Reflections on first audax

[MartinM]

"Richard Goodman" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> Did my first audax today, 105k in not much over 4hrs, which I suppose wasn't
> too bad, although towards the end I was fading! Things I learnt:
>
> - things which don't seem uncomfortable in 40 minute commutes, can get very
> uncomfortable after a few hard hours in the saddle (like packing my
> camelback to the gills with 'may be useful' bits and pieces which quickly
> add up to a lot of weight on the shoulders)
> - those electrolytic energy powders that you can mix with water really do
> have a whole lot more zip than plain water or even fruit juice
> - my close ratio 11-21 cassette, which is fine around the places I go in
> London, doesn't really get me low enough for lumpy bits in the countryside.
> And I'm not fit even for modest little lumpy bits (it was an officially
> 'flat' course), despite the fact that I was 'faster' up them than most of
> the peleton (where were they anyway?).
> - despite the above, it was satisfying find myself able to keep up 30kph+
> much of the time, including up slight inclines.
> - 100k is enough! I don't want to even think about a 200 anytime soon! Hats
> off to the urc'ers that are doing them!
>
> Anyway, all in all a nice little Sunday ride, although perhaps if I'd ridden
> it at 'touring' pace I might not be so knackered now!

4h is going some for a 100. Certainly 10h is more like the average for
a 200 (or even 11 plus for Grimpeurs-hilly rides with altitude points)

 

[MSeries]

Simonb wrote:
> Why not get the train? There are loads of Audaxes each weekend -- you'll
> often find they start in or near a railway station.



Thats a fair comment. I'll take another look at the calendar and
timetables.



--

 

[davek]

Simonb:
> Why not get the train? There are loads of Audaxes each weekend -- you'll
> often find they start in or near a railway station.

Up to a point, Lord Copper.

The first one I did a few months ago started near a railway station.
However, it was a quiet provincial railway station with a limited service at
the best of times, never mind 8am on a Sunday morning.

d.

 

[davek]

Simonb:
> No hills round your way? I use 39x27 for the hilly ones.

Depends if you call the North Downs hills or not.

The type of hills I can go up in 42x21 are probably not what you would call
real hills, though I did manage to get up Charing Hill the other day in
42x24, which I was pretty pleased with (won't mean much to you if you don't
know Charing Hill but for those that are into grid references it's at TQ 960
500).

d.

 

[JohnB]

Simonb wrote:
>
> MSeries wrote:

> > If I was to do an
> > Audax I would almost certainly have to drive to the start and home
> > afterwards.
>
> Why not get the train? There are loads of Audaxes each weekend -- you'll
> often find they start in or near a railway station.

I'd ride more if the starts were more convenient for train times.
Quite often the start time is before the first train leaves home,
especially for Sunday events :-(

John B

 

[Simonb]

davek wrote:

> I did manage to get up Charing Hill the
> other day in 42x24, which I was pretty pleased with (won't mean much
> to you if you don't know Charing Hill but for those that are into
> grid references it's at TQ 960 500).

Here? That's not bad going. Knees OK? ;-)

<url:
http://www.streetmap.co.uk/newmap.s...&mapp=newmap.srf&searchp=newsearch.srf&dn=691 /url>

 

[davek]

Simonb:
> Here?

That's the one. (BTW, I usually use OS or multimap but Streetmap appears to
give much bigger, clearer pictures. Nice.)

>That's not bad going. Knees OK? ;-)

It was unusually good going for me, but I was riding particularly well that
day. I had decided I wasn't going to use the 28 out of sympathy for one of
my companions who was on a borrowed bike with a 39x23 lowest gear (his usual
road bike has a triple chainset and a 26 on the back), but I left him
puffing and panting about halfway up and then accelerated to catch up with
the others (the ones who hadn't been held up by traffic at the bottom) and I
overtook most of them, too. I was suffering by the time I got to the top but
it felt fantastic.

If only all days could be that good!

d.

 

[Simonb]

davek wrote:

> (BTW, I usually use OS or multimap but Streetmap
> appears to give much bigger, clearer pictures. Nice.)

