UK Randonnees?

meanredspider

Are there such things? I did one in Belgium - 120k with 3 good food stops (put Rat Race Road Trip to shame), signposted, finished up and was given a Buff type thing, a waterproof valuables bag, a plate of pasta bolognese and dessert. All for a grand total of.....

€5 (£4)

I'd have paid that for the pasta but, with everything else, it's stunning value.

Anonymous

try audax uk?

samsbike

meanredspider wrote:

Are there such things? I did one in Belgium - 120k with 3 good food stops (put Rat Race Road Trip to shame), signposted, finished up and was given a Buff type thing, a waterproof valuables bag, a plate of pasta bolognese and dessert. All for a grand total of.....

€5 (£4)

I'd have paid that for the pasta but, with everything else, it's stunning value.

Do you mean with a caption and team or solo riding? If its the latter, its what he said audax uk.

vorsprung

Randonnees in the UK are run by Audax UK

There has never to my knowledge been a fully signed one but other than that they are similar to the continental model, cheap, good food, ride fast but don't care if you want to go slow.

Audax UK was set up to act as a body for the qualifying rides for the Paris-Brest-Paris so it's always looked to Europe for inspiration

meanredspider

Cool - yes, just solo or groups - very relaxed but fully signed (including "painted" arrows on the road) with four distance options 40, 60, 90 and 120k, excellent food and gifts at the end. Seemed too good to be true.

Anonymous

They are called audaxes and generally unsigned. Also known as reliance rides.

meanredspider

So what's the difference between that and a sportif? And why don't we call them randonnees too?

Anonymous

Sportives are much more expensive and generally have lots of support. Stands at the start, sign posted, broom wagon, sales, a proper affair. Randonnees are just a few like minded enthusiasts going for a jolly. Generally not signposted or supported. If your lucky you'll get a gpx for your garmin, otherwise you just print route cards and crack on!

I did a 140K one in Bristol recently and they had the women's institute doing the cake stops. God they were good!!

meanredspider

I was impressed by how this one was nearly a sportif but priced stupidly cheaply - I mean £4 for
Maps
GPX
signs
Road markings
3x food stops (water, juice, Coke, chocolate, pastries, cheese, salami, dried fruit, bananas, oranges, baguette etc)
Toilets (portaloos)
Spaghetti Bol, dessert, bread
Buff (alike)
Waterproof bag thing

It would put Sportives out of business

rolf_f

meanredspider wrote:

I was impressed by how this one was nearly a sportif but priced stupidly cheaply - I mean £4 for
Maps
GPX
signs
Road markings
3x food stops (water, juice, Coke, chocolate, pastries, cheese, salami, dried fruit, bananas, oranges, baguette etc)
Toilets (portaloos)
Spaghetti Bol, dessert, bread
Buff (alike)
Waterproof bag thing

It would put Sportives out of business

For some reason it doesn't.

I've only done one Audax so far. £4. Included tea, biscuits etc at the start. A brevet card to get stamped at the controls. A downloadable set of directions so you could make a reel for your wrist if you were a proper audaxer or just program a GPS if you weren't (both methods equally effective). The feed stops were a café and an outdoors centre - cheap enough and there was plenty of home made food at the end (inc the best rice pudding ever). The fee also included handing back your brevet card for verification and eventual posting back to you.

Not quite in the same ludicrous bargain price as yours but certainly sufficient to make Sportives seem completely pointless unless they have something special going for them.

meanredspider

Ah yes - I forgot the card thing (doubled as a map) and the whole stamping malarky. I'd be doing these things every weekend if I was there.

pblakeney

Rolf F wrote:

Not quite in the same ludicrous bargain price as yours but certainly sufficient to make Sportives seem completely pointless unless they have something special going for them.

I do believe that the above comment is the epitome of "nail on head".

I did one sportive and enjoy a bunch cycle with friends just as much but without the cost factor. A Randonnes seems to add some level of extra support whilst an audax is too solo. I can do that anytime.

rolf_f

PBlakeney wrote:

I did one sportive and enjoy a bunch cycle with friends just as much but without the cost factor. A Randonnes seems to add some level of extra support whilst an audax is too solo. I can do that anytime.

I think MRS point indicates that you can't really distinguish between a Randonee, an Audax or a Sportive just based on what is provided. What MRS describes, if he hadn't labelled it and quoted the price, everyone would have just said was a sportive. You are more likely to get route arrows and timing chips on a sportive but then if you have GPS you don't really need either of these.

Probably the only real difference between any of these is whether or not the organisers are doing it for money or just for the fun of it.

marcusjb

Rolf F wrote:

Probably the only real difference between any of these is whether or not the organisers are doing it for money or just for the fun of it.

That is pretty much all there is to it in reality.

Plenty of early season reliability rides are fully signposted, but run by clubs and cost only £5-10. Most reliability rides will be between 60 and 100km.

