Audax rides

Do you know why there's an N1A and N1B where the others don't double up? Oh 8 also doubles up. Are they routing riders differently if it's day/night? How come?

8 puts you on the main road at night and the scenic route during the day.

Section 1 avoids Ware for afternoon starters. Presumably something around there is pretty nasty on a Sunday afternoon.

A lot of riders with good local knowledge have been debating the route for years so the quality should be very good, but what's optimal for 1,500 riders won't necessarily be optimal for you.

In 2005 Steve Abraham rode from his home in Milton Keynes to Thorne, route checked LEL from the Thorne Start so Thorne, Edinburgh, London, Thorne.
Rode to the Start of the Mersey Roads 24 hour TT did 443 miles, then road back to Thorne to help out at the Control, then rode home, all on 87" Fixed #Hardcore

I have a London mortgage to pay though. #hardpoor

I'd like to see if I can fit it in but racing TABR and TCR means I'm already losing 1.5 months of income. If I take any more time off I may as well be unemployed.

Looking to do my first Audax in April with the shaftesbury CC - Spring (200). Has anyone done it before? Good?

I like it and it's a good first audax - choice of lengths, easy to get to from London, flat. Some nice lanes too.

N.b. the 200 is actually 216km but there's also a 170.

awesome, sounds perfect

Anyone else doing the Cambridge pork pie on March 18th?

Should be. Will probably be on the tandem (extra space for all the pork pies).

Did the AAAnfractuous on Saturday. Easier than I remember but helped by the fact it wasn't pissing down and I had a full range of easy gears instead of the broken road double I used last time.

The lanes towards the end were sketchy as fuck in the dark with dynamo lighting.

The lanes towards the end were sketchy as fuck in the dark with dynamo lighting.

Dynamo lighting has its faults but even I wouldn't blame for the state of roads in the Chilterns

Do they ever resurface the lanes? It's like they're letting it return to its natural form of rubble.

I did the Boat Trip on Saturday and found similar, I was battered when I got home from the road surfaces, roads in the UK need some serious investment they are deteriorating so badly.

Next ride for me will be a route check of the Shark, I rode it 5 times last year, not sure I'm in the form to enjoy it yet this year, going to squeeze in a cheeky after work ride of the Down to Downs perm before hand I think.

Did the Diss'd Clare 200 from Cambridge yesterday for my February entry in my RRtY. South-Westerly winds were fun. And coming across fussballclub and other fellows Audaxers in the train home was nice :)

Now looking at options for March. I can ride only on the 11/12th weekend, which gives

• Kennet Valley Run (100 with ECE or 200 or 200 with ECE)
  
• Victoria C. C. - Brazier's Run 100 with ECE
  
• Kent Invicta Grimpeur 100 with ECE, for teh hills
  
  

Actually the Invicta being on Sunday means I could do two rides this weekend. Hmm.

Did my first DIY 200 on Sat. Included having to flag down a BT Openreach van for some cableties.

Going to get an Etrex 20x tonight...unless anyone here has one (or a 20) they no longer need (and I'd be able to get it tomorrow night?). Navigating on a 500 is fine, but it's a bit of a bodge...

Next week going up to Edinburgh for the Forth & Tay 200k then riding back down from Edinburgh on the Monday & Tuesday. Should be a good marker as to where I am for the TCR.

Doing the 200k near grazely on 11/03 too.

Can recommend Kennet Valley Run, have done it previous couple of years and it's a nice route. Good traditional audax with village hall start, soup at the end, etc.
Unfortunately can't do it this year. I should probably think about doing that Kent one with all the hills on the Sunday, though hard to get excited about it as it's a lot of roads I ride already. Plus I'm awful at climbing. Did Mad Jacks in Sussex last weekend and really suffered.

I'm going to leave work at 3pm on Thursday and ride the Down to Downs AAA perm, feel like if I do something like that one evening a week, rather than sitting on my sofa. It should help me along my way this year, whilst not eating up all of my weekends.

Hardboiled in April is making me focus.

Next week going up to Edinburgh for the Forth & Tay 200k then riding back down from Edinburgh on the Monday & Tuesday

I wanted to do this but bike hasn't arrived yet and not sure a mudguardless bike would be welcome.

Do you have to mess around with receipts on perms or can you do them via GPS? I've never really explored the world of 100km audaxes before, but now I've got even less time available I probably should. Can you recommend any others that are easy to cycle to from London?

For a perm you need receipts. For a DIY you can either submit a list of control points (the total distance is checked against Google maps in pedestrian mode or something) or a GPS track. With the first option you can route however you like and must produce PoPs, with the second you must stick to what you sent and you validate by sending the gpx.

Thanks for the feedback on the KVR :)

Thanks - that's what I suspected. I've been very lazy when it comes to doing anything other than calendar events up to now. Though until I replace my Garmin I'm definitely not doing anything that requires submitting a gpx file... crashed 3 times on Mad Jacks.

Crashing is one thing but did it lose your track?

It lost about 50km out of 160km-ish of the ride. Which is weird as some of the time it crashed it had created a .fit file. But not all of it. I should painstakingly troubleshoot exactly what causes the crashes, but instead I'm just going to put it on ebay and get a Wahoo instead.
For the moment I can probably live without the exact statistical breakdown of how bad I am at climbing.

Yeah, if it's losing the route then fair enough. Mine got its knickers in a twist during the last one but I think there was an issue with the route. I rebooted and I carried on manually after working out how to get around the glitch.

It can help breaking down the ride in several pieces and then stitching everything back together with fitfilestools.com

I generally restart the recording every 100km (on a touring)