audax
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Amesbury Amble
The second Kingston Wheelers audax of the season and the 300km one in their Paris-Brest-Paris qualifier series. Due to the early start we went up the night before to sleep over on the scout hut floor, same as for Wander Wye last year. As with the WW I was riding with Simon. It’s cold when…
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Gently Bentley
As usual I ride too fast for the first hour. I know I’m riding too fast but I don’t like suburban London roads so the quicker I get off them the better. Also the weather forecast is generally good so I’ve brought the CAAD rather than the commuter slash winter audax bike. I always get…
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Not Quite The Hailsham 600 (reprise)
I walk through the door of the empty café. It’s almost 11am, prime Sunday brunch time. “Hello, you’re our first customer”, the girl behind the counter greets me. She looks bored as does another girl behind the counter looking at her phone. I’m soaked through and dripping water on the floor. My shoes squelch as…
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Wander Wye
Friday Sitting on the train to London a small amount of trepidation floats around my mind. I’ve yet to complete a 600 kilometre audax having failed to complete the Hailsham 600 and the DIY in France last year for different reasons. I know I can do the distance but it’s been a while since I’ve…
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Controlling
Almost half past 4, officially open. We wait. Stroll up the street to cable tie AUK Control signs to lamp posts. Wander back to the sports club… and wait. Scan the start list for familiar names, a few. Stare out of the window… and wait. The first rider pulls into the car park, wheels his…
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The (Not Quite) Midsummer 300
When I started to audax a few years back I came up with a 300km route that I planned to do on midsummer’s day – along the Sussex and southern Kent coast, then turn inland and cut across Romney Marsh over the Downs and through Canterbury to Whitstable on the north coast, and back to…
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Meridian Hills [AAA Brevet des Grimpeurs du Sud 200km audax perm]
Meeting friends on a cold dark petrol station forecourt. Sunrise viewed from up the hill by the golf course, a huge orange disc seemingly rising from the silver sea. Down on the weald frozen puddles and glistening hedgerow. Icy bends in the hollows, cornering by trying not to steer, a foot unclipped and leg held…
![Meridian Hills [AAA Brevet des Grimpeurs du Sud 200km audax perm]](https://themanfromicon.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/img_20161227_202410_894.jpg?w=1024)
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Down to Downs [AAA Brevet des Grimpeurs du Sud audax perm]
We start the climb up to Black Hill in darkness, up through Five Hundred Akre Wood, a tunnel of trees lit by the many lumens of our front lights. With few leaves on the trees the ridge of the Ashdown Forest can be seen shadowed ominously against the last remnants of twilight. It’s a long…
![Down to Downs [AAA Brevet des Grimpeurs du Sud audax perm]](https://themanfromicon.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/wp-1480428867785.jpg?w=1024)
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Cogidubnus Cheese and Cake Double Century
“Please take a banana. I hate them.” I chase wheels through the southwest fringes of London, from Richmond station over the Thames, out through Bushy Park and over the Thames again by Hampton Court Palace and then through leafy suburbia. I know that I am riding a bit harder than I want to be and…
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Scuffing the edges
Riding on the edge. Not the ragged edge but the blurred edge of what I think is possible. Travelling along ancient ways, drove roads and holloways. Ignoring the red and yellow lines on the map, following the narrow white lines left behind, the back roads and short cuts. Forgoing busy thoroughfares as if using a…
the man from icon 