[stefv]

Hi,

I have suspicions that the RideLondon ballot does not provide an equal chance for each entry, i.e., they might positively discriminate against certain combinations of age and sex to make the field more diverse.

Naturally, there is no such information on the website, so I was wondering if anyone in-the-know could save me a phone call?

As an aside, has anyone joined in the course without an official entry? How did that work out for you?

Cheers!

Topic

[Al__S]

No update on my email, but
No update on my email, but with them now saying 35,000 places to be offered the 25,000 ballot places seems more realistic- leaving 10,000 for deferrals, corporates, teams, charities and weirdoes lying down on the job :))

[Gkam84]

We plan to get to Leith Hill
We plan to get to Leith Hill first and totally block the road, just to piss you all off……lol

Nah, I think we’ll either be put off first or last, depending on what is decided. We are faster on the flat and downhill, but will lose a little time on the uphill.

[Anonymous]

Gkam84 wrote:Well I wasn’t

Gkam84 wrote:

Well I wasn’t going to share this, but I thought I might aswell 😀

Dear recumbent riders,

Thank you for your patience and understanding through 2014 and I hope everyone is still looking for a ride in the 2015 event. We are currently debriefing Prudential RideLondon 2014 to determine what changes we can make for the 2015 event, especially around volume of cyclists, tandems, trikes, recumbents etc. We will be in contact as soon as we have more information, which I would expect will be around early November, once we have taken stock and had a chance to commence the 2015 planning. This should still allow you plenty of planning and preparation time prior to the 2015 event.

In the meantime I would advise that you register online. Once we confirm that the proposed recumbent trial is going ahead those registered can be assigned places.

So that is around 10 places gone for us as a test event :H

Oh, you wait. You’ll be accused of getting in the way of club riders 😉

[Gkam84]

Well I wasn’t going to share
Well I wasn’t going to share this, but I thought I might aswell 😀

Dear recumbent riders,

Thank you for your patience and understanding through 2014 and I hope everyone is still looking for a ride in the 2015 event. We are currently debriefing Prudential RideLondon 2014 to determine what changes we can make for the 2015 event, especially around volume of cyclists, tandems, trikes, recumbents etc. We will be in contact as soon as we have more information, which I would expect will be around early November, once we have taken stock and had a chance to commence the 2015 planning. This should still allow you plenty of planning and preparation time prior to the 2015 event.

In the meantime I would advise that you register online. Once we confirm that the proposed recumbent trial is going ahead those registered can be assigned places.

So that is around 10 places gone for us as a test event :H

[Al__S]

Good points… so lets keep
Good points… so lets keep this dialogue going 😕

Thankyou for that answer.
As you’ve said there will be 30,000 places in total for next year, does
this mean that there are 25,000 places in the open ballot, and only 5000
places for deferrals from this year, charity places, the additional 1000
and corporate places?

Al Storer

I’m very much of the “lets ask direct questions rather than speculate wildly on a forum” school of thinking. Hey. Maybe everyone else could email to ask slightly different versions of my questions? address is helpdesk@ridelondon.co.uk

[Anonymous]

So according to that there
So according to that there are 25,000 places in the ballot.

And they’ve said that they’re looking for 30,000 riders next year (though each year there’s about a 10% dropout rate from withdrawals and no-shows).

So they’re looking for 5,000 extras which will come from this year’s deferrals (given the weather forecast, that’s a couple of thousand) and charity places. Anyone know how much charities pay for their packages (and what levels are available – e.g. £1000 for 20 guaranteed places, etc?)

[Maggers]

Not sure how the chairty
Not sure how the chairty places are allocated though? Are the out of that 25k or are there an extra 5k of charity places making it up to the 30k participation that has been bandied about? Clearly if they are out of the 25k then it isn’t a 1 in 4?

[Al__S]

I’ve emailed them. And got an
I’ve emailed them. And got an answer:

Hello,

You have a 1 in 4 chance of gaining a place in the ballot,

Yes this a straight forward ballot we will it be a luck of the draw.

If you have donated your fee and you are unsuccessful this is correct you will go
into another mini ballot for a chance a gaining a place.

Regards

Prudential RideLondon Team

—–Original Message—–
From: Al Storer
Sent: 19 August 2014 09:19
To: help_desk
Subject: ballot- questions

Hi,
I’ve entered the ballot, but I’ve got a couple of questions regarding how it
actually works:
1. How many ballot spaces are there in total?
2. Is it a straight, “fair”, ballot, or is there weighting- eg is estimated time,
past times, age, gender taken into account by the ballot machine?
3. Other than giving you a second chance in the additional 1000 place draw, does
pledging your entry fee as a donation increase your probability of success in the
initial draw?

