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Audaxers assemble for Annual Awards and Reunion

Every year, Audax UK hosts a reunion event and in 2026, York was the meeting point at the end of March.

Organised by Peter Davis and Laura Massey-Pugh, the weekend gathering offered audaxers a chance to take part in social rides, hear from a number of significant long distance riders and celebrate our award winners at our annual sociable dinner.

The event was captured by photographer Bernard Marsden, whose photographs of the event can be seen here.

Izabela Murtagh put together this nice video.

 

Social rides

Although many people rode to the event, completing 200k Dinner Darts to get there, a larger number of riders chose to join the Saturday morning social rides out to Tancred in the Yorkshire countryside.

An afternoon of enlightenment

On the Saturday afternoon, four great speakers shared their entertaining and thought provoking insights.

Luke Allen, winner of the David Lewis Trophy for the greatest distance in a 24hr TT talked about his experiences of the Mersey Roads 24 hour time trial. He explained the practicalities of taking part in the legendary event where he clocked up 783km last year.

Rob Skinner gave us a preview of his new book about London Floris London which tells the stories of a number of riders as well as some of the behind the scenes work by the organisers when the ride was curtailed.

One of the people mentioned in the Rob’s book, Ian McBride, (and winner of the AUK Male Merit Award) explained his approach to riding fast and his fuelling strategies for getting around without bonking or faffing. Amazingly, the samples of his standard food and some of his favourite kit which he passed around all got given back!

And attendees were treated to a high energy and often funny explanation from multiple award winner, Sophie Attwood-Apperley of how she set about completing an SR series every month through 2025. Her secret seems to have a positive outlook and a very understanding set of work colleagues! Some sample slides from her presentation can be seen here.

Awards

Although for most audaxers, completing events is a sufficient reward, the community celebrates a number of people who take on bigger personal or team challenges.

The evening didn’t just recognise individuals and teams who won specific trophies, it was also a chance to applaud members who had completed challenges including the people who achieved the Randonneur 10,000, Brevet 25,000, Ultra Randonneur, Randonneur 25,000, 50,000 and 75,000 (all time) and the OCD Venerable statuses.

You can find the full list of award winners here and the criteria for their awards can be seen in the Awards section on the website..

Next year

Plans are already in hand for the 2027 reunion which is likely to return to a well loved venue – details to be shared in due course!