If you are UK based then YACF is probably the most active, although it is dying a little like most Internet forums. They are a really lovely friendly bunch
I’ve got my 200km audax into the plan as a gran Fondo for the tail end of August. There’s a couple C gravel events also there cos they’re fun.
Since there’s not an audax or bloody long distance option for the évent, how are folks getting the plan to add more base? I know a rising tide helps endurance and my route is hilly as can be but I’d like as big of a diesel engine to chug a long as I can build.
Manually adding tempo and Sweet spot workouts to free blocks? I’m also thinking about swapping X2 to tempo since I’m butting up against max levels for time available.
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I ended up getting a coach again this year to help with this. I’m just an average rider with an exceptionally busy and physical work and home life so fitting in volume myself around the TR plan was a tightrope I kept falling off. I spoke to a number of coaches whilst making the decision and they all said that I needed to increase the volume.
In the space of a few months with my wonderful coach I’m back to doing 3 to 5 hr rides most weekends and will be ramping up to 200 km rides next month. The structured workouts in base have been a lot of tempo with acclerations and big gear/low cadence work (my event will involve a lot of steep climbing). The recovery periods are placed when I actually need them, not on a forced 3 weeks on 1 off basis which has also helped as it means I am not loosing lots of weekends unnecessarily following a strict structure that doesn’t really work around my chaotic life.
I don’t have the time or resources to throw at audaxing like I used to, but ramping up the distance has given me the confidence that I can still spend a long time on the bike and have legs to get up big climbs at the end of the ride 
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I kinda lack the time too, sadly my career is one of those that needs constant learning so my week days are limited to 60 mins max for 4 days. Will just carry on adding tempo where I can.
Will get weekend day for some proper outside stuff soon when the storms pass.
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Ha, the planning and logistics is just as important. First day you have to stop Oban the first night. Second day you have 3 ferries. How far you push day 2, is likely to have a knock on to how far you can push day 4. There’s certain key shops , cafes, take aways that if you miss them is going to make the next remote sections extremely tough. I now have an outline plan based on the minimum paces I think I’ll manage. The timings aren’t really to indicate when I’ll reach a ferry terminal or a resupply point. It’s to see how close it will be to when I need to reach them. If you miss a ferry or reach a closed shop or take away; it’s suddenly that much harder.
I won’t do more planning on that side till official route out in May. But I am happy I have something that’ll work, and have a feel for the rhythm of what each of my days may look like.
I personally got on just fine for LEL 2022 (and a 600k warmup) with TR, and low volume at that - I did a TR low volume as my “core” rides that I had to hit, then tried to add a longer ride at the weekend as possible (3-5hr) with a longer rider on top each month (I went out to 200k). I think my average volume was about 10hr, so not crazy. I also did the Badger Divide (OK it’s not an audax, but same principle) off basically no specialised training
I have quite a bit of work travel so it did tend to vary - and I found myself doing 1hr sessions on some pretty minging hotel bikes - but it went well overall. I often shifted my week around to fit them in which the new AI would probably say is not ideal but it allowed me to get the work in. I personally don’t think you need to be doing massive 8 hour training rides every week for that kind of thing, I think there’s really 3 (4) things you need to think about for these:
- Consistent training (not volume but consistency) - I just tried to raise my FTP like normal. One thing I found during 2020 is that you really need to respect the rest weeks - even if you have to move the rest weeks around for work you need to make sure you have a proper rest week. In 2020 I burnt myself out and got really ill.
- Long enough practice rides to work out any fit and nutrition issues - you need your bike fit and nutrition dialled, you don’t need to be doing that every weekend (I guess this is really 2 things). You really only need a few of these.
- Some idea of what will work for you in terms of sleep schedule. This was difficult to prep for because it’s hard to do in training - the 600k warmup I did was still only really one night and LEL is obviously a lot longer. I personally went for 3-5 hr sleeps each night, riding mostly through the night until just before dawn then trying to sleep for a few hours. This worked out great for me, but I know others do it differently. I guess if you have kids, you’d know more…
Doing loads of mental training rides just means you need loads of recovery as well, and after a point starts to eat into your training (you either have to sacrifice some structured training or you sacrifice some recovery instead).
For your plan what did you put your event as?
I’ve put it in as a Gram Fondo since it’s not really a race but those are a good bit shorter than most goals. I then had a thought (but not changed the event) that maybe TT was the better event type as I just want to chug along at a steady state for ages.
