How did the audax go ? I was also planning a 200k+ ride and thought I'd use my RST.
Time to be honest. The Audax didn't go well. I abandoned after 120km, after a long climb out of Lynmouth and Lynton.
1) I was picking up a cold, nothing serious, just enough I think to knock my fitness back by 5%-10%.
2) I haven't got my fitness back for seriously hilly rides like this yet (There are several long, long climbs...and steep, in Devon).
3) The Thorn wasn't ideal. Yes, I know..heresy on the Thorn Forum but let me explain.
My Raven Tour is a heavy bike, with heavy tyres but with very low gears when I need them. I thought the low gears would outweigh the heavy bike and heavy tyres (so to speak).
In reality I didn't ever get to use the lowest 2 gears and it all felt a bit ponderous trying to keep up with the lighter road bikes.
Schwalbe Marathon 26x1.5" tyres do not spin-up long steep climbs. When you are carrying a heavy camping load this is all irrelevant as the extra weight of the bike is lost in the overall scheme of things and the slow pace of loaded touring.
My Raven Tour is absolutely perfect for carrying luggage around the world, I'd have no hesitation using it for a round-the-world trip.
The front-end handling actually improves when you hang Low-Rider panniers off it (It's rather twitchy otherwise, surprisingly).
It's also a perfect bike if you only ever need one bike for everything (although, if you never intend to go fully-loaded touring, you should look at a lighter Thorn Rohloff bike)
I've done 100km, 200km, 300km & 600km Audaxes on it but generally I was riding alone, at my own, Raven, pace. In a group of Fast Tourers and Carbon road bikes you just can't keep up and, in my constant attempt to keep up, I burnt out.
I'm sure the ride is possible if I addressed (1) and (2) above but only if I stuck to my own pace, which is largely dictated by riding a bomb-proof Global Tourer.
In the end I rode 120km and climbed 2500metres, which is a not insignificant amount of climbing in such a short distance.
That's me at the front, climbing to the top of Exmoor..it's a very long drag to get there but the most amazing descent down to Lynmouth harbour.
Me from the reverse angle. Yes, I am completely finished at this point.
And finally, me, 10 minutes before I said "enough of all this Devon climbing, I'm heading for Barnstaple Train Station".
This is the Toll Road out of Lynton, en-route to Combe Martin.
My friends had plenty of time to take photos as they patiently waited for me. If you listen carefully you can hear me swearing "
F***ing Devon!"
