Audax rides

So if a French policeman was questioning your EN 1150 or EN ISO 20471, and you are a cyclist wearing an EN 1150 or EN ISO 20471 gilet, how do you proof it’s EN 1150 or EN ISO 20471?

Sewn in. One of those white polyester labels., could just take one from a cheap mesh and add it to your prefered reflective gilet.

It's mostly a box ticking exercise, because there are loads of good reflective tops.

Even for a small adult (158cm tall – 5ft 2in) a garment must incorporate a total of at least
0.32 m² of visible fluorescent material and 900 cm² of visible reflective material. In terms of
sheets of A4 paper, that is equivalent to about 5 sheets of fluorescent and 1½ sheets of

reflective material.
• These materials can be applied as a number of bands or panels but these must be
distributed reasonably evenly around the whole garment.
• Fluorescent material can be yellow, green, orange, red or pink (including a combination of
these)
• No piece of fluorescent material can be less than 50 mm (2 inches) wide *
• No piece of reflective material can be less than 25 mm (1 inch) wide*
• No single piece of reflective material can be smaller than 25 square centimetres in area
which is equivalent to a strip about 1inch x 4 inches or a 2 inch square*
• If a garment has sleeves, there must be at least one reflective panel/band on each sleeve.

"Look, over there, it's Jean-Michel Jarre!!"

flee

While I'm moaning I may as well chuck this in! My experience, from one extremely wet night, is that having a reflective over your waterproof buggers the waterproofness of your jacket by holding a layer of water right on its surface.

Totally agree with this. My PBP gilet is a bit of a nightmare in damp conditions as it holds a lot of water. I've reverted to either using my RCC reflective gilet or if wet the harness type.

how do you proof it’s EN 1150 or EN ISO 20471?

There will be a sewn-in label of conformance inside.

In the end I found the Koko one on Amazon for £6.29 with shipping. Some reviews there from cyclists mentioned that they found it considerably more breathable than a standard hi viz vest, so I'll see how that one works out.

There will be a sewn-in label of conformance inside.

The game is afoot!

So, anyone know how much these labels are? :)

A vest can be had for as little as £2

Have you checked your PBP 2015 gilet?

I wouldn't dare chop up that glorious piece of cycling history :D

The decathlon one is pretty windproof, certainly more than the Raceviz one.

Seems they do a few actually.

Yes they do.
This one looks like it would tick all the boxes to serve as both a reflective and a gilet:
https://www.decathlon.co.uk/p/hi-viz-cycling-jacket/_/R-p-305419?mc=8529335&c=GREEN

It has pockets which I regard as essential for a gilet nowadays. In fact it looks so good that I might buy it, even though the last thing I need is another gilet to add to my mountain of them.

Sorry.

No probs - I think it was you who recommended Raceviz, wasn't it? That was a good near miss! And a nicer colour.

Anyone got a 100k / 1AAA route that goes from somewhere in/near London to Eastbourne? Trying to create one and nothing I come up with gets points on the AAA site, even though RWGPS reports 1000m - 1500m climb for 100k to 135k of route.

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The threshold for 100 km is 1500m:

https://audax.uk/awards-pages/audax-altitude-award-aaa/aaa-points/

But I've over 1500 in other variants and I still can't get it to tick over a point. ie...

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Most of this ^ route is based off a 200k 3.75AAA route cut in half. Nothing I do seems lumpy enough.

It's 1500m per 100 km, so a 120 km route needs to be 1800m.

(or some 100 km section needs to be 1500m)

Most of this ^ route is based off a 200k 3.75AAA route cut in half. Nothing I do seems lumpy enough.

The other route might have been calculated using an older less accurate method.

What is it based on? I'd base it on the Shark going southbound, but pick up the route near Brasted after going along the north downs looking for hills. Then go over beachy head at the end if you need a bit more. Challenge will be keeping the distance down to 100km.

I did this the other week as a hilly way to Brasted. Obvs you can ignore the first bit as flat. And ignore after 84km.
https://ridewithgps.com/routes/37485446

Actually that is the problem, that you are already up to 84km by the time you hit the M25. But it's a good hilly route if you want one for another day, and you can keep going with more hills further East too. Maybe head for Ide Hill and the Shark route after 67km might work better?

IIRC one trick organisers used to do was not finish the route at a bottom of a hill. In that route, between 90 and 100km there's hardly any climbing (obviously, as you are dropping down hill). You could drop to the 95km mark, then turn, climb back to the peak and finish your official route. Then you'd just carry on as a normal nonaudax to Eastbourne.

@hippy - if you do this route can you let me know. I want to meet you at the top of Chalkpit Lane for the entertainment value.

This is the Shark, cut in half, with additional lumps at the end to get >1500 and it seems to work, actually getting 1.75 points now for 3k less distance.

Obviously this now needs me to ride 25k from Ealing to Greenwich beforehand.

I've just added the Ealing bit on and it still gets AAA points:
Total Distance: 140.4 km
Total Climbing: 1814 m
AAA Climbing: 1771 m
AAA Start: 18.2 km
AAA Distance: 119.5 km
AAA Points: 1.75

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Which Chalk Pit Lane are you talking about? Frank's route doesn't go near the one near Box Hill

It’s the lane heading north from Oxted, up to the road between Woldingham and the top of Titsey Hill. There’s a long pitch at a gradient around the 20% mark.

Here’s the Google maps link;

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Chalkpit+Ln,+Oxted/@51.2682026,-0.0343595,14z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x4875ff4c2273e33b:0x961ddc501b4d458c!8m2!3d51.2682026!4d-0.01685

That is a pig! First (and last) time I'd done it.

You think you've got to a corner and it will flatten off a bit afterwards, but it just goes on and on.