Randomwhat?

In my 2017 round up I told you about starting to enter Audax UK events; these come in two flavours, Randoneés and Populaires; Audax UK strictly speaking don't actually authorise Audax events, they're group rides aiming to complete a distance at a set average speed rather than epic solo rides but for some reason the name has stuck in the English speaking world.

The critical differences between a Populaire and a Randonee are the distance and speed allowed.

A AUK Populaire can be validated at 50, 100, 150km or any Randoneé distance with a speed range lower than a Randoneé; the general aim of these is to help introduce people to long distance riding.

A AUK Randoneé however is a ride of 200km or more and validated by AUK and in some cases also by Audax Club Parisien (ACP) "BRM" or Les Randoneurs Mondaiux (LRM) "RM" depending on the distance. The Average speed range change depending on distance and organizer, with 14.3 or 15kmh used as the lower limit on 200 to 699km rides and the upper limit is determined by the Organizer and can be no more than 30kmh which is usually what it's set at, though 25Kmh is used.

So basically unless you
a) Time Trial and so are really fast
b) Are really slow
c) Need to sleep
or d) Take a very long break somewhere
It's easy enough to take the approach of just stomping on the pedals as appropriate; or at least that's my approach on 200s


AUK also provide a load of extra targets, such as the Points championships (1 point per 100km on BR(M) events), RandoneeRoundTheYear, the Randoneur and Brevet awards, and a handful of others. These supplement the ACP validation and awards which you need to both Pre-Qualify and Qualify for Paris-Brest-Paris; maybe more on that in another post.

So that's a sort of introduction to what I've found myself riding; it's fun honest!