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@Greenbank
Specificity may help if you're goal is to do stuff fast, but it's not required if you just want to get round.
Almost all of my Audaxing had been off the back of ~80km a week of pan flat commuting in London with the occasional (once a month maybe) faster 50k around Richmond Park or the Surrey Hills. The majority of the training though came from doing the rides themselves as those easily eclipsed the total of my "training" distance.
The more time you can put in on the bike the better, be it short rides, longer rides or targeted efforts. Just ride the bike.
For me the progression was something like this:-
After riding the first 300 I could go back and ride a 200 without any real problems, even the hillier ones.
At this point it stopped being about riding x00km and more about being able to ride ~320km a day and wake up after a few hours' sleep and crank out another ~320km day. This is pretty much how I got through LEL and PBP.
The more experience (of rides of 200km and more) you have the better and easier it gets; and bloody-mindedness can make up for lack of physical prowess. I'm doing less than 30km a week on the bike at the moment and I'm not worried about an upcoming 200 (Ditchling Devil) as I know I can just force myself round it; I know my fall-back "all-day" pace that I can grind out will be good enough despite having hardly any miles in the legs.
I tend to ride on my own on Audaxes, or side-by-side with a friend. I'm sure I could shave a reasonable amount of time/effort off by riding in a group but it's not my thing. I like the time to think to myself which is partly why I do Audax.