Monday 29 March 2010

Audax - Like a quiz but on wheels

I did my first Audax ride yesterday, which I was talked into by my wife Ruth. The Fountains Monk'y Business 100k. A bit of a shock to the system after Sportives and Evans Rides where there's an arrow on every bush and it costs ten times as much to enter and they virtually babysit you all the way round.

My first plan was to follow someone who knew the way which went down the toilet when we missed the mass start after getting there late.  With hindsight it would have been a better idea to attach the roof bars and bike carriers to the car the night before, instead of on the morning of the event.

We're slow anyway, and then we were slowed further by a vicious headwind and a lack of map reading skills.  Also, a lack of awareness of what an Audax actually was didn't help.  


I'd expected a control to be a man with a clipboard and not a quiz which I had hastily shoved in my pocket at the rushed start.  I hadn't really listened to Ruth in advance, and I'd failed to understand the low cost low-tech nature of the event.  I thought it was just riding a bike, I didn't know I needed to pay attention to the colour of clock faces, and the names of pubs.

By the time we stopped for a bacon sandwich at Morrison's in Boroughbridge a third of the way round we were outside the schedule for finishing within the time limit, so we pretty much gave up on trying to beat the clock.  

We got further behind against the timings by the time we reached Ripley, and spent a bit more time arguing whether we should go to the Castle Tea Rooms or not for a stamp and to fill up with water.  We didn't bother.

There was no chance of developing an ego on the ride as all day we were vying for last place with Dave, a man twice our age on a Moulton folder. I first became aware of him when he sounded his bell at me outside Fountains Abbey because I was getting in his way.

We kept overtaking Dave but every time we stopped for any reason he would come flying past. Even stopping for a pee was enough to give him an edge.

Things got easier as we got some tailwind and downhill for the last 20 miles or so but we were so slow we got phoned by Gerry the organiser at 5.30 pm as we were passing Beningborough Hall to see if we were still on the course.

When we finally arrived back at Wiggington just inside the time limit we received a tremendous warm welcome from Gerry and his colleague and were fed with tea and scones and generally given lots of encouragement for having got to the end.

10 minutes or so later Dave the octagenarian arrived and informed us that this is just a training ride for him as he's warming up to do a veterans' 100 miler.

Despite a vicious headwind, limited map reading skills, a delayed start and a few disagreements along the way we did manage to finish within the generous time allowance.  But only just.


Technically we couldn't prove we'd completed the ride, as we'd missed many of the controls and had no proof for the ones we had been to, but I'm sure we came across as honest incompetents rather than liars, so we were counted as finishers.


I've done about another 10 or 11 Audaxes since this first one, some I've finished, some I've abandoned, but I'm pretty much still as incompetent now as I was on Day One.