I might be able to enter a 200k Audax this weekend. My fantastic wife has let me go for the day, so all I need is to sort out my bike and enter.

Does anyone have any tips? Or should I just show up and hope for the best?

Thanks!

What one?
A 200 is really just a long ride. The rules regarding speed and the navigation should keep you in check.

No need to mention a bike in good order and good clothing.
Food you’ll need food. Though CPs are often good places to fill up.
IIRC you need lights even for a 200k just in case you get caught out, regardless of how fit and fast you might be.

So, been on an Audax then I guess….

Did it not go well?

Let’s just say I now have a visceral understanding of why roadies are so obsessive about bike fit.

Finished in just under ten hours. But I think before I do another one I’m going to get a bike with a nice springy frame and the fattest road tyres available. And gears. And a GPS. Getting lost is very boring. And some new bar tape.

And gears.

You did 200km SS? Nice.

You did 200km SS? Nice.

Fixed. Towards the end I was counting the pedal strokes and doing the obvious maths 🙂

200km FIXED singlespeed? 😯 that sounds brutal… good work! 🙂

200k on fixed, well done that man <winces>

Think I did one 200k on fixed in about 1985 when I was very fit & only 20. Took the mudguards off that bike after that so I wouldn’t be tempted to use it again.

My top tips for audax?

Remember to take a pencil to right down the answers at the info check points – the “regulars” lose their sense of humour when an entire pack of MAMILs on carbon road bikes hold them up borrowing theirs because they didn’t bring a pencil.

Find some way of having the directions in front of you, ie handlebar mounted holders – the “regulars” get their sense of humour back when they sail straight through a junction following the directions under their noses and overtake the packs of MAMILs on carbon road bikes who are scrabbling to get soggy and torn bits of directions out of their team replica jersey pockets. Truly is an event for hares and tortoises

But 200km on a fixie – you are either a hero or certifiably insane!

200km fixed; good effort!

I did 100km fixed once; my legs were still trying to pedal in bed that night.

Very well done, but fixed and 200km for your first Audax? No sympathy here, you knew that was loading the dice against you!

Definitely worth getting a GPS with routing, 200km off brevet cards is a lot of paying attention. Fat tyres isn’t necessarily a good idea for long rides though, they do add a fair bit of drag and over 200km it all adds up. You can get some pretty fast but compliant 25s these days.

What one was it? I was meant to do the ‘Double Dutch’ but the couple that were to pick me up never showed?
Good in a way really, as five miles into my ride that day my wheel shed a spoke. Carried on for a bit then they all started to go. So it would have been a miserable day.

<waves!>

It was the Double Dutch – Huntingdon->King’s Lynn and back via some very empty bits of fenland.

Nothing like as hilly as Miketually’s trip thankfully, but the climb out of the fens and back into Huntingdonshire hurt a lot more than a gradient of about 1:50 should have done!

That saddle. I may never be able to use my organs of procreation again….

200k fixed…? Not sure if you deserve sympathy or admiration. Well done though

Yeah, mine was a bit hilly 🙂

Hehe. Been there, dun that – (Dunwich Dynamo 2/3 yrs ago – done fixed with a 5 led front light – hit a pothole I couldn’t see so hard nearly crashed and lost the ability to procreate)
Put gears on my bike shortly after…

“200k fixed…? Not sure if you deserve sympathy or admiration. Well done though”

Pah! Remember Steve Abraham? “The points record, set in 2007, is 405 by Steve Abraham. Yes, that is 40,500km completed in Audax events between November 2006, the start of the Audax calendar, and October 2007. He did much of it on fixed wheel too.”

He did a diary article in the AUK magazine about that year, incredible reading. Don’t know what he does but I always thought the only job he could possibly have was a tester in a bed factory.