I put it in as a gran fondo as well - I think a stage race gran fondo? Just based on what’s on my TR calendar, obviously I hardly remember now 
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Cheers, I also asked my learned friend (ChatGPT) and the reading from there agreed with our choices! Won’t rebuild plan now!
Chat GPT probably just read this thread.
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That’s definitely a possibility! Either way I’m gonna stick with my initial ideas!
I have now done some outline logistics planning for the Scottish 1300. Summer timetable for ferries came out late Jan. There are some quite interesting choices to be made that affect the shape of days 2,3,4. Looking forward to when final route published in May.
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Exciting times! It will be a good one, that’s for sure. 
The imperial double century is probably my max distance for one day. Much longer & I get the idon’twannaplayanymore feelings. Plus weird things can start happening to me when I’ve been awake for too long (whether riding or not), notably my thermal regulation going a bit haywire, yes even if I’m active.
It’s commonly accepted amongst the randonneurs that I know, that a 400 is too short to sleep on (& thus it’s harder than a 600, where you “only” have to do 300 in a day, you can get a decent sleep, then you do the other 300.
I contend that it depends upon the start time, how the route is arranged, & whether it’s possible to have supplies (& a change of clothes!) available at the chosen overnight stop. I just did a pair of 200km permanents on the weekend that both start & finish a few km from my home, starting the first on Saturday at noon, finishing it just after 21:20, then I got back on the bike at about 5:10 the following morning for the second 200 & finished it at 14:36. Within the 27-hour limit associated with a 400km BRM (though a bit tight), & I’d argue that the weekend was much more pleasurable than if I’d tried to do it in one go. At no point did I feel that crippling sensation of just wanting it to be over, as I’ve felt every time over about 330km (& sometimes before then). Yes the second morning I was feeling fatigue, but it was nothing like how I felt last year on the second day of a 600 that I DNFd because of being too tired to get back on the bike. That was at about 360km, so quite a different experience.
Most 400s in Australia that I know of start around 6am, which is a bit early for trying to have a sleep stop halfway, but I think it could work to do the first ~300 on one day, sleep, then do the remaining 100 early the next morning. I have a 300 coming up on the weekend of the 28th & weather permitting I’ll enter, then (if I feel like it) the next morning I’ll recon the last 110km of a 400 in October. (Its 290km mark is a three minute ride from the caravan park.) How well that works will determine whether I enter another 400 in May: It’s a large loop that doesn’t return to the start until the finish, but I’ll be travelling the day before & my loose plan is to book the night before the randonée plus the next night at an airbnb at about the 280km mark, then on the morning of the ride, drive to the start with the bike loaded up but leave behind a small backpack (with some food, sugar, 4-outlet USB charger/cables, toothbrush etc, & a change of clothes) that I won’t mind wearing for the remaining 120km the next morning. If I check out at 3am I have 6 hours to cover the remaining distance. It’ll probably mean being awake at 2am which is a bit early, but not the first time I’ve done that, & I know my body does better in the hours pre-dawn after some sleep than it does in the late evening after 10pm.
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How do folks train for an effort like a Charly Miller attempt?
Re: Charly Miller - Like anything, it depends.
For 95% of riders, a stealthy E-bike and/or lots of Meth.
For 3% of riders, riding in the A group and surfing wheels the whole damn way.
For 1.99% of riders, riding in the A group and having friends provide support at all the controls (or outside the controls and risk being disqualified).
For 0.01% of riders, just solo off the front and take 50 mg of caffeine every hour on the hour for the final 600K.
Most of us are in the 95% and don’t have an E-bike and/or good source of Meth, so I’ll just say train for it like you would any other 56 hour sleepless cycling event. 
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I do have an ADHD prescription, re:meth….
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If you’re serious about Charly Miller, read some of the article in the RUSA magazine. Free on the web here: American Randonneur Magazine | Randonneurs USA
Do a search for Charly to get the SIR (Seattle Rando) group interview. And there are some one-off convos with zippy RUSA members in various places. I can’t find it with my Ctrl F skills, but there was a good interview with M Thomas who has done it once, but is usually a “max value” rider by choice. He got a coach, skipped most of the fun brevets, and really worked on SPEED. And he had friends at the controls to help.
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Are recumbents permitted? Audax Australia rules say they are but I’m not sure about international rules.
yes, pretty sure they are allowed. Have seen recumbents regularly on PBP YT videos.
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