QUOTE:
A Reliability Trial is very much like a sportive, but predates them by about
a century and doesn't have the direction arrows, or the expense. They're not
races, which sportives can turn into if you're too scared to enter an actual
race and want to willy-wave your time during the Monday office kitchen
coffee-break, but long distance rides that concentrate on fitness,
self-reliance and the ability to read a map. A bit like an Audax then, but
with less beards, maybe. There are no trade stands at the start selling
spares and gels, there's no mechanic to make your bike roadworthy before you
set off and no sag wagon to climb in the back of if you get a bit weary or
it starts to rain. The clue's in the name, reliability.

Rather than try to get round as fast as possible, to beat some personal
best, or bragging rights, at a Reliability Trial a rider chooses what time
they reckon they can complete the distance in and it's up to them to
maintain the average speed required to do that whilst navigating by
following the route card. They can have as many wee and tea stops, getting
lost moments and mechanicals as they like, they just have to be back in
their chosen time, and can be chastised just as much for finishing too early
as late.

The one we're doing today is a mere 45 miles so we opt for the 3 hour option
which leaves us an average of 15mph to manage, which should be easily doable
what with the usual chatting and faffing that gets done. Sign in, pay some
loose change, oh yeah, to enter this event costs a full £3 if you can be
bothered to enter beforehand. But that requires the old fashioned notion of
sending a cheque to the organiser, and the tangible commitment of actually
signing your name to the event and posting your intent that brings with it,
rather than the easy anonymous slapdash easy-enter easy-bail one-click
on-line entry. Even look-at-the-fair-weather cyclists are only charged a
fiver on the day. So we pay our £5, pick up the map and printed directions,
even if some of our group have downloaded the route onto their GPS it's good
to keep it traditional, help ourselves to a cup of tea and a banana and get
shooed out the door so we meet our designated departure time.
CONTINUES.

http://road.cc/content/blog/51139-not-sportive-273
--
Simon Mason