Audax are not signed, but again, run by clubs and individuals for the love of it, again most cost less than a tenner. Distances from 100 to 1400km.

Technology is certainly making paying a lot of money for way marking and timing seem like an outdated concept.

pblakeney

I was referring to the fact that sportives are now big business and all the ones that I see advertised are vastly over priced.

Stick to cycling with friends, clubs, audax or randonees. All are as much fun as a sportive, without the cost. But that is simply my opinion.

rubertoe

viewtopic.php?f=40007&t=12955231

My clubs audax.

Plenty of home made food stuffs along the way. Cheap and not big bussines.

The Rookie

A sportif is cycled more like a race, a big peloton makes road management much harder, strictly a Randonneur (An Audax is similar but seem to be run slightly differently) is a time trial and you shouldn't be riding as a large group. They are big in India (A Peloton would probably get mashed by a truck!) where they typically do 100, 200, 400 and 600km, the last taking around 38-40 hours.

mtb-idle

meanredspider wrote:

So what's the difference between that and a sportif? And why don't we call them randonnees too?

marketing

arthur_scrimshaw

I did the Petworth 200k Spordax last November (I think, it was cold anyway), from memory it was £7 or so to enter, the food was outstanding - organised by Dave Hudson who is also know as El Supremo because of the quality of the catering.
The other big difference between Audaxes and Sportives is that an Audax isn't timed (although there are minimum and maximum speeds to adhere to), your results are just finished or DNF.

meanredspider

MTB-Idle wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

So what's the difference between that and a sportif? And why don't we call them randonnees too?

marketing

Not strictly true - the BIG difference is that the randonnee seemed to be heavily sponsored: the marketing money going into the event rather into advertising the event (net money TO the entrants rather than AWAY from them )

mtb-idle

no, what I mean is that audax/randonnee whatever you want to call it has been around since the 50's when the bike was popular the first time around. Try one and you will see it is organised by and ridden by 'club' types (no offence intended) who can be the older type of rider. Committed to cycling and the club they put on a great event for the sake of riders not the organisers

But the MAMIL FPKW's in their Team Sky kit and replica bikes won't buy into that old school type of thing hence the 'sportive' was born. you now pay £45 'ish to do the same thing as an audax but the marketing and hype make you feel like you are Brudley Wiggins.

Me? If i want to ride a long distance I just arrange it with a few of my mates and go and do it on our own.

Horses for courses though, if people are happy then crack on

meanredspider

Except the Euro one I did. It was as good as most Sportives with guys in team Lycra and very very pricey bikes yet cost £4 and was very professionally organised and run. Not some sort of home-made "beardy " event. I'm not sure why we can't manage this.

rolf_f

meanredspider wrote:

Except the Euro one I did. It was as good as most Sportives with guys in team Lycra and very very pricey bikes yet cost £4 and was very professionally organised and run. Not some sort of home-made "beardy " event. I'm not sure why we can't manage this.

It's a myth that you only get bearded tourers on audaxes. There's plenty of mamil machinery on them as well.

TBH though, I'd far rather the charm of an audax than any 'professional' event - however cheap. Not really sure what the professional bit adds anyway. If you know where to go and where to eat and there are lots of like minded folk on the ride with you, what more do you want?

meanredspider

Rolf F wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

Except the Euro one I did. It was as good as most Sportives with guys in team Lycra and very very pricey bikes yet cost £4 and was very professionally organised and run. Not some sort of home-made "beardy " event. I'm not sure why we can't manage this.

It's a myth that you only get bearded tourers on audaxes. There's plenty of mamil machinery on them as well.

TBH though, I'd far rather the charm of an audax than any 'professional' event - however cheap. Not really sure what the professional bit adds anyway. If you know where to go and where to eat and there are lots of like minded folk on the ride with you, what more do you want?

Agree - I was only responding to the idea that audax wasn't for MAMILs.

The point on professionalism though is to encourage broader interest. There's no doubt that another myth that exists (and I associate with audaxing without ever seeing one - based mainly on the comments of audaxers on here) is that you need to be "hard" to audax - it's slightly reinforced by things like the lack of signposting (the professional bit I refer to amongst many things). These things will put off the novice. It seems we get a much lesser event for our £4 (however "charming" it might be) than our continental friends.

mtb-idle

yes agree, and clearly I am generalising/stereotyping hugely in my response above

pblakeney

There is also the "Charitee" factor where you are not allowed to do anything remotely interesting without collecting for some charity or other.

Blacktemplar

PBlakeney wrote:

There is also the "Charitee" factor where you are not allowed to do anything remotely interesting without collecting for some charity or other.

Or the "Challenger World" model where not a penny goes to the "Charity" - they just get to hang on the coat-tails of the event. Commercial exploitation of MAMILs with more money than sense.

andrewc3142

And not fitting any category, or lots of them (depending on you) there's the Dunwich Dynamo.