# Disappointing lack of response on safety from Audax organisers



## nickyboy (22 Sep 2016)

I was out for a ride about 10 days ago and was crawling up a steep hill. The road was very narrow and there were multiple blind bends with trees obscuring views.

There were also several cars going up (it's a popular area for walkers) too. About 20-30 cyclists came down the hill while I was going up. They were going way too fast, in the middle of the road around blind bends. More than one had to skid to a stop and edge around a car (there is only just enough room for a car and a bike to pass). The cyclists were going too fast for the conditions.

So I found out which cycling club had organised the Audax and sent them an email suggesting that in the future if they use this descent then they should make sure everyone is aware of its hazardous nature as an accident could very easily happen. Particularly as some cyclists were descending very quickly

No reply. Nothing. It's not as if I was a car driver having a rant. I was a fellow cyclist pointing out that it was a very tricky descent and some participants were going too fast


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## Fab Foodie (22 Sep 2016)

First rule of Audax .... You can't criticise an Audax


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## mjr (22 Sep 2016)

Someone sent an email and didn't get a reply. Quick, call the BBC! 

Contact them a different way and ask again. Unless you work in the industry, for all you know, your email was miscategorised as spam by your outgoing mailserver and never delivered, or was miscategorised as spam by their mailserver and has been put in a quarantine folder they've not read yet (more likely if you use one of the spammer havens like yahoo), or they've simply not looked at that mailbox yet because they're having a nice rest after the event.

Also, aren't most audax organiser details listed on aukweb.net so you could contact them directly instead of trying to go through their club? (And so avoiding one possible step for the message to be lost/misdirected.)


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## nickyboy (22 Sep 2016)

mjr said:


> Someone sent an email and didn't get a reply. Quick, call the BBC!
> 
> Contact them a different way and ask again. Unless you work in the industry, for all you know, your email was miscategorised as spam by your outgoing mailserver and never delivered, or was miscategorised as spam by their mailserver and has been put in a quarantine folder they've not read yet (more likely if you use one of the spammer havens like yahoo), or they've simply not looked at that mailbox yet because they're having a nice rest after the event.
> 
> Also, aren't most audax organiser details listed on aukweb.net so you could contact them directly instead of trying to go through their club? (And so avoiding one possible step for the message to be lost/misdirected.)



I contacted the email address for the audax first and got a bounceback message so I then sent it to the main email address for the cycling club that organised the event. Maybe nobody looks at the email regularly. Or maybe nobody gives a toss. Who knows


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## Fab Foodie (22 Sep 2016)

nickyboy said:


> I contacted the email address for the audax first and got a bounceback message so I then sent it to the main email address for the cycling club that organised the event. Maybe nobody looks at the email regularly. Or maybe nobody gives a toss. Who knows


I'd check that there isn't a bearded bloke in sandals wearing a tattyGilet following you home tonight ....


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## zizou (22 Sep 2016)

It's up to the riders themselves to ride to the road conditions, you can't expect a volunteer organiser to go over hundreds of km of road listing all the potential hazards and riders remembering them all. They will probably have had safety briefing at the start telling everyone to be careful, dont take risks on the descents and so on but how can they enforce that? In an amateur road race every road end and corner has to have at least 1 marshal and there are also a minimum of 6 cars in the convoy, 2 of them with commissaires who can pull riders out the race if they are riding like idiots. That's the only way to have a degree of control over those that are riding but having a similar set up for audax just isnt practical and pretty much goes against the whole ethos of the discipline!


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## mjr (22 Sep 2016)

zizou said:


> having a similar set up for audax just isnt practical and pretty much goes against the whole ethos of the discipline!


Well no, but it's nice to have particularly hazardous hazards noted on the route sheet. If their riding was below competence, it probably should be a matter for the traffic police, same as when people in car club point-to-points (do they still exist?) do silly things.


