Audax Riding- Is it just about the miles?

Summer 2020 AUDAX RIDING - IS IT JUST ABOUT THE MILES?

For those of you not familiar with this particular discipline it involves riding long distances against the clock, but there are no winners, or perhaps everyone is a winner.In days gone by it was old blokes with beards on steel touring bikes. Not any more, plenty or Titanium on the Audax circuit these days along with the usual mix of Carbon and Aluminium, my Dutch friend Trudi turns up on her everyday bike and wearing flat shoes and rides us all in to the ground. Audax is about distance and for distance you need comfort.

You have a maximum and a minimum time to get round a pre-set course with the benefit of a route sheet which reads a bit like a road book for a stage rally, or a gpx file you put in your Garmin or phone. At the start of the event you will be given a Brevet Card which will include control questions requiring answers, perhaps a distance on a signpost at a certain road junction and possibly a stamp control which may double as a feed stop or a receipt control to show a purchase and time. Stamp controls and receipt controls will have a time window in the same way that the whole event does. If you get to a control before the window “opens” then you have to wait idly by, or go to the café if there is one. If you get there too late, then you are “done for”, you can of course complete the ride, but won’t get your brevet card signed of at the end. It’s a simple concept based around average speeds and steady riding. Some like to get round as quick as they can, some it seems specialize in creeping back in to HQ with just minutes to spare, perhaps having stopped for a sit down lunch on the way. Taster events start at 50k, Brevet Populaires are 100k and then you start moving on to the serious stuff, 160’s, 200, 400’s 600s, London-EdinburghLondon and the ultimate Audax sufferfest, Paris-Brest-Paris which we covered in the last issue. To add to these organised events which take place throughout the year, you can organise your own events and register them with Audax UK.

I can guarantee that there will be Audax events near you throughout the year. The calendar on the AUK website lists all of them and can be searched geographically or by distance. Entry fees rarely exceed £10, including insurance for non AUK members. Some summer weekends will see 10 or a dozen events listed Saturday and Sunday and even the odd mid-week one. You are quickly lost for choice. There is a tradition that they have names which give hint of what is to come. The “Brum 200 Another Loop of Birmingham” run by West Midland Randonneurs seems pretty obvious to me, as does “Dustman Dave’s Demon Hilly” from Taunton - Exmoor calling, possibly one for the triple chain set brigade. Some are more obscure “Hellfire Corner” run as a 400k from Dingwall – where does that go I wonder and will you ever return? There’s no broom wagon on an Audax – you are on you own (or hopefully with your mates if you need help).

Are you already and Audax rider? If so then send Boots and Spurs an account of your adventures.