Please tell how AAA and advisory route works. If you don't do the set route how can you claim the AAA points are they are based on the climbing. And it's a F........ U to the person running the Audax. Long gone are the days of following the route. Sad people sitting on the computer looking for the line of least resistance.
Thank you for that question/comment/assessment.
Nearly all AUK BR rides have an advisory route. In UK we are lucky to have both scenery and an excellent network of minor roads (I appreciate this latter element is not the case north of the Clyde/Forth plain, Ronnie). Some hillier ones will have some AAA points associated with them. From @Manotea's draft Regulations text:
"Calendar and Permanent events. The routes are evaluated for AAA points when they are registered with Audax UK and the AAA tariff included in the published event listing. AAA points are allocated for validated Brevets automatically, i.e., no claim is required."
Riders ride from the start through the controls in numerical order gaining PoP and finish. Riders who've completed the ride are noted as such on the results and awarded AAA points. ". . . how can you claim the AAA points . . . ?" No claim required.
"it's a F........ U to the person running the Audax" Frankly the organiser has other concerns than 'worrying' about riders slavishly and unerringly following the route (as per routesheet). As I said a well planned route makes the hillier (routesheet) option the best one and anyone choosing to take a climbing-avoidance detour should be at a significant disadvantage. If the route does not 'force' this then the route may need an 'info' control inserted. Or the organiser can declare the route mandatory (eg Mille Cymru 2018). I invited @salar55 to identify "a couple of examples" of AAA events which offer flatter sections which would take a similar time.
"Long gone are the days of following the route." What Matt says. Most riders are content to ride the route as given to them. A few (like me) enjoy looking at the route. I make sure I understand it and can navigate it using a marked up sheet(s) torn from a road atlas (without electronic support). Many enjoy just getting a route which has been planned by another and riding it (a proportion not really knowing where they are going or where they've been). I think salar55 likes gpx files and doesn't actually navigate he just obeys. By the way, I consider, when detouring, that I am no longer on the suggested route (which has been subject to a rudimentary risk-assessment) and ride accordingly.
"Sad people sitting on the computer looking for the line of least resistance." I thoroughly enjoy maps and routes and computer applications eg Ride with GPS allow one to look at different options (for example from Paisley to Inveraray). Planning our Easter Arrow route has been a pleasure. Often it is not 'the least resistance' I seek - see below - (but it is on the Easter Arrow!).
I look for options as part of my preparation for a randonnee. I enjoy riding with others but also enjoy seeing if a variation I've discovered (and prepared) is faster or slower, and this is best done if I'm riding with others when I deliberately divert. Some of these options may be a bit longer and less climb. Others may involve more climbing and less distance (Will more AAA points be awarded? No. Do I care? No.) Or the types of roads may come into play (either to take or to avoid) and the time of day I'll be riding that section has a bearing. I like to include a bit of (cycle legal) rough stuff on every ride I do. But I know many others will not expect anything but tarmac and so organisers avoid routing along 'rough' highways (eg the off-road sections of the Fosse Way). Whether it is dark matters to me: navigation (using a map) is harder and riskier in the dark even with preparation (I appreciate that many's backlit screens don't care). So for me complex = more care and therefore slower.
When these minor diversions work it's great. When they don't I try to analyse why. But this freedom enhances the tapestry of my rides and increases the subjective level of audaciousness, and makes me 'happy'.
Though the philosophy I've tried to explain is not the same as yours salar55, I hope yours makes you as 'happy'.