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## Ian H (22 Sep 2016)

The road was too narrow for a car and a bike to pass safely, which suggests the riders should have been in the middle. They were going slowly enough to stop for cars. I'm not quite sure where the problem lies.


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## Profpointy (22 Sep 2016)

Taking at face value the riders were driving stupidly I don't quite see what the organisers should say, given participants should reasonably be expected to look where they're going and be capable of riding a bike on public roads.

If they say "don't ride to fast round blind bends on this bit" does this imply its ok to ride stupidly elsewhere. Or should they also need to say "stop at traffic lights if they're red" or "don't oull out on busy riad without looking" listing all such places.

Maybe fair enough to say "hidden tramlines on the B123 near nether Wallop", but saying "don't ride stupidly round blind bends" - not really the organisers' responsibility in my view


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## mjr (22 Sep 2016)

Profpointy said:


> Maybe fair enough to say "hidden tramlines on the B123 near nether Wallop", but saying "don't ride stupidly round blind bends" - not really the organisers' responsibility in my view


But if they're as icky as the OP suggests, "beware blind bends" at the appropriate point on the sheet doesn't seem unreasonable. After all, how can anyone hide tramlines, really? The shiny metals and dents are a bit of a giveaway, but it's still reasonable to warn of hazards.


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## Flying Dodo (22 Sep 2016)

nickyboy said:


> So I found out which cycling club had organised the Audax and sent them an email suggesting that in the future if they use this descent then they should make sure everyone is aware of its hazardous nature as an accident could very easily happen. Particularly as some cyclists were descending very quickly



How do you know that the riders hadn't already been warned to descend slowly at that spot? And bear in in an organiser can't control what happens on the road. And as stated above, who's to decide what point in a road justifies a warning? Every one's assessment of risk is different.


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## Banjo (22 Sep 2016)

Audax UK takes safety very seriously.
Every accident reported back is listed and categorised on the severity from fatality down to no medical treatment needed.

You have to remember that audax events are open to everyone.you dont have to be a member of the organizing club or a member of audax uk to enter.

It would be impossible to warn riders of every blind bend or gravell strewn descent .

You may get a reply eventually organizers deal with mountains of correspondence .


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## Profpointy (22 Sep 2016)

mjr said:


> But if they're as icky as the OP suggests, "beware blind bends" at the appropriate point on the sheet doesn't seem unreasonable. After all, how can anyone hide tramlines, really? The shiny metals and dents are a bit of a giveaway, but it's still reasonable to warn of hazards.



Yebbut is anyone who is so unaware of simply looking where they are going us hardly going to listed to a safety warning in the blurb


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## Banjo (22 Sep 2016)

Fewer riders actually use routesheets these days .more and more just use gps .

The group of bleary eyed audaxers stood in a carpark getting a safety brief in the rain at 4 AM isnt likely to remember much of it.


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## Jimidh (22 Sep 2016)

I rode the Galloway Gallop Adventure Cross this weekend - at the start the starter explained that some of the downhill sections were dangerous and to be careful.

Still didn't stop me riding them as fast is I thought safe to do so. Some riders were even faster and some slower.

Everyone perception of risk and their ability to ride to the conditions is different.

Whilst not doubting the OPs tale of dangerous riding perhaps he was speaking from his own perception of risk and his abilities and not of those riding.


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## Dogtrousers (22 Sep 2016)

I don't know anything about what happens behind the scenes on audaxes, but if this was only 10 days ago the organiser may be very busy at the moment writing with a quill pen on parchment or whatever technology AUK use for processing finishers and validating results.


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## nickyboy (22 Sep 2016)

To help clarify, I only emailed the club because I thought the descent was particularly dangerous, cyclists on the audax were going (IMHO) significantly faster than was safe. I suggested to the cub organising it that, had they not done so already, it should be flagged on the audax route as a hazard.

