Audax rides

Yeah guess so.....

Was only 2 months off completing it since it restarted back in August as well.

Yeah, missus has 3 months left I think.

I couldn't find the bit in that which says you couldn't ride from one Tier 4 area into another though, that was the problem. It depends how you define your Tier 4 area - Audax UK inferred London's famous London but as @grams says my understanding was that 'your Tier 4 area' = 'The Tier 4 area' and it was OK as long as you didn't leave Tier 4...

Anyway, all moot now - what we need to worry about now is what the wonderfully vague 'local' means!

It will definitely be Scotland too as also locked down. I've lost track of where Wales is at but can't imagine it will be any different.

It depends how you define your Tier 4 area

AUK pointed me towards this text:
"Each bullet point on this list constitutes an ‘area’ for the purposes of guidance."

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/full-list-of-local-restriction-tiers-by-area

Which was very easy to miss, and not present on some of the other pages that listed Tier 4 areas, because we're run by fractal incompetence.

That has now disappeared!

Yep, all validations are off for now.

I guess the silver lining is that I don't need to ride this, which I was planning to at the weekend to keep the RRtY wheel turning. I saw one of the ACH guys did a 200km exclusively within the South London suburbs last weekend, must have been incredibly stop-start, but great effort.

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/34961250

I'm taking 'local' to mean my usual 100km loop, no stops and completely self-sufficient, prepared to walk home if it came to it.

Bar a catastrophic frame failure I'm back to carrying spare hangar / kevlar spoke / zip ties etc, though tbh I usually have that stuff with me anyways.

Is it possible to run a route that is a 10km loop 20 times for a DIY 200 ride? Not that I want to do this but is there any route rules that mean you can't repeat sections several times, or repeat control points through the ride? Alternatively a route that goes 25km North from a point then back on the reverse of the route, then the same out East, South and West up to 200? It might be written somewhere obvious as I've never looked into it with any depth. Just something I've wondered about.

Yes, you can't repeat sections, other than small linking bits

Yeah, it's just 'not audax'.

Some joker would try and do a 600 around Regent's Park or something

Had thought there must be something in place, I've probably read something that outlines it but just skipped over it. Would be absolute shit and think it would feel kind of the opposite of what audax 'is' to me, but just wondered if it was the case as I say.

Yeah, that's how I'm interpreting the rules too. Thanks for the rear derailleur hanger reminder, I actually needed my spare one a couple of weeks back and really should get another.

Yeah they're one of those things you need 1 in every 500 rides, but it's sod's law...

I remember someone I know getting a train home with a snapped chain in the last lockdown. I didn't say anything at the time, but thought if you can't fix a snapped chain, then maybe don't ride somewhere you would need to get a train home from : /

Alternatively a route that goes 25km North from a point then back on the reverse of the route, then the same out East, South and West up to 200?

This is allowed. There are a few calendar events like this with a central HQ. The [Mille Pennines] is probably the biggest one.
https://ridewithgps.com/routes/22806039

Yes, you can't repeat sections, other than small linking bits

I think the phrase is "can't unnecessarily repeat sections". So you can use the same section in/out of a control multiple times if you don't have any other choice but the route should diverge as soon as reasonably possible.

It's to allow rides like the many loop "cloverleaf" rides from the 'Uts in Henham/Ugley. There are only really 3 directions you can go from the huts and so a ride made up of multiple loops has to use some of the same roads for a bit, but then each loop then goes off in its own direction as soon as it can.

(In all the times I've done an 'Uts ride I've never been to Little Henham (since it just loops back onto the other road. Might have to do that next time I'm ever up that way.)

Watched the Rick Stein programmes about Cornwall (Mrs GB's parents retired there having had a holiday home there for 40+ years, and we go there a lot on holidays).

There was a bit about Launceston and the Norman castle.

Mrs GB: "I don't think I've ever been there, never knew about the castle."
MiniGB: "Dad, let me guess, you've cycled through there."
Me: "Possibly, but if I have I can't remember it at all. I'd hope I'd remember that castle if I'd seen it."

Lo and behold, ~115km in to the Kernow & South West 600 I cycled right past the castle, and it would have been in broad daylight. Absolutely no memory of it.

Meh.

Absolutely no memory of it.

All my bike rides, always.

Don't think I received an email about this following the government update last month?

https://audax.uk/news/covid-update-23-february-2021/

It was buried in the awful Audax forum and YACF but no, I don't think they emailed.

TL;DR -
From 29 March onwards you can validate DIYS, permanent and calendar events up to 300km again.

Then some stuff around Step 3, Step 4 and the 21 June which I wouldn't get too excited about just yet, either from a pub-going perspective, or a 'riding a calendar event with 30 other riders' perspective.

I do worry I'm missing lots of important information by not bothering with the Audax forum. Glad I checked the site today, will start to plan out some DIY dates.

Have they announced anything about a RRtY buffer on there or how the resumption will be in place? I seem to recall they had something when the last easing of restrictions happened.

If I remember right it was a hasty committee meeting a few weeks ago, I would expect some more comms soon clarifying things, hopefully...

I imagine (YMMV) RRtY will go as it did last year - once you're able to validate DIYs again, you can resume RRtY with a grace period if you're not wanting to resume right away.

Entered my first calendar event since March last year, the KW Gentley Bentley in April.

Remains to be seen if it won't end up being run as an x-rated event depending on where we go with lockdown, still very much looking forward to riding a similar route to some other riders at sensibly-spaced intervals however.

entries closed :(

Oh wow, must be some pent-up audax demand, I think they only went up on Friday.

Might have limited the numbers more than in a regular year, I guess.