You have to tweak it:

- Enter your search
- Click the third house from the left to zoom in (and get the contours)
- Click 'Bigger Map'

Thanks to someone on UKRC for that one. The default scale is useful (in the
Big size) for route planning, too -- I find you need about 3 screens for
your average 200km Audax. I stitch them all together seamlessly in
PSP/whatever and print them off on the nice colour laser at work when I'm
preparing a ride.

 

[Helen Deborah Vecht]

MSeries <[email protected]>typed


> Msa wrote:
> > In article <[email protected]>,
> > [email protected] says...
> > >
> > > - Military term for kilometres
> > >
> > >
> > I've always called k's clicks but never knew where the term came from.
> > Thanks for that! Any idea of the full story behind it?
> > --
> > Mark (MSA) This post is packaged by intellectual weight, not volume.
> > Some settling of contents may have occurred during transmission



> No idea, my cycling mate who is in the RAF always calls them clicks,
> thats where I got it from.

Is he called Julian?

I did a ride with Julian 10 years ago...

--
Helen D. Vecht: [email protected]
Edgware.

 

[Helen Deborah Vecht]

"davek" <[email protected]>typed


> Simonb:
> > Why not get the train? There are loads of Audaxes each weekend -- you'll
> > often find they start in or near a railway station.

> Up to a point, Lord Copper.

> The first one I did a few months ago started near a railway station.
> However, it was a quiet provincial railway station with a limited service at
> the best of times, never mind 8am on a Sunday morning.

So you find a nearby B&B and make a weekend away out of it...

--
Helen D. Vecht: [email protected]
Edgware.

 

[MartinM]

"Simonb" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> MartinM wrote:
>
> > I would go along with that, I'm completely wiped out after the 400,
> > glad I'm not doing another one for a year. I would do a few more 100's
> > before you go for a 200, perhaps get a few 100's this year than think
> > about 2's next year. There are a few 150's as well.
>
> How was the 400? I found that I hadn't shaken off the shingles I had about 2
> weeks ago, so didn't enter (again).
>
> Hope you enjoyed it -- despite the extreme knackeration.

Yes it went well (by which I mean I completed it and am not dead,
partly as a result of getting the train home and not driving). The
first 125k was very nice, all the best bits of the New Forest, had a
triple puncture 40k out which put me at the back of the field, but
managed to catch everyone else by Lymington. The stretch to Blandford
was painful into the wind, and the control was the worst greasy spoon
I have ever seen so avoided it, waited for El Supremo's tent on the
way back. Got back to Denmead 0015, left 0415 by which time the hall
resembled a morgue due to all the outstretched corpses! a few diehards
determined to stay awake as well. The 115k to Whitchurch was 10 times
as hard as when it is just a 115k event, compounded by rain and
another double puncture just before the half way control, plus about
ten hills that Pam had specially built as they weren't there in
January ;-). Pam's normal 400 goes to Weston Super Mare and back so
may do that next year. Looking forward to the Offshore 200k in
September, the island and all the forest without the 200k overnight
bit.
A curious thing about Audax is that riders never refer to a ride as
what it's called in the calendar but as e.g. "Pam's 400" but the
organisers deserve all the publicity they get, such a lot of hard work
and organising, I think I'd rather be riding all night than manning a
control.

 

[Arthur Clune]

Helen Deborah Vecht <[email protected]> wrote:

: So you find a nearby B&B and make a weekend away out of it...

Only a goer for me if I have people to go away with. I'm happy to ride
on my own but spending a night in a strange town on my own never appeals
(Thorne anyone?)

Arthur

--
Arthur Clune http://www.clune.org
"Technolibertarians make a philosophy out of a personality defect"
- Paulina Borsook

 

[davek]

Helen Deborah Vecht:
> So you find a nearby B&B and make a weekend away out of it...

Of course, but then it starts eating into your Saturday as well as your
Sunday and becomes much less feasible. This cycling lark is not all that
compatible with family life...

d.

 

[Helen Deborah Vecht]

"Arthur Clune" <[email protected]>typed


> Helen Deborah Vecht <[email protected]> wrote:

> : So you find a nearby B&B and make a weekend away out of it...

> Only a goer for me if I have people to go away with. I'm happy to ride
> on my own but spending a night in a strange town on my own never appeals
> (Thorne anyone?)

> Arthur

I spent a while at the Belmont at Thorne during the EL of 1997. I spose
it was better than Lindholm Prison. Couldn't buy postcards of the place!

