Audax rides

Haha, going to be one of those parents who gets very irked of anyone else even entertains the idea of getting them a bike I reckon

I'm like that, but in my capacity as uncle rather than parent. My brother had the temerity to buy his daughter some awful BSO PoS from Halfords. She hated it, refused to ride it, and I can't say I blame her. She's now on an Islabike with a custom personalised candy/metal flake paint job, and she loves it. Rides it all the time.

Congratulations! I have a strider pro with rocking base waiting in the loft.

Did you send a question to Trainerroad about cycling while pregnant a while back? Listening to an old episode this morning and a "Niki" asked about cycling while pregnant. Seemed very coincidental :)

:)))

Hah! I don't know, did I? I do sometimes use Trainerroad.

I've been cycling as much as I can, but 50-60km is about my limit due to constantly needing the fucking toilet. Also if I go much further into Kent / Surrey, traversing multiple ridges of hills becomes a problem - my heart rate is a bit higher than normal at the moment and anything over about 8% sends me sky-rocketing. But for now if I carefully select my routes I'm pretty okay.

an Islabike with a custom personalised candy/metal flake paint job

I am very jealous of your niece's bike

Found a pic of it in paint.

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that is lovely

Is there a limit to how far over-distance you can go in a DIY?

Like could you have a 300k DIY that's actually 380km? I mean, it's kinda dumb but if you have a specific route in mind, why not? I guess I could extend it out to 400km and do it as a 400k but just wondering.

Yes, but there's not a lot of point. DIY the first 300 km in case you fall off / get hit by a car / lose interest at 302 km.

I don't mind failing it if I fail it (I won't fail it). That's the point of making the whole thing the audax. Then again I reckon I'd just extend it to a 400 and do that. Ta

I'm sure there's no overdistance limit but I also think you don't get more time for the overdistance, so you have to do the 380 in 300 time. But that's not going to be an issue for you.

For DIYs you get the time related to the shortest distance between controls distance of the ride, so you do get time for overdistance bits if your control points allow for it. DIYxGPS you'll obviously get all the extra time.

It's ECE legs where you only get the time for the nominal 50/100/etc distances.

I think this happened to me when I rode to Edinburgh a few years ago. It worked out about 735km but I think at the time I could only select a 600 so ended up essentially going 135km over for the 6 points. I messaged Paul Stewart about it beforehand and he was cool. Think there might be a 700 option now for DIY?

Anything from 300 to 399 will be validated as a 300.

Time allowance at 14.3kmph avverage for ride distance. As said before, this 'ride distance' is either the shortest distance between controls for advisory route, or actual distance if doing a mandatory route.

Beyond 399km AUK might kick up a bit of a fuss.

You can get more AAA points for the entire route though if it's hilly enough & you care about that sort of thing, assessed a few massively over-distance DIYs last year, partly I suspect for that reason.

Congratulations, Niki. Just like you to announce it on the Audax thread as opposed to the Dads and Mums thread. :)

Yeah, I remember some of Dave's from Westerley being overdistance, as he'd made them to collect AAA points. I'm just too lazy to alter routes and figure I'm quick enough to add the extra without much drama. But now I reckon I could just stretch it to 400k and get that validated instead.

Not sure when you're planning on riding it, but AUK are only validating up to 300km nominal distance at the moment.

Looking like mid-May when they'll increase this to 600 for perms.

https://audax.uk/static-data/covid-restrictions

It wasn't going to be for a while but I'm sure I saw up to 600s written somewhere. Oh well. Maybe it was just on the form and not "the law".

My club is looking to order high-viz vesta that are PBP compliant. Does anyone know of a good alternative? I personally think it would be nice if it doubled as a wind gilet.

The actual PBP ones?

Yes, thank you. Any contenders?

They might be fine for what you need/where you are in the world but the PBP ones are absolutely boiling btw. I think I've only worn mine once when it was really cold in the winter.

I've worn my PBP one a few times. I have a Rapha one but the reflectivity is shit and I was worried it wouldn't pass race scrutineering. It depends on what you're going to be doing with it. Summer evenings maybe not but all nighters up mountains, thicker gilets are golden.