will feel insulted 

Also - bit puzzled by the reprinting of Sheila's advice about PBP start times etc - is this because some members won't have received the 2011 handbook?

It's probably just to reinforce it for those like me who don't avidly read the handbook.

[Salvatore]

_{(arrived this morning - was I last?)}

Is there a case of Spooner-Mis-identification lurking within the hallowed pages?

I'll let you know if I ever get a copy.

[hellymedic]

_{(arrived this morning - was I last?)}

Is there a case of Spooner-Mis-identification lurking within the hallowed pages?

I'll let you know if I ever get a copy.

My copy arrived at 11am today but it's unoppened as I've been out all day.

[Peter]

. So I will stop tapping the keys and pedal some more miles instead and leave the writing to the younger generation.

no no don't do that
Allow me to say with respect that there's many a good tune played on an old fiddle.I don't do many tunes but this old fiddle knows one when I hear it

Great reference, Jogler!  Do you know the whole of "The German Musicianer"?  There won't be many here who do, I trow!

[jogler]

No I don't. I'll away to gewgle it

[Exit Stage Left]

I watched the film 'Mars Attacks' last night, then I caught sight of the Arrivee cover, it gave me a bit of a start.

[GrahamG]

Great issue, great range of advice (i.e. different opinions but with enough additional info and YMMV type commentary for the reader to identify any similarities between themselves and the different authors), great articles in a whole different range of writing styles. Made me realise that I really need to put some decent effort in to my (open to serious parody) article about breaking my long-distance cherry with an SR!

[jogler]

I'm still reading thru it but I reckon that it's exactly what I want to read about
PBP: blue sky stuff for me but there's a lot of usefull info
LEL: aiming for 2013 so very pertinent
arrows & audax ride reports. grist to the mill
pics; interesting to see how folk arrange their kit
        nice backgrounds/lanscape
        rider's mugshots   & I recognise a couple of folk sometimes
        auk calendar 

YMMV
the only negative aspect is that it stops me working

[PAC]

Arrivée is much more interesting to read than any of the commercial magazines out there, if articles like PBP were reserved to the AUK website I wouldn't see them.  It's picking up the magazine while relaxing over a coffee that gets me reading about it, and it usually takes a week to two to read the whole magazine over several cups of coffee and in short stints.


Keep the up good work Danial and team - great photos and great stories.
Thanks.

Totally agree!

so do I......inspiring ride reports, good photo's and not full of advertising like commercial magazines .....which seem hell bent on 'how to do your first Sportive' advice at the mo

[Bones]

Still no Arrivee!

[PAC]

Organisers ( a lot of bike clubs ) know that the 100 km and 150 km events are very popular. They pay AUK for the cards and £10 fee, and then make money charging AUK members and allcomers £6 to enter.

if you know anyone who does after paying all the upfront costs hall hire food and then taking the helpers out for a meal please let me know; I'd love to pick their brains 

Well said!

[citoyen]

not full of advertising like commercial magazines

My publisher has asked me to point out that the commercial magazine I work for is far from full of advertising at the moment and this is part of the reason why I haven't had a pay rise in three years.

Ads are generally a good thing and I suspect Arrivée could do with a few more. The alternative is to double (or even triple) membership fees, or maybe return to the days when Arrivée was a black & white photocopied pamphlet.

d.

[frankly frankie]

I don't think there's as much touting for ads (by the Editors) as there used to be.  Partly because ads are surprisingly hard work (advertisers are skilled at providing copy very late, and in a subtly incompatible format).  Partly because the magazine production costs are, AIUI, well under control and don't need much subsidy.

A few years ago there was a 2-page 'advertising feature' that wasn't labelled as such (ie it just looked like an ordinary article) and some of us got a bit upset about that!

[arvid]

The continent has received a copy today. Apparently I have a son

[Charlie Boy]

The continent has received a copy today.

Takes a while longer to get to Dorset....

Hopefully tomorrow for some pre-400 encouragement.

[Jaded]

Engorgement before a 400?

Respect. 

[Jaded]

We have also with AAA created a demon

For the riders that think 50km is a long way the AAA stuff is completely mental.

[Feline]

I'm not sure it's our place to decide what constitutes a 'long distance' because it's different things to different people. As long as it's 'audacious' to the rider entering surely it's in the spirit of Audax?