What was actually happening was cars were stopping completely below blind bends as they could realise that cyclists were coming down too fast and if they tried to go up a cyclist was going to ride straight into them. The car drivers were pipping their horns to let cyclists know they were there and to slow down







This is the road


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## nickyboy (22 Sep 2016)

Jimidh said:


> Whilst not doubting the OPs tale of dangerous riding perhaps he was speaking from his own perception of risk and his abilities and not of those riding.



I'm one of the fastest descenders in the area (I'm built for it) and love to descend fast. But there is no way I would have gone down that road at the speed some audaxers were doing. It's extremely narrow, extremely steep and has loads of blind bends


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## PMarkey (23 Sep 2016)

> I understand that during the event I am on a private excursion on the public highway and that I am responsible for my
> own conduct. I agree to abide by Audax UK Regulations for this ride.



the above quote is from the AUK entry form and I have always understood this to mean that if I ride like a tit on my own head be it.
It should be remembered that your average Audax calendar event has a broad spectrum of riders ranging from grumpy old gits (me) and local riders wanting a longer ride with a few mates up to a full blown club run for a couple of the local clubs and whilst in your opinion the descent was hazardous I vaguely remember reading somewhere that routes on organised events usually have to be risk assessed ? theirs also the possibility that the group you witnessed was nothing to do with the Audax event and was just a club run out for a ride , I know I have run into large groups whilst out on perms and calendar events and have been aghast at the standard of riding even once being forced off the road by a large group descending a hill that I was ascending when I was heading towards Kettlewell on the Fleet moss Randonnee .
Hopefully the event organiser will contact you to clarify the situation but they may feel their is no case to answer as they had done everything required of them .

Paul


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## keithmac (23 Sep 2016)

nickyboy said:


> To help clarify, I only emailed the club because I thought the descent was particularly dangerous, cyclists on the audax were going (IMHO) significantly faster than was safe. I suggested to the cub organising it that, had they not done so already, it should be flagged on the audax route as a hazard.
> 
> What was actually happening was cars were stopping completely below blind bends as they could realise that cyclists were coming down too fast and if they tried to go up a cyclist was going to ride straight into them. The car drivers were pipping their horns to let cyclists know they were there and to slow down
> 
> ...



That's a poor show by the cyclists and I'm sure no one will deny that, thing is if a car had come into contact with a cyclist coming the other way they woud be at fault by default..

I


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## Ming the Merciless (27 Nov 2016)

Which audax was it, and how do you know they were riding it?


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## GrumpyGregry (27 Nov 2016)

nickyboy said:


> I was out for a ride about 10 days ago and was crawling up a steep hill. The road was very narrow and there were multiple blind bends with trees obscuring views.
> 
> There were also several cars going up (it's a popular area for walkers) too. About 20-30 cyclists came down the hill while I was going up. They were going way too fast, in the middle of the road around blind bends. More than one had to skid to a stop and edge around a car (there is only just enough room for a car and a bike to pass). The cyclists were going too fast for the conditions.
> 
> ...


In other words...

A group of riders positioned themselves on the carriageway appropriately, were descending at a speed within with their competency, avoided any collisions with each other, you, and any oncoming traffic and a good time was had by all?

Your opinion is they were going too fast. That's your opinion. You are entitled to it. You're not entitled to expect other riders, nor those who organise club rides and audaxes, to agree with it. That is the nature of opinions.

it isn't really up to the club to make riders aware of each and every potential hazard; it is up to riders to ride within their competency for the conditions, surely?


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## GrumpyGregry (27 Nov 2016)

keithmac said:


> That's a poor show by the cyclists and I'm sure no one will deny that, thing is if a car had come into contact with a cyclist coming the other way they woud be at fault by default..
> 
> I


I'd deny it was a poor show by the cyclists. No car was hit, no cyclist was hit, no collisions occurred. Yes, risks were taken. Risks are always taken; that is in the nature of riding on roads with motor traffic on them.


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## keithmac (27 Nov 2016)

More luck than judgement it sounded like to me..


