2002: For the first time, I rode events or permanents of 200 or above in every month from November 2001 to October 2002 – 21 200s, two 300s, two 400s, two 500s (Easter & Summer Arrows) and one 600 to give me another two SRs and 72 points for Randonneur 5,000. This brought my tally over 12 years to 1059 points and 30 SRs. Liz Creese had been the first rider to pass the 1000 point barrier a couple of years before (unofficially recognised as Brevet 10,000). Now Steve Abraham and I had both made this mark.
A while after this Steve and I had a discussion as to who had the most AUK points ever – Steve reckons that he soon passed Liz’s overall total as she was riding so much less now, but that I also did shortly after and then went on to overtake him. This may make me the most prolific audax rider ever. By 2007 I’d topped 1,500 points and reckon I now have a total of 1805 points in 22 years. I’d be pleased to hear if anyone can challenge or exceed this.
February saw the completion of my first Randonneur Round the Year (I haven’t officially claimed these until now). I was a member of the winning Easter Arrow (with Ritchie Tout and Rob Milsom) and Summer Arrow (with Ritchie Tout and Neil Williams) teams – so my tenth consecutive year in the AUK Hall of Fame. At this point most of my winter randonneur rides were permanents. A small group of us (Jim Roberson, John Hayes, Tony Pember, Andrew Dade, Peter Lee, Andrew Johnson, the improbably doubly- double- barrelled J-P Lamb-Horth and myself) were mostly members of both CTC and Cardiff Byways. Between us we completed many ‘Cambrian Connections’ rides as well as other events and permanents in 2002. In 2000 the rules had been changed for the CTC DA (now ‘CTC Riders’) so that it was the six highest-scoring members who now counted, ending the stranglehold of Bristol DA who’d won this every year 1986 to 1999 by virtue of being the biggest DA. So in 2002 Cardiff & South Wales became the third different DA to win this. In August Anne & I also found time to ride the ‘Raid Pyreneen’, permanent ride which crosses most of the big, famous passes on the French side of the Pyrenees. We wouldn’t normally choose to do this in the hottest month and peak holiday time, but were planning to ride with Jim Churton & Rose Almond (as she then was). I say planning because as it turned out Rose went down with food poisoning the night before we were due to set off, so we went on anyway to secure our pre-booked hotel rooms and put the reservations for Jim & Rose back a day. So Anne & I were able ride this spectacular ride together and at the end meet Jim & Rose a day later.