That pointless cycling magazine & Audax

[frankly frankie]

Audaxing is a very time-consuming business.  When the summer weather comes, there are more 'other' things to do and claim some of that time - travel, gardening, just lolling about, watching cricket - summer is a lazy time.  Not everyone has family commitments, but those who do will be under pressure to ease up after a hyper-active spring.  This makes entry levels  lower for all summer events.  This discourages Organisers - who may also have other summer commitments (aka 'holidays').

From hanging about bike shops, I have observed that there is a huge peak in interest - new cyclists buying new bikes - in mid-Autumn.  I assume they've been motoring past happy-looking cyclists all summer and have finally cracked.  I always imagine them just getting going on their first couple of weekend rides - or their new resolution to commute maybe - and then the clocks go back.

[saturn]

..... but one year you could find 50+ AUKs that will be pissed off that they couldn't enter a few months before the event as they usually do and still get a place.

Could one of the benefits of AUK membership not include some sort of priority over non-members? Something along the lines of "if the event is oversubscribed priority shall be given to AUK members entering at least 3 months before the event"  It needn't create much extra admin for organisers because it would rarely need to be applied whether it's a general rule or just one that applies to specific events. It wouldn't prevent people becoming members just to get a place (but hey-ho) so it's not perfect but at least it would give auks the opportunity to circumvent a block booking of a prestigious event by non-auks.

[mikewigley]

Could one of the benefits of AUK membership not include some sort of priority over non-members?

An interesting thought.  I would assume the answer is no for all sorts of practical reasons, but I wonder if LEL might operate on that basis.  With an entry fee somewhere around £200, insisting on AUK membership adds only another £19 to that fee for non-members.  It gets complicated of course - do we insist that overseas riders are members of their national long-distance cycling body, and who checks the claims?

[DanialW]

Good point, Memsec. So far, all we've agreed on is that 2009 volunteers get guaranteed entry. After that, not sure yet. If LEL is a bit oversubscribed, we can probably absorb the extra riders. We won't be taking deposits either, which means no hassle with loads of speculative entries. As for quotas though, that's one for the LEL committee to decide. As ever though, any thoughts welcome.

[AndyH]

Doesn't LEL operate a qualification / pre-qualification scheme like PBP?

[mattc]

Nope. ( i think 09 was the first time that over-subscription even looked like an issue. I don't think any of the other 1200+ events do either, for the same reason).

[MattH]

Prequalification like PBP may be a good idea if it is considered that it will be oversubscribed. If you're an AUK member who has done some long rides in 2012 then you can register earlier, with it open to anyone later - but this would have to be announced well in advance.

Not sure how easy (or desirable) it would be include foreign riders in that.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

I think that is a bad idea.

[Martin]

I don't like the idea of AUK members getting priority anything. Some events were devised specifically to draw non-members into Audax.

We are minority enough without excluding non-members. If events are oversubscribed it's down to bad planning by the riders who don't enter early enough. AUK members in theory have even more notice of events than non-members.

(goes to print out Severn Across entry)

[saturn]

Some events were devised specifically to draw non-members into Audax.

In which case the organiser would presumably not choose to apply the selection criteria. I wasn't really suggesting it as a general rule, merely as a possible partial solution to the very specific issue for certain specific events perceived by Greenbank.

[frankly frankie]

In any case, Regulation 5.2:
Participants: any person may take part.

What is not written down but generally taken for granted is "entries prioritised on a first-come-first-served basis".  One organiser famously turned this on its head by prioritising his local riders, and this in a last-gasp PBP qualifier with places for only 40 ... 

[LiamFitz]

Time to approach the mag and give them a chance to set the record straight

[teethgrinder]

I don't know about anyone else here, but I had to build up to doing these long rides. I wasn't born riding 600k events. I was a CTC club rider before I joined AUK, riding up to 100 miles a day in my mid teens and wanting to go further. I built up to a double century before I joined AUK and still had some to go before my first 600. i doubt that many are any different. so I can't see how events like LEL will be oversubscribed by new riders. Surely we'd get some kind of clue that we'll have a bigger demand?
The 2 and even 300k rides might get a surge, but we do have quite a few 200k events.
Dare I suggest that some folk take my lead and ride local permanents/DIYs with other AUKs and arrange these rides via whichever means they chose, such as word of mouth, internet, phone or bongo drums.

[mattc]

TG:
LEL 09 had riders without any experience over 1 day. If you're fast enough, that isn't necessarily a problem, and I correctly predicted that they would succeed.*

So there is no reason a well-organised group of 50 could not do the same. That doesn't mean it is likely, just feasible. It's down to the individuals involved.

*PBP is slightly different, due to the reduced sleep time, but currently everyone has to ride an SR so it's a moot point!

[teethgrinder]

True. You also get experienced riders that will only ride LEL and nothing else. You may not get a group of 50 riders, but you could get a fair number of individuals. But isn't LEL a bit of a puzzle anyway? Danial seems to be setting up plans and counter plans for LEL because he doesn't really know what to expect and wants to accommodate as many people as wish to enter.
Every event of every kind has a capacity limit. We seem to be doing it on the cheap compared to everyone else, so no wonder we seem to struggle more than most. It cost me £20 to run a half marathon and it was a much bigger event than the CTT National 24 hour Championships by a long chalk. The half marathon felt like much more of an event. it cost more too, even though it lasted a tenth of the time. Marathon de Sables costs about £1000 and is about the same time frame as LEL.
Just as I was saying earlier, I think that a broad base of the pyramid keeps us stable. The more stability we have, the bigger we will be able to become. In the early days of Audax I doubt that they would have imagined how it could cope with running the number of events that it does now. It only does that because of the number of members and seems to be balancing itself out.
I think there is room for both super events with riders in their thousands, down to solo permanents and all that lies in-between within Audax.

I agree with Mr Bunbury too. The bigger the occasion or challenge of the ride, the bigger effort I'll put into doing it. I can rarely be bothered with 200s.

[Hummers]

Is this simply a rhythym dictated by PBP, do longer distance audaxers consciously do something else in the summer or do people ease off having done an SR or met a self imposed riding quota?

An ideal opportunity to slip in a Wessex SR.  with a local leisurely 200k the weekend before we sail.

H

[Panoramix]

I am surprised that we haven't yet debated over the possible effects of a nuclear winter over AUK...

More seriously even if these things could happen, AUK is so decentralised that it would be a temporary inconvenience, IMO the prospect of more long distance events would far outweight the disadvantage of a few oversuscribed events.