It would be good for this sort of stuff to be more transparent.

—
Al Storer

So, that’s on record, it is an [b]unweighted[/b] fair ballot. With them taking 100,000 registrations and there being a 1 in 4 chance, that’s 25,000 ballot places available.

If you do not believe this, and still think it is profiled/weighted/etc you are directly accusing them of lying.

[stefv]

Well it is pretty clear to me
Well it is pretty clear to me that there is some weighting in the ballot and also that the precise information won’t ever be public. It would be nice to know, but then it is free to register so no harm done.

I’ve got my entry, and my wife’s and my parents. B-)

[Anonymous]

spin sugar wrote:Gizmo_

spin sugar wrote:

Gizmo_ wrote:

It’s definitely not “fast people off first, slower people off last”. Because I started at 0710 and was overtaking ‘nodders’ pretty much all the way, certainly all the way to Newlands Corner. Likewise there were still fast people overtaking me all the way round. Which implies that even the earliest waves must have some slow people, and the later ones some fast folk.

That is the general approach to the waves but there’s plenty of interference. Some people are overly optimistic about what they can achieve, some people put down a particular time to try to get in a wave with a (much faster) mate, some faster people stop to wait for a friend with a later start time and then work their way through, some people puncture and get held up, some people get in via a club entry and that limits when you can start – one of the club slots wasn’t until about 8am. I’ve thought about this a lot (having taken part both years) and think they make the best out of a situation that can never be perfected, as there are too many variables.

Fair point on the predicted times. I’d predicted 6 hours when I initially registered (in 2012 for 2013), which would have been possible the way I was building up. Then I had an accident, deferred to this year, training wasn’t quite as it should have been… In the end I finished the 86 in 5:57:56 (start line to finish line), so I was right after all. 😉

[spin sugar]

Gizmo_ wrote:It’s definitely

Gizmo_ wrote:

It’s definitely not “fast people off first, slower people off last”. Because I started at 0710 and was overtaking ‘nodders’ pretty much all the way, certainly all the way to Newlands Corner. Likewise there were still fast people overtaking me all the way round. Which implies that even the earliest waves must have some slow people, and the later ones some fast folk.

That is the general approach to the waves but there’s plenty of interference. Some people are overly optimistic about what they can achieve, some people put down a particular time to try to get in a wave with a (much faster) mate, some faster people stop to wait for a friend with a later start time and then work their way through, some people puncture and get held up, some people get in via a club entry and that limits when you can start – one of the club slots wasn’t until about 8am. I’ve thought about this a lot (having taken part both years) and think they make the best out of a situation that can never be perfected, as there are too many variables.

[d_jp]

I expect that (in the main)
I expect that (in the main) they try and get the fastest off first, to stagger the finish times and allow them a fairly clear ride and I guess that they would need to set some slower people off near the beginning to ensure that they got around in time. There is of course the “estimate factor” where some people will have put in an unrealistic completion time…

I didn’t get a place in the ballot for this year, but decided to go for a charity place. Despite getting thoroughly soaked (20 mins walking or stopped whilst they dealt with the aftermath of an accident in Richmond Park when the heavens opened didn’t help) I had good fun, had brief chats with a few people on the way round & ended up belting out “I can see clearly now the rain has gone” with another guy as we cycled under the railway in Kingston. :))

Must go and enter the latest ballot…. 😀

[parksey]

My ballot is in, at least
My ballot is in, at least it’s best part of a year to build up to doing centuries… :S

Pleased to see you didn’t have to pay the entry fee upfront, but then confused as to why you you had to elect now whether, if unsuccesful, you would give the fee to charity…

[Anonymous]

It’s definitely not “fast
It’s definitely not “fast people off first, slower people off last”. Because I started at 0710 and was overtaking ‘nodders’ pretty much all the way, certainly all the way to Newlands Corner. Likewise there were still fast people overtaking me all the way round. Which implies that even the earliest waves must have some slow people, and the later ones some fast folk.

[andycoventry]

I asked this question via
I asked this question via twitter when I didn’t get a ballot place two years in a row. Their response was:

“The ballot is drawn by computer to ensure the maximum possible number get around the route within the time limit”.

Whatever that means…….. From what I can gather there is some weighting.

[Author]

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