INSIDE ISSUE 149

Sir, Having just read the letter (Arrivée. 148 – “Who are you calling pathetic?”), I feel I have to write in support of your editorial. I thought the piece was written in good humour and not meant offensively.

It was probably the funniest editorial I have read in a bike magazine ever. It was the first thing I read in this current edition.

I found myself in sympathy with your views on non-real cycling and while I accept that, especially since lockdown, turbo training has become very popular, important and enjoyable to many people and also that it is useful for training for those with injuries preventing them riding, I am still resisting it and keeping my mileage real.

As I am so often out riding my bike in the real world, my skirting boards definitely need repainting! Keep writing excellent editorials.

[Tony Lennox responds: Thanks, James. To be honest, being reasonably thick-skinned, I’ve no problem with anyone taking offence at my opinions. In hindsight, my observations on the use of indoor bikes was probably badly-timed… just as we were all going into lockdown. As you say, I’m sure turbo trainers have provided many Audaxers with a healthy outlet during the pandemic.]

Sir, I took over from Peter Lewis as Events Services Director and Recorder in March this year. Peter has performed these roles admirably for many years and I am sure you will all join in thanking him for his work. I’m also grateful for his patience with my questions during the handover as I appreciate for some time he has been extraordinarily busy with his “real-world” work.

My appointment did, of course, fortuitously coincide with the arrival of COVID-19 and very soon events were put on hold which has meant that the majority of the Events Services team has enjoyed a hiatus.

However, no such luck for the recorder as a backlog of tasks had built up and the results of the recent membership survey showed that there was some dissatisfaction with the time it was taking to respond to tasks such as multi-year brevet validations, the additions of overseas rides and finalisation of PBP results.

I’m pleased to say that I completed working through the backlog of overseas ride claims by the middle of April and brevet claims by the beginning of June. If you have submitted a claim and not heard from me then please resubmit it via the online form or the email address below.

It is also worth mentioning that now is a good time to look through your results to see if you qualify for any multi-year brevets as these are not currently awarded automatically: you do need to send me a claim before you can order medals or badges from Allan in the shop. The requirements can be found on the page https://audax.uk/results/achievementawards/brevet-awards/ or by web search for “brevet award series”.

I have also been finalising the results of last year’s PBP. This exercise requires manual checking of the results provided by ACP (which seem to have existed in several “final” forms this time around) and correlation with active Audax UK members by name as AUK numbers are not part of the PBP registration process.

Peter had done much of the work and I will have completed it by the time you are enjoying this edition of Arrivée. If you completed PBP last year and it does not appear in your records then please contact me so that I can resolve this with you.

For queries relating to brevet validations, addition of overseas rides (including PBP) or other rider record updates please contact me at recorder@audax.uk. For any general Event Services queries please contact me at services@audax.uk.

The gradual easing of lockdown that started in May allowed us to start planning for our own re-start.

The first questions to be considered at our teleconferences in June were; do we aim to resume at the same time across the whole of the UK and are we willing to validate some types of events or distances ahead of others? The answer to both questions was yes so we had our starting point.

One of the real challenges for AUK throughout has been the need to take account of legislation and guidance across the UK. At a superficial level the measures were moving in the same direction and at similar speeds across the country but the UK Government and the Devolved Administrations have sought to differentiate themselves from each other in the detail. Even if we had not decided to proceed on a one nation basis, the work would have been the same.

Following our quarterly board meeting on 8 July we announced that we intended to start validating permanent events of up to a nominal distance of 200km from the 1st of August. This was soon followed by more detailed guidance for those looking to get back on the RRtY treadmill. We also applied a rider limit to each event route for each day based on the restrictions on different households meeting