1st Audax - Advice please

[Greenbank]

Brave. Seriously. It is certainly one of the tougher 100s in the SE.

Grimpeurs are at the serious end of the scale. 1700m of climbing in 100km is pretty damn hilly. Not impossible at all, but probably not ideal for a first Audax unless you really *REALLY* enjoy lots of climbing.

If it's local to you, you might want to look at the map (on the calendar entry page on the Audax website) and try and work out where it goes and give bits of it a try. That'll give you a feel for it.

 

[Bugner]

Bugger

Maybe I will do the 50k version and see what else is available on the Audax site?

 

[marinyork]

Grimpeurs are at the serious end of the scale. 1700m of climbing in 100km is pretty damn hilly. Not impossible at all, but probably not ideal for a first Audax unless you really *REALLY* enjoy lots of climbing.

If it's local to you, you might want to look at the map (on the calendar entry page on the Audax website) and try and work out where it goes and give bits of it a try. That'll give you a feel for it.

Thank you very much. That's made me feel great . I haven't done any audaxes yet but I did an Audax distance in December that had 5000ft of climbing.

 

[stevevw]

How about this ride
http://www.stevenagectc.org.uk/ Stevenage Start of Summertime Specials. I am going to do the 115km but there is an option of 210km if you are brave.

 

[yello]

How about this ride
http://www.stevenagectc.org.uk/ Stevenage Start of Summertime Specials.

That's the ones I meant. Very well organised, good route sheets and well attended. If the weather's good, the 100 really is a good ride.

Have a go at the Invicta 100 if you like. My first audax was the now no more Hilly Chilterns 100. I decided on that one because it was easy for me to get to, no other reason. I thoroughly enjoyed it too and did it every year following as a kind of anniversary thing!

 

[vernon]

Thank you very much. That's made me feel great . I haven't done any audaxes yet but I did an Audax distance in December that had 5000ft of climbing.

But did you have an acceptable average speed?

It's easy to do the distance and for some rides not so easy to do it within the time

 

[Greenbank]

Thank you very much. That's made me feel great . I haven't done any audaxes yet but I did an Audax distance in December that had 5000ft of climbing.

5000ft is 1524m. Pretty hilly for a 100km ride. Below average for a 200km ride.

That Kent Invicta is 100km and has 1700m of climbing (5500ft).

The Elenith is 305km and has 4727m (15,500ft) of climb.
The Midland Super Grimpeur is 300km and has 5390m (17,700ft) of climb. I'm kind of looking forward to this in a strange kind of way (I'm not a climber at all).

Or you could do the Maniac Grimpeur Permanent. 1000km long and contains a mere 17,000m (55,750ft) of climbing.

 

[marinyork]

But did you have an acceptable average speed?

It's easy to do the distance and for some rides not so easy to do it within the time

Yes. Substantially within audax time had it been an audax. Slow, but well that's me and I can see it improving.

 

[Zoom]

The 1066 in a couple of weeks is a good first event if you can get down to Hailsham in time; better get your skates on with an entry though. Or else the Worthing Winter Warmer the week after; also very good.

The Invicta Grimpeur's not that bad; it's all hills but only a couple of really steep ones.

 

[Nuncio]

My first Audax was a Super Grimpeur (Wes May Memorial) in 1999 - 2950m ascent in 100km. It put me off doing another one for a couple of years. On the other hand a) you are better prepared than I was, the Invicta's not as hilly and c) I finished well within time. Go for it I say. Don't worry about the time too much - the minimum ave speed is 12.2 kph and to go slower than that you would have to have a lot of stop time. So just go with aim of enjoying a long bike ride rather than worrying too much about speed and time.