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## Pale Rider (28 Nov 2016)

PMarkey said:


> the above quote is from the AUK entry form and I have always understood this to mean that if I ride like a tit on my own head be it.



Nicely put, and in the independent spirit that I understand to be audax.

I suggest AUK employ you to update their entry conditions.


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## PpPete (29 Nov 2016)

zizou said:


> .... you can't expect a volunteer organiser to go over hundreds of km of road ....


In the vast majority of cases the organiser (or a helper) DOES ride the route in the weeks before the event to check for things like missing signposts, imminent road closures, etc. There's also a mandatory risk assessment process before the event is accepted onto the AUK calendar. AUK as an organisation *does* take safety very seriously... but there are always going to be subjective judgements made by the organiser as to what should go in the RA, just as there will always be subjective judgements on the part of the riders (and any third parties) as to what constitutes safe riding.


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## nickyboy (30 Nov 2016)

Well whatever the rights and wrongs one thing's for sure....the organiser of the event didn't reply to my email. Disappointing really


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## PhilDawson8270 (30 Nov 2016)

GrumpyGregry said:


> In other words...
> 
> A group of riders positioned themselves on the carriageway appropriately, were descending at a speed within with their competency, avoided any collisions with each other, you, and any oncoming traffic and a good time was had by all?
> 
> ...




Cars were speeding around the country roads. In my opinion they were going too fast. But they used both sides of the road appropriately and didn't actually have an accident, and a good time was had.

It really isn't up to people to make drivers aware of potential hazards on narrow roads. Surely it's up to the driver to drive within their own competency?


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## dim (30 Nov 2016)

nickyboy said:


> To help clarify, I only emailed the club because I thought the descent was particularly dangerous, cyclists on the audax were going (IMHO) significantly faster than was safe. I suggested to the cub organising it that, had they not done so already, it should be flagged on the audax route as a hazard.
> 
> What was actually happening was cars were stopping completely below blind bends as they could realise that cyclists were coming down too fast and if they tried to go up a cyclist was going to ride straight into them. The car drivers were pipping their horns to let cyclists know they were there and to slow down
> 
> ...



nice road .... cars should not be allowed on there .... what happens if a car encounters another car going in the opposite direction?


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## PhilDawson8270 (30 Nov 2016)

dim said:


> nice road .... cars should not be allowed on there .... what happens if a car encounters another car going in the opposite direction?



one backs up to a passing point which are usually built into these kinds of road at various points.


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## jefmcg (30 Nov 2016)

If I received your email, I probably wouldn't reply either. I can't see any benefit arising from answering it and I can't imagine wanting to enter correspondence with a busy body who writes to tell me that a ride I have carefully curated (Audaxes are tested regularly) is dangerous. 

What _exactly_ did you say in the email? What answer would have satisfied you?

There is not much an organiser can do about riders going too fast for the conditions. It's a public road, so it's up to the riders to select a suitable speed. The organiser can add a safety note to the route sheet - and a lot of them do - but a lot of Audax riders are over 40, so need to stop and put on reading glasses to get the safety messages. Also too many warning messages are as bad as none at all. 

TMN galore to previous posters.


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## smutchin (30 Nov 2016)

zizou said:


> you can't expect a volunteer organiser to go over hundreds of km of road listing all the potential hazards and riders remembering them all.



Actually, that's exactly what organisers do, and what they are expected to do by AUK as part of the risk assessment when submitting a route.



> how can they enforce that?



It's not their responsibility to do so, and comparing an audax to a road race is overlooking the very different nature of those events. (ETA: on rereading your post, I see you were comparing in order to highlight the differences rather than to suggest audaxes should operate the same as road races... sorry, must pay better attention.)



mjr said:


> But if they're as icky as the OP suggests, "beware blind bends" at the appropriate point on the sheet doesn't seem unreasonable.



Indeed not. And in my experience, route sheets often contain such warnings - steep descents, cattle grids, loose surfaces etc.


