How does anyone actually do a 200 Km ride in one day ??

[Sea of vapours]

I have to admit I didn't know that. I got my first GPS in 2002 I think so I thought I was a relatively early adopter. But not that early!

GPS receivers on yachts (for example) were appearing in the late 80s or early 90s, but were quite large devices. I bought my first hand held gps receiver in 1995, and i think hand held devices were very new indeed then. In practice, selective availability wasn't much of an issue as the receivers didn't have in-built maps and, as @Ajax Bay , says, 100m accuracy or better (95% of the time iirc) was fine for most purposes, if a little irritating.

 

[Dayvo]

I'm planning to attempt a 200+ mile (371 km actually) ride around mid-summer.

I have the benefit of approx. 21 hours of daylight and three hours of gloomy light. My route is also slightly downhill the majority of the way and away from large towns and without traffic lights to slow my progress until the last 20 miles or so.

I plan to eat/snack little and often with a better meal just over half way. My only concern is fatigue as I'll be working a full day (a Friday) before a four-hour train journey and hoping to start at midnight.

At this stage I'm looking at a 16-18 hour journey but anything could happen and probably will.

 

[jefmcg]

Commercial GPS signal and equipment good enough (and small and light enough) to provide evidence of rough track cycled were available in the '90s (and being widely used on sailing yachts iirc). The selective availability meant that one could not rely on accuracy some of the time, but within 100m would have been good enough to 'prove' a DIY audax ride by GPS, were Audax UK to have been able to make the conceptual/pychological leap of faith 20 years ago. (Elements still struggling now, I think.).

OK, the etrex was out in 1999, and that's battery powered, so logging a ride was just possible at the turn of the century. But you then have to get the data off the device and send it in. After getting the data off the device, then next question is what format to use. GPX was only defined in 2002, so before that I guess there was only device specific formats. So that means ride organisers have to understand every portable GPS log format. And a way of opening them to verify they are of the ride - ie some sort of mapping program. Then how to send it? Easy if you and the organiser are both on the internet, just send it as a MIME attachment. But if not? CD rom burners were not common then, and apple had phased out floppy disks, so there wasn't any universal media you could just pop in a padded envelope.

Etc etc. GPS validation would have been a frightful faff 95-99, and impossible for the rest of the 20th century. I think we can rule that out as a simpler system.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Sorry, I've lost the plot here. Remind me, why do we care what was possible 16 or more years ago?

I suppose I should read back through the thread, but posting more waffle is preferable.

 

[jefmcg]

Sorry, I've lost the plot here. Remind me, why do we care what was possible 16 or more years ago?

I suppose I should read back through the thread, but posting more waffle is preferable.

Previously on Lost:
I was curious if @CarlP had a simpler idea on how to run rides like an audax without asking for receipts, but I foolishly didn't say "without using GPS", instead I said "using 20th century technology" which inspired people to go down the rabbit hole to prove that you could have used GPS in the late 90s, even though it clearly would have not been "simpler".

Now read on ....

 

[martint235]

Have we concluded that 200km in a day is just a question of logistics and food? Can I go back to sleep now?

 

[Dogtrousers]

Have we concluded that 200km in a day is just a question of logistics and food? Can I go back to sleep now?

Please keep up. We're now trying to work out how people managed in the 70s, navigating with sextants, riding Raleigh Choppers, with nothing to eat except Curly Wurlies and Opal Fruits.

 

[martint235]

Please keep up. We're now trying to work out how people managed in the 70s, navigating with sextants, riding Raleigh Choppers, with nothing to eat except Curly Wurlies and Opal Fruits.

But.....but.....but..... I thought it had been decided that was a rabbit hole we no longer wanted to be in (I, in particular, find rabbit holes to be very cramped places YMMV)

 

[mjr]

It's very unlikely I'll ever do one from what I've read about them, seems like a lot of faffing about to me just to ride my bike.

That's a hilarious assessment of Audax when it's from someone who claims "Sportives are great fun" and calls the very faffy RideLondonSurrey 100 "brilliant fun".

 

[Spinney]

Mod note (edited)
All the off-topic posts about spoilers have been removed.

 

[jefmcg]

(wow, quite a thread derail, especially after "All further discussion of spoilers in this thread is closed". Oh well, anyone mind if I go back to the similarly off topic audax discussion?)

That's a hilarious assessment of Audax when it's from someone who claims "Sportives are great fun" and calls the very faffy RideLondonSurrey 100 "brilliant fun".

Oh, lol.

I had just assumed that if he thought audaxing ruined a nice ride, then all the faff of massed starts, timing chips, gels stations would be repugnant. Hell, the start of LEL was not nearly as big a palaver as the start of RideLondon - which is more than 10 times as many people, so no surprise there, just assumed none of them were palaver haters.

But, hey ho, nowt as queer, I guess.

 

[Dave7]

Have we concluded that 200km in a day is just a question of logistics and food? Can I go back to sleep now?

You may. It seemed a simple question when I posted it. Now my head hurts

 

[Ian H]

Okay. Just for fun, let's up the ante: 200k is a day ride, 300k is a long day ride, 400k is a very long day ride.

 

[AndyRM]

None of those distances represent a problem for serious cyclists.

 

[martint235]

Okay. Just for fun, let's up the ante: 200k is a day ride, 300k is a long day ride, 400k is a very long day ride.

I need another 8 miles to get my 400km but to be frank when I got to my house at 242 miles I really couldn't be a***d