Addicted to the Audax archive

I’ve built up a fair amount of data over the years I’ve been involved with longdistance cycling. I’ve got five big drives attached to my Mac – and I occasionally think about properly cataloguing all that information.

That means trawling through a bewildering array of downloaded files and subsequent treatments of that information. That can then lead to reviewing films I’ve uploaded to You Tube and Vimeo, and looking at DVDs and Blu-Rays I’ve produced. So it’s a bit of black hole – I get dragged into the pit, only to emerge hours later.

It’s a process that’s complicated by collaboration with my partner Heather Swift, and with my good friend David Robinson over the years. Occasionally I’ll come across a file that I didn’t consider significant at the time. The accompanying picture of a page from the newspaper Le Perche from 22 August 2007, during Paris-Brest-Paris, is a good example. It gave me pause for thought.

Audax is about documentation. It originates from efforts to sell popular newspapers in a slack time during the summer. The page from Le Perche shows that the traditions of local papers selling to those who like to see their name in the papers is alive and well.

But the subject is anything but parochial. The riders at PBP come from over 60 countries. Audax is a bemusing blend of the local and the worldwide. The internet has enabled us to access that international community online, but there’s so much data, and so much “churn”, that having hard copy in your hand is still a powerful form of validation - and Audax is very much about validation.

The problem with attempting to curate my own archive is knowing where the boundaries are. I look at the “Le Perche” photos, and I know that number 6773 was John Barkman, so I can go to the PBP results and find his 2007 time. I also know that he was the fastest AUK rider in 2015, and that I’ve got a number of interviews with him, and footage of him riding in various events. There’s a lot of additional information available.

One of the staples of local papers are births, marriages and deaths, and it’s inevitable that I compile the occasional tribute piece. That’s a strange feeling, as if there are ghosts in my machinery. One example was the Japanese rider “Mickey” Ina. I came across a still picture of him recently, celebrating with a “Sumo” display at the finish of a 1,200 km Audax in Addicted to the Audax archive Long-distance cyclist Damon Peacock spends much of his time combining his bike-related hobbies with the creation of videos about all things Audax. Here he describes his compulsion to collect data, record events and document activities…

to the Audax archive ❝ … Audax is about documentation. It originates from efforts to sell popular newspapers in a slack time during the summer

❞

Ireland. I used a video of him doing that at the time, and forgot I had the still.

I really should tidy up my archive, and I should start with the more personal stuff. A typical example is this picture of a group which formed at the campsite at PBP 2007. The bloke with the beard in the middle at the back was an Italian chancer called Riccardo. He scrounged a tent off us, then a back wheel – which he somehow managed to ruin. It was his birthday the other day, so I posted the picture on his Facebook page.

❝…It’s a bit of black hole – I get dragged into the pit, only to emerge hours later

❞

From left, Martin Newstead, Riccardo Gravina, Mike Thompson, Heather Swift and Damon Peacock. PBP campsite after the event 2007