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## smutchin (30 Nov 2016)

jefmcg said:


> If I received your email, I probably wouldn't reply either. I can't see any benefit arising from answering it and I can't imagine wanting to enter correspondence with a busy body who writes to tell me that a ride I have carefully curated (Audaxes are tested regularly) is dangerous.



Back when I had a job that involved answering correspondence, I had a stock letter for those people you didn't want to engage with: "Dear [name], Thank you for your letter of [date]. Your comments have been passed on to the editor and will be given due consideration. Yours sincerely..."

"Passed on to the editor" meant filed for him to look at if he ever felt so inclined.


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## mjr (30 Nov 2016)

smutchin said:


> Back when I had a job that involved answering correspondence, I had a stock letter for those people you didn't want to engage with: "Dear [name], Thank you for your letter of [date]. Your comments have been passed on to the editor and will be given due consideration. Yours sincerely..."


I've such an acknowledgment email too... but sometimes emails get lost on the way to the recipient and unless you want to get in a neverending loop of chasing acknowledgements for acknowledgements, you'd never know.


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## jefmcg (30 Nov 2016)

smutchin said:


> Back when I had a job that involved answering correspondence


Yes, that is kind of my point. No one involved with audax is paid to answer correspondence. Also, apparently they get harangued by DNS entrants demanding their £6 back.


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## Ian H (30 Nov 2016)

smutchin said:


> Actually, that's exactly what organisers do, and what they are expected to do by AUK as part of the risk assessment when submitting a route.


Well, not quite. All I would expect is for an organiser to know roughly how suitable a road was, e.g. speed and density of traffic, and having a rideable surface. 




smutchin said:


> Indeed not. And in my experience, route sheets often contain such warnings - steep descents, cattle grids, loose surfaces etc.



I keep warnings to general comments such as "some lanes may be steep or poorly surfaced". I would only comment specifically on a very peculiar hazard.


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## smutchin (30 Nov 2016)

Ian H said:


> Well, not quite. All I would expect is for an organiser to know roughly how suitable a road was, e.g. speed and density of traffic, and having a rideable surface.



I'd expect hazards to be few and far between on a well designed route, so "listing all the potential hazards" might not amount to more than one or two lines at most.

For example, I'm thinking of entering your Buzzard 600 next year. Knowing how experienced you are as both an organiser and rider, I imagine you're quite good at instinctively knowing which roads are best avoided, or which roads are preferable at certain times of day, so I wouldn't expect there to be an awful lot in the way of hazards on the route.

I would expect you (or an experienced, reliable helper) to have test-ridden all of the route ahead of the event (albeit not necessarily all at once).



> I keep warnings to general comments such as "some lanes may be steep or poorly surfaced". I would only comment specifically on a very peculiar hazard.



Well, yes, you don't want warnings every other line. But things like fords, cattle grids and tram lines would always be worth highlighting IMO.

Poor road surfaces are unfortunately a given in most parts of the UK, so I'd only expect a warning if there was an especially bad section (I can think of a few examples).

To get back to the OP, I don't think I would expect a warning for that descent - that doesn't strike me as a noteworthy hazard, notwithstanding his experience.


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## jefmcg (30 Nov 2016)

smutchin said:


> To get back to the OP, I don't think I would expect a warning for that descent - that doesn't strike me as a noteworthy hazard, notwithstanding his experience.


Yes, there is a fundamental assumption that audaxers know enough not to speed down narrow blind turns. If they need to be told that, then they are not experienced enough to ride audaxes and no amount of safety warnings just before a ride will fix that.


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## nickyboy (30 Nov 2016)

To give a bit of context I ride almost exclusively in very hilly areas. I see hundreds and hundreds of cyclists descending at speed. I have never seen anyone descend as recklessly as I did that day. It was this which encouraged me to contact the organiser to let them know and suggest, if they had not done so already, to mention this descent as hazardous in future editions.

