At the Tramping the Two Loop there were many riders from the Evesham Wheelers who had no idea what audax is, they just came along because the organiser was a club member. I don't think many of them even bothered handing in brevets at the arrivée.
At one of the Dutch rides we had a group of Sportiv riders turn up, not realising what a BRM involved, they got lost very quickly, and then gave up...
Much is being made of Audax needing to grow, to have more members, being 'more inclusive' (ie, non-white), to have a flashier web site. But why?
People who want to ride Audax will, those who don't won't. Why the imperative? As an Audax member - this year anyway - it matters little to me who else joins as long as I can ride my perms whenever I want. I don't feel the need to mass with the masses.
So basically what you're saying is you're happy for AUK to be just a place for old white men, while the rest of us should either have to fight up hill, or just bugger off?
Every ride I do seems to have approximately 10% women on the ride, and in one case less than 5%. I work in IT, I'm used to being surrounded by men, but I can see it would be really off putting for many, I wonder how many women turn up to one event, realise it's just old white men, and then go ride elsewhere. I'm getting really tired of it, but I'm too damn stubborn to be put off by such thing.
I don't think a new website is the solution to this problem, it needs a wholesale attitude reset, but I think there's a lot a new website could do to help make things more accessible:
- Maps of routes on all ride pages
- GPX of all events
- None of this A, B, C, D, G, X, H, K code thingy, but maybe nice simple icons...
- Easy way to search based on a map.
- Ability to sign up without needing SAE's, a cheque book, telegrams, or carrier pigeons.
I don't care how the site looks, I actually like the retro appearance of the current site, but I can see features that are worth adding, and knowing that there is spaghetti under the hood, then it becomes a point where you have to build a new site.
This all said, as someone who works in IT, and have done projects like this in the past, my first reaction is "I never charged enough for the work I did" followed by "what on earth are we paying that much for? what the hell are they providing us, and who thought this lot were the right choice to hire?"
Remember that for many younger than 30, they don't drive, they can't afford a car, and so they need to get to rides by public transport or by riding. This limits what events they can do. Events where you can crash the night before, or start at a youth hostel, are much more accessible to younger riders. Even rides with sensible public transport access, they often start before the 1st train...
J