--
Helen D. Vecht: [email protected]
Edgware.

 

[Helen Deborah Vecht]

[email protected] (MartinM)typed


> "Simonb" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:<[email protected]>...
> > MartinM wrote:
> >

> A curious thing about Audax is that riders never refer to a ride as
> what it's called in the calendar but as e.g. "Pam's 400" but the
> organisers deserve all the publicity they get, such a lot of hard work
> and organising, I think I'd rather be riding all night than manning a
> control.

Brings back memories...

"Please don't roll your wet bike over my sleeping bag."
"Sorry, I had no idea it was YOUR sleeping bag."

(Wet overnight control -Marlow- on Windsor-Chester-Windsor 1995)

--
Helen D. Vecht: [email protected]
Edgware.

 

[Richard Goodman]

"Richard Bates" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> Well done. Audax is one of those things over which I keep thinking,
> "Shall I? Shan't I?"
>

Thanks. I'd say, if spending a good part of the day riding a good distance
on the road is something that appeals to you, then go for it. For me,
taking part in a planned event taking place on a particular day, to
accomplish a particular distance within a specific time period, really
helped in motivating me to do it and to push myself a bit harder than I
probably otherwise have done. If it had just been something I was
organising for myself it would have been too easy for my wife to find
something else for me to do ('do it some other time, you have to help me
clean the house, we have guests coming') or just to have pootled about for a
much shorter distance in the same period of time. It was good, sociable
event with other cyclists, even though much of the time I rode alone as
there wasn't anyone who seemed to find their pace was the same as mine, and
I didn't want to slow down - they were all either faster or slower!

I must admit that for a long time I'd felt rather daunted at the idea of
doing an audax - committing to completing a rather long distance within a
set time which includes any rest stops, and interpreting route sheets with
strange abbrevations for instructions. Also the difficulty of getting to
the start point in time which others have mentioned - the idea of taking a
car to go on a cycle ride has always seemed a bit obscene to me. But
gradually I realised I was just being a bit too timid about the doing of
it - at least at 100k distances it's easy! And the one I did started less
than 10k from my doorstep, so when I found out about it, I knew it was for
me. Having done it, I'd definitely say, 'do it'.

I suppose, refering to some of the other comments, I could cope with the
idea of doing a 200 some time. But not a 400, no, never! I don't have any
envy of walking (or cycling) round like a zombie through lack of sleep just
to maintain a 15kph average! No, that I will not do!


Rich

 

[gavin]

"Richard Goodman" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Did my first audax today, 105k in not much over 4hrs

Forgive my ignorance, but what is an audax? I have seen the term before but
have never known what it actually means and have never got around to asking
until now.


Regards,



Gavin

 

[Helen Deborah Vecht]

"gavin" <[email protected]>typed



> "Richard Goodman" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> > Did my first audax today, 105k in not much over 4hrs

> Forgive my ignorance, but what is an audax? I have seen the term before but
> have never known what it actually means and have never got around to asking
> until now.


> Regards,



> Gavin


A ride of a fixed length (usually metric) ridden within pre-arranged
speeds usually organised within the ambit of Audax UK by independent
volunteers.

Audax UK has a comprehensive website but I've lot the most recent URL;
Google should help.

--
Helen D. Vecht: [email protected]
Edgware.

 

[gavin]

> A ride of a fixed length (usually metric) ridden within pre-arranged
> speeds usually organised within the ambit of Audax UK by independent
> volunteers.
>
> Audax UK has a comprehensive website but I've lot the most recent URL;
> Google should help.

Thanks, Helen. Can I just ask what "within pre-arranged speeds" means?
There's an upper speed limit????


Regards,



Gavin

 

[Ambrose Nankivell]

In news:[email protected],
gavin <[email protected]> typed:
>> A ride of a fixed length (usually metric) ridden within pre-arranged
>> speeds usually organised within the ambit of Audax UK by independent
>> volunteers.
>>
>> Audax UK has a comprehensive website but I've lot the most recent
>> URL; Google should help.
>
> Thanks, Helen. Can I just ask what "within pre-arranged speeds" means?
> There's an upper speed limit????

Indeed, it's not a race. The maximum speed is probably not going to slow
anyone down, more stop them from racing, as I understand it.

A