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So for me "speed" varies.
For the 200km rides, I am sometimes interested in how quickly I can do the distance and sometimes just out for a chat.
For the longer rides it starts to be about "Wanting to get it done". I rarely enjoy the dark bit at the end of a ride (though I love actual night rides like the dynamo) and so am eager to get it done. The idea of spending a couple of hours dozing in a bus shelter holds zero appeal.
I am going a 600 in a couple of weeks. Through a planning clusterfuck I appear to have entries for both Beast from the East and Flatlands so I need to choose now and cancel one.
The scenery on Severn Across was beautiful. Some of the woods with carpets of bluebells were so, so lovely this weekend.
graunch
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.