[mattc]

I think the difference is this:
Riding up-n-down Streatley Hill enough times to reach 50km in 4 hours would be Audacious. (For some it would be impossible)

It is quite clearly not * Long Distance Cycling *

[kcass]

..... it is a bit disrespectful to suggest that the latest magazine is being dominated by PBP.

I think we all agree this issue is dominated by BPB. Only one person though thinks this is a bad thing.

[Jaded]

..... it is a bit disrespectful to suggest that the latest magazine is being dominated by PBP.

I think we all agree this issue is dominated by BPB. Only one person though thinks this is a bad thing.

Why are they doing the ride the wrong way round? 

[CrinklyLion]

....a 30 mile ride. (It must after all seem a flipping long way).

It did to the 9 year old  

I suspect that for me, and hopefully m'boy, the 50s and the 100s are (as swarmcather and others have described) the 'gateway drug'.  The reality is that last summer my lad did a plenty of 30 and more mile day rides - including the odd one with the inclusion on some fairly lumpy territory and not particularly benevolent weather.  But going to Tamworth to do a calendar event was different to him, for a number of reasons (apart from the fact that he hasn't done many miles so far this year!).  One of the comments that he really liked about our ride reports from riding to Barrow was toekneep's remark, after the incredibly slow hard slog into the wind and through the torrential downpour, from Hawes to Kirkby Lonsdale, that CrinklyCub 'would make a great audaxer one day'.  And, of course, last summer we went cyclecamping at Edwardstone, where he met Teethgrinder and Ara both of whom he still talks about - 'your friends who ride a really long way' is how he normally describes them!  At 9, he gets that whilst a 50 is a looooong way for him (and a 100 is pretty long for me!) they aren't the real big distances.  But the idea of those big distances does intrigue him.....

[itinerant]

IMHO

Arrivee is a bit of a victim of its own success. It has the look and feel of a professional magazine but it should not be forgotten that it is written by volunteers and ultimately it is a mirror image of the membership

This thread raises a secondary question namely is the membership committed to AUK’s original aims or just attracted by a cheap membership fee and a desire to feel part of a scene,

FWIW I don’t seek here to answer the question of what AUK was or has become.

Just in case you missed that:

FWIW I don’t seek here to answer the question of what AUK was or has become.

This thread is a bit boring for me because AUK was not formed in the 1970s to promote 50k rides but as has been said to allow riders to ride PBP without going abroad to qualify. Thus given this is the fundamental reason as to how AUK came to exist in the first place it is a bit disrespectful to suggest that the latest magazine is being dominated by PBP.

Clearly in 2011 there are in social terms "bigger fish to fry". It would seem a shame if Crinkly Lion cannot attempt to enthuse her brood with the ethos of *Long Distance Cycling* by taking them on a 30 mile ride. (It must after all seem a flipping long way).

Perhaps this is no longer black and white.

What we lack is the message that the overall *aim* is to ride *long*. We have created a culture where many believe 50k is actually “Long Distance Cycling” but it is nothing of the sort.

We have also with AAA created a demon within our midst where the comp is one not won by the rider that does the Bryan Chapman and similar but by someone who does the same 50k Perm again and again. What the hell it’s a broad church do I care?

Personally I would like us to be more focussed on promoting a core programme of events at 400 & 600km. This is where the weakness lies and in a world where garages won’t let you inside in the night there is a need to return to the basic stuff of church halls and TLC.

This is for me the real area where we need to tempt riders to step into.


AC

Question: How many 50k events are there in the calendar?
Answer: Not very many, especially when compared to 100, 150, 200, 400k etc events

Question: How many people could start as  'long distance cyclists' by doing a 400k event
Answer: Not many

Get real.
100k events are an opportunity for less experienced cyclists to get started with audax and hopefully get the bug and progress to longer events, be they 150, 200, 400k or whatever. To reduce the membership to a group of people who only do 400k+ events is a recipe for failure and a guarantee that membership will slowly decine to nothing, but maybe that is what you want?

[mattc]

Why can't people apply a little common sense, and perhaps actually bother to read the comments of others on this issue?

Andy made a perfectly reasonable comment*:
Personally I would like us to be more focussed on promoting a core programme of events at 400 & 600km. This is where the weakness lies and in a world where garages won’t let you inside in the night there is a need to return to the basic stuff of church halls and TLC.

And somehow this is translated into:

... reduce the membership to a group of people who only do 400k+ events






_{*you may disagree with it, but it's hardly extreme, is it?}