Audax rides

This is my level of motivation at the moment though. Maybe I should just ride to Greenwich, have a fryup and ride home :)

44/19 got me up all but Brasted last year. I'm sure someone's "ridden" it with 80" or summit.

Like mustardbeak says, it's not one to hare around.

And don't forget the golden rule - You can always walk.....

EDIT - this isn't #boastpost because 44/19 is in fact pretty spinny. Just pointing out that walking is a viable option and that no matter how low you gear, you'll always use lowest available. Unless you're @hippy

GMC's little brother The Shark has been calendared up. 7th April 2019. Mandatory route. I'm in. Good warm up for Wessex weekend the weekend after.

Me and my brother are signed up for the Greenwich Mean Climb tommorow - me on an red Colnago, him on a Kepler disc, any forumers come say hi!

I'll be on a green fixed with marathon plus tyres, rear rack and a cavernous green saddle bag with 100AAA patch.

I like doing things the easy way.

I was on the red / blue basso in a brixton jersey. Draughted you for a bit, lost you, then passed you having a break, then saw you at seaford I think? Hope you had a good day. We got in around 8.30 and I left about 9.30.

I'm sure I remember your bag. Get round ok?

I'm in all kinds of pain

We got in around 8.30 and I left about 9.30.

Good effort!

I limped in at nearly 0200hrs with a few others.

I was in at 1059 last year, same bike, same gearing, same knees.

By far and away the hardest day I've had to endure - Hardboiled was easier than GMC this year. I was in a bad way all the way from shortly after Seaford, no punch at all on any of the climbs, couldn't spin down hills. I came close to just sitting down and packing. If it had been warmer I probably would have. I get bad patches on most rides, but most don't last 150km! Fortunately, a number of navigational errors, meant that I hooked up with a group of three shortly after Bexhill and we rode the rest together as a typical Audax group of ragtags. I needed that group. I would have been DNF I'm sure.

My average moving speed according to Mr Garmin was 18.3kmh!

Collapsed into my bed at 0500 this morning, after leaving at 0330 the morning before. Just 402km on the odometer.

I need a couple of weeks out the saddle to ponder what my goals will be next season. One thing though, I'm getting a freewheel.

The Kingston Wheelers rides are open to enter:

http://kingstonwheelers.co.uk/ride/audax

Doing any? I was going to throw an entry in their 600k

Amey and I are doing the 4oo. Might also do the 300 but haven't signed up for that yet.

We are doing WCW for the 600.

The 400 would fill the gap left by that 600 in Edinburgh but I was going to do 4x600 for the LOLs.

Probably stupid, given I'll probably need to be doing specific training for something else but I don't know quite how next year is going to go.

400 would fill the gap left by that 600 in Edinburgh but I was going to do 4x600 for the LOLs.

Probably stupid, given I'll prob

If you still looking for a Scottish 600. There is another running from Inverness on 8 June. Pretty tough route.
http://www.aukweb.net/events/detail/19-953/

Sleeper train options to/from Inverness from London.

Oooh, that looks interesting. Wish the sleeper trains with actual sleeping didn't cost a fortune though.

Yeah, can be a pain. I think there are one or two direct trains to inverness from London during the day too.

The route is now published on their site. Not sure if he is going to run as a mandatory route like the 400 in the organisers series.
https://ridewithgps.com/routes/28688630

That looks a great route.
Having to remind myself I'm temporarily retired from anything over 300s until I sort my back issues out.

I'm still looking to do that loop of London 300k as a DIY/Perm with my missus but I'm running out of 'nice' free weekends I reckon.

There is a similar 400 if you can stretch to that called the Hellfire Corner

So, having a look at the results, since today is the start of the new season, LFGSS finished with 158 '6-rider' club points (172 in total) - putting us 24th out of 360 clubs.

Impressive! Think of all those audax miles done fixed gear brakeless on 80gi. Well done fam

I could probably stretch to it to the extent that I could finish, but back/neck pain would make it a miserable experience. Plus (probably related) reduction in speed means I'm so much closer to time limits these days that I can't enjoy stopping/views/cake in the same way I used to.
Also I reckon I should leave the longer distance BRMs to people wanting to qualify for PBP.

I'm now seeing a physio and cautiously optimistic that my issues are fixable. I have a vague plan to just do 'fun' stuff next year and maybe try to do Torino-Nice next Sept if everything ok-ish by then.

