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Is it a case then of firstly being able to complete the distance and then doing it in a faster time?
Sort of, but not directly.
For me it's about being able to complete the distance, the next things were/are:-
- Not being up against the time limits
- Doing it with more rest/sleep
- Doing hillier and hillier rides
- Doing more and more (longer/hillier) rides on fixed
Not being up against the time limits is related to speed but there's an early cut off with just how much faster you need to be to get this. Having 2 hours to do the 35km to a control before it closes is not relaxing; one puncture or mechanical and you could be out of time. Having 3 hours to do that distance makes it comfortable, having any more than that doesn't make it any more comfortable really. Once you're that little bit faster then it makes the rest of the ride more relaxing.
Of course, if you get round a 600km event with 8300m of climbing on fixed with 5 or 6 hours' sleep in the middle and a nice couple of hours to spare at the finish then you'll probably smash the next flat-ish 200km ride that you do on gears.
My goal is generally to finish any ride with about 2 hours time spare. This may change as I get fitter/faster as I train for slvlss.
- Not being up against the time limits
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Greenbank
fussballclub
OK. So the speed question. I'd really like to know all of your thoughts and opinions on this.
It hasn't really concerned me before but yesterday during the Hop Garden I rode with a cold and I was going a bit slower than usual perhaps but it was bothering me. I'm fairly content to complete the distance and be inside the maximum time allocated for the event but having completed 200km in 8.5 hours as part of the Green and Yellow fields 300 ride and hearing how some of you are managing to complete them in shorter times and then going on to wonder how you could complete them in an even faster time these thoughts niggled at me yesterday.
To discourage racing audax has a maximum speed so I imagine that those of us who do want to improve their times want to get as close to that speed as possible without getting any faster. I can't see the audax crowd wanting to race each other as the objective is to enjoy the scenery and build up serious mileage and eat nice cake of course! Increasing speed then is more akin to time trailing rather than racing. Are we closet time trialists?
Is it a case then of firstly being able to complete the distance and then doing it in a faster time? Then of course proving ourselves in various other conditions such as wind, rain, heat and bad roads. There are always bad roads during some part of the ride.
I've been enjoying audaxing so far without speed being a factor and would quite like to keep it that way but now that I've started thinking about it I need some more points of view. Please help.