Talk:Brevet (cycling)

Note: Race Across AMerica (RAAM) is not a typo - it's how they get the acronym! Henry Troup 14:04, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Reorganization and Clarifications
I reword the pages to make Randonneuring the main page. It has links to randonee/brevet and randonneur as well as Audax (cycling) and allure libre as well as links to the two main randonneuring organizations (and several member organizations)


 * Citations and clarification of 'Audax', 'allure libre', ACP & RCP are needed. I think we need to sort out the historical content from the current situation.  There is still considerable confusion between the definitions and content in the Audax (cycling) and Randonneuring articles (they share the same content)


 * Audax riding in Australia, and the PBP involves brevets and does not include riding in formation or with a captain.
 * An 'audax ride' in Australia equates to 'Randonneuring'
 * In Australia, the 'brevet' usually refers to the card issued upon successful completion of an Audax ride
 * 'Randonneuring' is a verb, not a noun? The noun is 'randonee' (tour)
 * While Audax may have referred in the past to the formal controlled group riding style with a captain, it doesn't now as far as I know. The PBP article partly explains this


 * Peter Campbell 11:38, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Agree it is a work in progress... In my talk under randonee, allure libre, and audax it is clear from web pages I have found and cited that the audax form is still a seperate practice that is still avaiable albeit confused and the term is misunderstood outside of france, belgium and holland. So therefore the PBP article is *wrong*. The '''audax format is not dead. It was run last year (2006) and also in 2001 (as it is run every 5 years). The PBP article is probably just as tainted as was my brain until I took a serious look and actually started reading material outside of what I was being told by word of mouth... I think the RUSA.ORG site has a very good explanation of the current state of the term audax...

There are two PBPs... The one you think of that is run every 4 years in the allure libre format and the one that is run every 5 years in the audax format.

Prestonjb 06:19, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The abuse of the term audax is confused with the noun randonneuring... Remeber that a Gerrund is a verb which can have 'ing' added to the end and become a noun. cycling is a noun if it is used as I like cycling(n).. I am cycling(v). Or he likes randonneuring  ...but it can also be a verb...  A randonneur(n) who likes randonneuring(n) when the randonneur(n) is on a randonee(n) is a randonneuring(v) randonneur(n)! hee hee..  I've heard the term audax also confused to mean randonnee as much as I hear brevet being confused for randonnee... Though a brevet card is given for all events the time when it is most confusing is if you are not doing a brevet but a fleche and call it a brevet...  Brevet is really the certificate which is what the card becomes after it is stamped...

As per comments on the Audax (cycling) article talk page:

The "true audax" style seems to well in the minority of activity these days, but it does rate a mention.

The approach I propose is to:


 * make Randonneur the main article, with the history (including much of the content from Audax (cycling) and Brevet (cycling)
 * simplify Audax (cycling) so that it is more like a definition, with competing uses (audax vs allure libre) in different countries
 * simplify Brevet (cycling) so that it just focuses on the brevet card

Do you think this will work? Peter Campbell 11:32, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually when I first read the proposed merge that wasn't going anywhere my thoughts were very close:

(Let me think about which one again... I may be willing to go with randonneur as main instead of randonneuring)
 * make Randonneuring the main article with history and stuff as you perscribe for Randonneur
 * Make Randonneur a simpler article possibly discussing in the history section famous randonneurs.
 * Simplify Audax (cycling) to be more defdinition like (also like the definition like format I used for allure libre
 * I was thinking about making Brevet (cycling) discuss a bit more because brevet is interchangable with the card (sigh) but again we are actually starting to see the light on this and I think we are starting to agree on organization.

I discovered the French main PBP page last night and I think that I want to disect their format to see if it is something we can use pieces of... This is the main link...  I started to look into their pages for randonneur and such but it is more generic and related to hiking type of stuff...

Anyway I like what you wrote and I'm going to hop on my bike for a little night riding and thing about this because we are close to figuring this out!

Prestonjb 02:36, 9 January 2007 (UTC)


 * The French PBP article would be a great reference. The word randonee in French is used for heaps of "trips", including ski touring.  English speaking countries have morphed the original meaning of French words/terms such as randonee and audax into somewhat different (or more specific) usages - as long as we point this out and provide references (best including within article text with   tags) - this will clarify matters.  If you haven't tried it, Google translate is very useful for roughish translations of French - you can also get entire web pages translated too.  Peter Campbell 02:46, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

You are too kind. I hope my frenchie friends don't take offense but French as a language got crippled when they tried to prevent migration of other outsider terms into the language. Possibly the largest difference between English and French is that with English there are a bazillion different words that are nearly the same but those subtle differences allows English to describe something in minute detail whereas in French a term as you showed gets watered down and lost when the subject is moved from one dominion to another.

I personally don't think that the words audax and allure libre should be miscombobulated because the French do recognize them to be applied (fr term) for different types of riding. It is like football which has one meaning inside the states and another outside. Will football become soccer? Are we going to have to say a french audax or will we have to say an american permanent? So I still think as long as U des Audax is around then audax is audax... Though in the frenchie site it lookes like they are saying audax and raundonnuer to distinguish audax and allure libre...

Oh I'm back from my night ride. Just a short one... I'm still leaning for Randonneuring to be the main page with links to randonneur and use the randonneur page for talking about famous randonneurs Prestonjb 04:10, 9 January 2007 (UTC)