With the fee increases coming, anyone know if it's possible to add 5yr membership to existing membership at the current fee? I also want to add my missus as a "family member", ie. same address, no magazine.

I think the fee increase has already started, but you can get a 5yr membership renewal for £72 and add household addition for £24.

I may have just glanced at the organiser date comment...

As you may have seen in the statement that I recently posted on the AUK website and the AUK online Forum, and in my report from the Board's last full meeting in the new edition of ARRIVÉE, the AUK Board has been considering carefully our financial position and how best to ensure that the organisation can remain financially secure. This concern has arisen due to cost overruns on essential modernisation and development work on the website and administration system that will replace our current system.

While we are not happy at the cost overrun on Phase 1 of our IT Refresh project we are determined to keep costs down in the future and believe that Phase 2, comprising membership management at a minimum, is essential as our membership numbers continue to increase.

We are fortunate in that we have built up sufficient reserves to fund the work that has already been done and to pay for Phase 2, but if we are to make all of the improvements needed to support our members and our administration, as well as preparing for the near future by developing Phase 3 which includes mapping along with GPS-linked validations, the costs are likely to be too high for our present levels of income.

Clearly not being able to do this work would be undesirable and so the Board has been studying a number of possible scenarios under which some or all of our income would be increased. I would like to thank, in particular, our finance director, Nigel Armstrong, and membership secretary, Caroline Fenton, for their forensic work in modelling the numerous options that we reviewed and for their seemingly inexhaustible ability to produce spreadsheets that were better than my own spreadsheets for us to consider.

It was clear to us from the outset that we would need to raise the membership fees, which have been held by successive Boards at the same level for the past 10 years.

After much discussion, we agreed that we would need to increase the individual annual membership fee by £4.00 to £18.00 and other forms of membership by a similar percentage. There will be a larger increase in the overseas members' premium in order to recover postage costs. The offer of 5 years membership for the price of 4 will remain in place and offers members old and new the advantage of paying less for their membership.

The full breakdown of the new subscription fees, including additional costs paid by, for example, overseas members, is as follows:-

One Year    Five Years

New Members and Lapsed Members £23 £77
Renewal of Membership £18 £72
Household Members £6 £24
Arrivee Fee for Life Members £11 £55

Overseas Members pay the above rates, but also a postal surcharge of £9 per annum

The Household Membership fee is payable for each additional person, with just a single copy of Arrivée per household.

In tandem with this, we looked at our other prices, including fees charged to event organisers for services relating to events such as registration, validation and recording. These have not changed for much longer than subscriptions, and in some cases have gone down. Prices of medals and badges ordered through organisers were last raised some years before the last subscription increase, and in some cases are currently lower than they were a decade ago. These will go up in price at a similar rate to subscriptions. Amending these costs is logistically more challenging for all involved and our aim is to minimise inconvenience for organisers as much as possible. We will circulate details of the proposed charges to organisers as soon as possible but, taken overall, they are likely to amount to an average of about an additional 30p for each person entering an event.

Prices of badges and medals purchased from the online Badge and Medal Shop and from other AUK stockholders will also rise.

It was also agreed to increase the temporary membership fee for non-members riding events by £1 to £3.

We have also looked at the possibilities of re-scheduling the rest of the IT Refresh project so that its development and implementation are spread out over a longer period, and how that will affect our finances. We will continue to monitor these factors.

Given the need to safeguard Audax UK's financial position while meeting possible future development costs, the Board agreed that it would be appropriate in this instance to use its ability conferred by the Articles of Association to set revised levels of subscriptions, and the new fees will apply with immediate effect.

The proposed changes to charges made to organisers for services provided by AUK (e.g. brevet cards, validations) will be placed before the AGM in February for implementation upon 1 March 2019 if approved by members. The Events Secretary will liaise with event organisers to ensure that any fees or charges collected by organisers and transferred to AUK will be payable at the rates applicable when they are paid by the event entrants concerned.

I hope that members will appreciate that these have not been easy decisions to make and will recognise the importance of the Board taking action now rather than allowing potential problems to accumulate for the future. Even taking into account the proposed increases, Audax UK events represent substantially better value than the majority of similar cycling events. While we have allowed in our planning for the possibility that a small number of members may consider the additional subscription to be an excessive amount and choose not to remain with us, I am confident that, overall, our membership will continue to grow, and that Audax UK will continue to thrive.