My intentions were to prevent an accident. Were it not for a couple of very cautious car drivers that day it could easily have happened. Participants may not be so fortunate in the future. Certainly not a "busy body" as has rather disappointingly been suggested


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## Ian H (30 Nov 2016)

smutchin said:


> For example, I'm thinking of entering your Buzzard 600 next year. Knowing how experienced you are as both an organiser and rider, I imagine you're quite good at instinctively knowing which roads are best avoided, or which roads are preferable at certain times of day, so I wouldn't expect there to be an awful lot in the way of hazards on the route.



Well, comments have ranged from _'my favourite'_ to _'do not ride this!'_. But young Master Abraham thinks it's okay, which is good enough for me.


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## smutchin (30 Nov 2016)

My thinking is that it surely can't be any worse than the Brimstone...


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## iandg (30 Nov 2016)

I mentioned that the 'Golden Road' is a narrow single track road with passing places, blind bends and summits, gravel and poor surface in some places and cattle grids as a general comment for my 300km. I could never list every hazard on the whole route. 

For the 100km I mentioned poor road surfaces on the single track Pentland Road (and sheep) and I did single out that there was a 'give way' immediately at the bottom of a 1 in 5 when descending from the Callanish Stones


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## Ian H (30 Nov 2016)

smutchin said:


> My thinking is that it surely can't be any worse than the Brimstone...


Not even in the same category – a completely different experience.


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## Ming the Merciless (30 Nov 2016)

Nickboy

Which audax was it, and how do you know these riders were on it?


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## nickyboy (30 Nov 2016)

YukonBoy said:


> Nickboy
> 
> Which audax was it, and how do you know these riders were on it?



Wizard and Llamas Audax. It was easy to identify them; Strava has a "flyby" facility whereby you can see the rides of cyclists you have seen.


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## jefmcg (30 Nov 2016)

nickyboy said:


> Certainly not a "busy body" as has rather disappointingly been suggested


Mea culpa. Let's be clear. I wasn't saying you were a busy body, but the letter would read like it was written by a busy body. I literally can't think of a way to draft that email that wouldn't sound like a busybody.

Which is why I wrote this


jefmcg said:


> What _exactly_ did you say in the email?


Hoping to draw you out on what you actually wrote. Can you paste the body of the email here?

But now I see that the organisers email didn't work, and you wrote to a general club address. It's probable that no one saw it, or the person who saw it decided not to pass it on. If you don't know the organiser received it, I really don't think you can complain about the response to your email.

But (2) I am a little shocked that the email address provided for an organiser of an audax bounces. That is something to complain about.


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## Ming the Merciless (30 Nov 2016)

Did you try this contact form or their Facebook page or Twitter account? There was no organiser email provided for the event.

https://clarioncc.org/groups/north-cheshire-clarion/contact/


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## nickyboy (1 Dec 2016)

YukonBoy said:


> Did you try this contact form or their Facebook page or Twitter account? There was no organiser email provided for the event.
> 
> https://clarioncc.org/groups/north-cheshire-clarion/contact/



Thanks for trying @YukonBoy but I've kind of lost my initial motivation to be helpful, particularly bearing in mind the opinions of some posters here.


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## Pale Rider (1 Dec 2016)

I agree with @jefmcg, whatever you write is unlikely to go down well.

You might as well drop the helpful attitude and adopt the persona of an angry motorist.

"Unless you stupid buggers learn to control your bicycles one of you will end up starfished on the front of an artic."

Not replying to you is bad form, although I imagine the organisers will be wary of your motivation and what might happen next.

Still no excuse for not composing something suitably neutral such as: "Thank you for your email, all ride feedback is welcome and will be considered at the planning meeting for next year's event."


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## mmmmartin (4 Dec 2016)

Pale Rider said:


> "Unless you stupid buggers learn to control your bicycles one of you will end up starfished on the front of an artic."


You might find that they already know that. As indeed, does just about anyone who can ride a bike. Those who ride audaxes tend to ride quite a lot of miles and perhaps know that more than many cyclists.

