21/05/22
Continuing my form from the attempted 200 km I didn’t quite finish this one, but more as a result of being in a strop than being done in. I will not be riding this again, nor I hate to say anything else by the organiser.
I know that the majority of people use a GPS unit for navigation, but not all of us do neither is it a requirement. It *is* however a requirement that the org provides a route sheet, and IMHO (and I hope that of AUK) it should be of sufficient quality that a rider can follow the route using it alone. This one was more like a series of comments on the GPX file. It wasn’t only me who was struggling with it; BB (an experienced audaxer) who is another GPS-less rider was also having problems but unlike me doesn’t have a smart phone he can use to check a map, so was resorting to knocking on people’s doors to find out where he was.
In addition to this (again this was commented on by others) the info control instructions were not very helpful, e.g. ‘bus stop before bridge’, so you had to get to the bridge and retrace in order to find the right one.
Eventually I realised I had missed a turn to another info control and decided I wasn’t going back to find it, so I texted the org to let them know I would be a DNF, and made my way back to the car I had hired* by the most sensible route. In the last few km in the dark I heard, but did not see, another cyclist singing as they road along in the night.
*Although Northallerton is train-friendly, it isn’t during the hours that are required for a 300 km.
285 km, 22.4 kph average