AAA Points

[teethgrinder]

Headwinds come and go, as does the rain and shine. The Hills are always with us. Maybe instead of a 50% rule, Calendar events should score double, because you have to ride them on the allotted date regardless (unless of course you take one look out of the window and say 'bugger this for a game of soldiers, I'm going back to bed!').

You don't get to be AUK points Champion by staying in bed cos it's raining or it's not nice. On the contrary, it's getting out to do a DIY permanent when everyone else is staying indoors that makes you AUK points Champion. (or not, in my case  )
I still remeber being blown to a standstill in the middle of a hailstorm on the A40 one night on an 800k DIY in January. I can't see how a springtime 400 can possibly compare TBH. Never experienced weather like that for that long on a 400. I had 400k of headwind, on a calendar 400, you'd be very unlucky to get that, but even if you did, you wouldn't have to get through another night and cycle another 400k.

Not working in a full time job might make your argument valid though.

[mattc]

(inspired by a post in the training thread ... )
Just checked Snooky's site:
Roll of Honour - apparently you need 12 points in a season
AAA Award - 20 points over any period.

IIRC the 20 points figure USED TO BE just 12 points under the old system - did the Roll of Honour figure get updated at the same time? (or is it just a coincidence that the conversion factor was 20/12 ?!? )

EDIT: bu99er - just found the answer  (it went up from 8 points to 12)

As you were ...

[Martin]

This is probably one for the AAA Man but how can a 200 have 1AAA? I thought it had to have a minimum 100km AAA section which would be 1.5

[Hillbilly]

AIUI, it can't.  For the reasons you've stated.  Unless the rules have changed.  Which if they have, has been very below the radar.

It may be that the organiser has input the wrong AAA figure.

[AndyH]

I'd guess a hilly enough section qualifies - 80k with 1200m?

Steve Snook's site explains it all here

[Martin]

I'd guess a hilly enough section qualifies - 80k with 1200m?

Steve Snook's site explains it all here

thanks  as I thought; no 100 or more event can be less than 1.5AAA

Distances refer to the distance of an event or event section. If an entire event is not hilly enough to qualify for inclusion in the AAA, then a continuous section of 100km or more within the event may well be hilly enough and can be included. Events shorter than 100km qualify if they are hilly enough, but not sections shorter than 100km.

[davebax]

This is probably one for the AAA Man but how can a 200 have 1AAA?

If you're looking at the Tan Hill Audax on 26th Aug, it probably should have lots of AAA points - the Tan Hill Inn is famous as Britain's highest pub and there are some big climbs around there. The Clifton CC website also says 1 AAA point. Could this be a relic from when AAA points were calculated in a different way, and much harder to come by? Anyone from Clifton CC able to comment?

[Mrs Blacksheep]

Hello

This is my first posting so hope I do all correctly.

Firstly many thanks to Steve Snook for organising and running
the AAA’s within Audax UK.

My thoughts as I have been riding a few events with AAA points
during this Audax year are, it’s seems a simple system 1000m climbing
equals 1 point, I understand there is a bit more to this but it seem great to me.

I think if it is changed again and so soon it would lose all its appeal.

Please keep it as it is.

Thanks

[Martin]

no it hasn't changed; I think it's a mistake;

1000m = 1AAA; simples 

actually so simples I'm amazed when I look back to the old system and how complicated it was and also how some of us (including me) wanted to keep it

+1 for a big thanks to the AAA Man 

[ironside]

I GPS tracked the ride back in 2010. With the AUK software it comes out at 2972m of climbing so it should be 3 points. All the climbing comes after Masham and then once you've climbed out of Grinton past the ranges it's downhill/flat to the finish. One of my favourite rides 

[Hillbilly]

Although a settled system that I support, I personally don't favour the current system.  Based on experience, the AAA does not capture the difference between a hard Aaa and an easy one.  There is a difference in my mind between a ride with concentrated climbing, compared to one spread across the route. Not that I'd change the way we do it now.

My bigger bugbear is the reliance on gps tracklogs, which are not reliable.  At the end of the day though, it xoesn't really matter, so I am less evangelical than I used to be about it.

[slohill]

I was very much in favour of a change from the old "fractional" system to the current system when Steve first started the discussion and, based on riding & organising 100k to 200k AAA rides since then, I am still very much in favour of current system---IMHO it works really well. 

[Martin]

I know they have OCD (aptly named?) but is there such a concept as "hilly" rides and associated points outside of AUK?

FFCT seem to organise hilly events as there was one on the same day as the sportive I did in June in the Alps

[Hillbilly]

Cyclo Montagnard?  http://www.ffct.org/index.php?id=45

Not points though, just an award.

[Martin]

Cyclo Montagnard?  http://www.ffct.org/index.php?id=45

Not points though, just an award.

seems a bit harsh compared to AAA

Il s'agit de parcourir une distance de 180 à 220 kilomètres à allure libre pour une dénivellation comprise entre 3 600 et 4 200 mètres.

[Stephen Snook]

Resurrecting an old thread to ask for help.

I'm just starting a trawl of websites that do climbing, it's a while since I last had a proper look.
 
Either where you can draw a route and get a climbing figure, or upload a tracklog and get a climbing figure.
 
The question is, which are people's favourites?
 
Francis made a list earlier on the Audax UK forum here: http://www.audax.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=10.0
 
Would anyone like to pick the one(s) they use regularly from the list there? Or add further sites to the list?
 
It's the sites people use to get a climbing figure or a gradient profile that I'm interested in.
 
All contributions will be gratefully received.
 
Regards,
 
The AAA Man

[Pingu]

RideWithGPS.

[Aunt Maud]

Strava or Ride with GPS, but there is a massive difference between the two, especially when I loaded the H-B-K-H route.

Ride with GPS 10,485 m
Strava 13,082 m

http://ridewithgps.com/trips/3663433

http://www.strava.com/activities/181548326

[Reg.T]

BikeHike here. Primarily for creating routes, but seeing an indicative climbing figure, as well as both elevation and gradient profiles, is useful. It can also resample an uploaded course to gets its own figures/profiles.
ETA: And I like the ability to get profiles/stats for any section of a course too.

[caerau]

Jeesy peeps, I just started reading this from post 1 thinking it was a new conversation.  However, when I got to the end of the page...

[rabbit]

I use Bikehike for creating routes and find that, of all the sites, it matches the most closely to the AAAs I get awarded for a ride.  So if my initial plotted bikehike route says 3500 meters then I would pretty much always get 3.5 AAA.  Or if it said 2800 m then I wouldn't be surprised to see 2.75 AAA to be awarded.

This is despite the fact that my Etrex/Strava/Garmin normally says less than that predicted by bikehike. Often 400 - 500 meters less, even though I follow the pink line on the screen as is plotted. 

[Ivan]

I use bikehike, but find it underestimates climbing by around 5-10%.

As an aside, does anyone know a site that displays amount of climbing per km? If not then I'll write my own - I want to take a GPX, display this along with the threshold for AAA points (for that distance) and identify the parts of a route that are above / below it.

[IanDG]

RidewithGPS

[Tail End Charlie]

Bikehike for me.

[Ian H]

More than ten years ago an eminent organiser told me that his method of assessing AAA points was to think, "Hmm, probably worth half a point." He always underestimated.