I'm with @jefmcg, think there's no way of expressing your thoughts that won't make you look like a busybody. Which you are. Given that it's a narrow lane was it not a good idea to get down it one bunch quickly and get out of everyone else's way? No one fell off, there was no accident. They might not have been riding as you would wish, obvs, But who are you to tell them they were going too fast? Too fast for what? Too fast for you? They were obviously in control and their bikemanship was obviously up to the task of getting them down that hill. Some drivers were mildly inconvenienced by having to stop the car for a few minutes. 

A few minutes search provides the address of the organiser for the previous year's event: you could post a letter to him. There's an email address as well. But before you complain about an event that had 81 riders you might want to consider how much time and effort the organiser has put into getting it off the ground, navigating it through the Audax UK checking process, setting up the route, riding the route, sorting out two controls plus food and drink for 81 finishers.


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## nickyboy (4 Dec 2016)

mmmmartin said:


> You might find that they already know that. As indeed, does just about anyone who can ride a bike. Those who ride audaxes tend to ride quite a lot of miles and perhaps know that more than many cyclists.
> 
> I'm with @jefmcg, think there's no way of expressing your thoughts that won't make you look like a busybody. Which you are. Given that it's a narrow lane was it not a good idea to get down it one bunch quickly and get out of everyone else's way? No one fell off, there was no accident. They might not have been riding as you would wish, obvs, But who are you to tell them they were going too fast? Too fast for what? Too fast for you? They were obviously in control and their bikemanship was obviously up to the task of getting them down that hill. Some drivers were mildly inconvenienced by having to stop the car for a few minutes.
> 
> A few minutes search provides the address of the organiser for the previous year's event: you could post a letter to him. There's an email address as well. But before you complain about an event that had 81 riders you might want to consider how much time and effort the organiser has put into getting it off the ground, navigating it through the Audax UK checking process, setting up the route, riding the route, sorting out two controls plus food and drink for 81 finishers.



I think the accusation of being a busy body etc should be directed at me, as OP, rather than @Pale Rider 

The fact you're willing to dish out insulting stuff like the above says rather more about you than it does about me and on that note I'm out


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## Pale Rider (4 Dec 2016)

nickyboy said:


> I think the accusation of being a busy body etc should be directed at me, as OP, rather than @Pale Rider
> 
> The fact you're willing to dish out insulting stuff like the above says rather more about you than it does about me and on that note I'm out



Fair play for pointing that out Nick, but knowing you as I do, I'm not surprised.

I have some sympathy for your view point.

On Tour de France weekend in Yorkshire I was driving up one of the big climbs.

Some of the visiting club roadies were descending in such a manner they couldn't keep their bicycle on their side of the road.

Fine in a race when everyone is going the same way, but doing it when they did was stupidly dangerous.

I braked and swerved a couple of times, probably not avoiding a collision, but had I wiped out one of them I would have been cross at being put in that position.


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## jefmcg (4 Dec 2016)

nickyboy said:


> I think the accusation of being a busy body etc should be directed at me, as OP, rather than @Pale Rider


And you could answer it by POSTING THE TEXT OF YOUR EMAIL.

(Sorry for shouting but it's the 3rd time I've asked)

Martin and I will read it, realise you didn't come across as a busybody, apologise and take up pitchforks and follow the crowd to the lynching.


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## Pale Rider (4 Dec 2016)

User13710 said:


> Sounds like you should have stopped until they had gone past. Your last statement is quite extraordinary.



Stopping on all but blind bends would risk a rear end shunt.

Preferable to injuring a cyclist, even a reckless one, but I prefer to aim a bit higher.

Safe passage for all road users.

It's not hard, just stay on your side of the road and the overwhelming likelihood is all will be well.


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## frank9755 (30 Dec 2016)

nickyboy said:


> I think the accusation of being a busy body etc should be directed at me



I salute your self-awareness!


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