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RideLondon-Essex riders halted for 30 minutes because of an incident

About 25,000 riders took on the brand new routes from London into Essex

Road closures, speed limits, drawing pins on the course... RideLondon, the UK's largest cycling event of its kind, has made a comeback with only minor hiccups affecting the thousands of participants riding on the London and Essex roads today. 

Leading up to its return after a two-year hiatus, the 2022 RideLondon has made it to many headlines, showcasing the difficulty of pleasing everyone when organising a mass cycling event.

For some participants, today's ride wasn't such smooth sailing as a large number of riders were paused for about half an at around 49 miles into their ride because of an incident. 

A RideLondon spokesperson said: “We can confirm that there has been an incident involving a rider requiring medical treatment at mile 49 (near Stebbings Green). A medical team and an air ambulance attended and the rider was taken to the hospital by road. The ride was held for about 30 minutes.” 

It is unclear what caused the incident. Some speculations on Twitter hinted it could have had something to do with the drawing pins placed on the course - an issue that even led to an assault claim - whereas other reports suggest a participant was taken to hospital after suffering a heart attack. 

The riders pedalled off early this morning in waves from Victoria Embankment to complete either a 30, 60 or 100-mile route. They are expected to finish their rides at around 6 pm, whereas the speediest ones were back already at around 10 am. 

In the lead up to the event, we reported how the RideLondon organisers were criticised for seemingly implementing a 22mph pace limit in the rider's guide, which was since said to be “stated incorrectly”. At the same time, others spotted that this year, the timing of the rides would be stopped at feed stops, only adding to the emphasis on this event not being a race. 

In addition to the amateur riders, the professional women cyclist have been racing the RideLondon Classique – a three-day UCI Women’s World Tour road race that started in Essex on Friday. The race's final stage, where the current leader Lorena Wiebes will fight to hang onto her lead spot, will finish on the Embankment between 17:35 and 17:50 today. 

Suvi joined F-At in 2022, first writing for off-road.cc. She's since joined the tech hub, and contributes to all of the sites covering tech news, features, reviews and women's cycling content. Lover of long-distance cycling, Suvi is easily convinced to join any rides and events that cover over 100km, and ideally, plenty of cake and coffee stops. 

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23 comments

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Organon | 1 year ago
1 like

I think I was lucky and got to the incident minutes after it happened. There was still 400 people in the road. Thanks to local riders and their mobiles I only lost 13 minutes with a detour around Stebbing Green. However I don't think groups behind us were as fortunate as they were stopped well before the incident and couldn't take that turn, some people waited 50min, not the 30 generally described. It was certainly much less populated after the incident. I was between groups for miles on end back into London.

As some have pointed out below improvements could be make, it is certainly like they are starting the event over again with planning. It all just felt like it was on a smaller scale. The low angle sun at the start was something I never considered until Sunday morning. We were blitzing across the Capital at 40kph in 2019 East to West, but heading up hill into the sun was a grind for the start. And then there is the date. Why move it earlier? It was 9c at the start, I wrapped up for a spring day, but there were so many people dressed like it was a summers day, and a few even got rained on. There was a lot of people pretending to be warm. 

At the end I was surprised that I had still climbed over 1000m, but then again, it is 100 miles. The difference I realized was only about 200+m, i.e. the two big climbs on the old route. Ironically I did better on the old route, even with the climbing. More riders, more drafting. And the old finish was MUCH more impressive. Putney high street and bridge fast, along the Embankment, Parliament Square, Trafalgar Square, The Mall and Buckingham Palace. It had that Olympic sheen. This one was just A-roads then round a corner, bang here's Tower bridge real quick and a wooden medal. I read one comment saying it was an eco thing, and that you might have had your last metal medal pre-pandemic, and you didn't even know it.

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SurreyHiller | 1 year ago
3 likes

My take away question from the event was why were there cones down the middle of the road?   Heading out of London I saw one guy hit one, and stay upright, then a few minutes later the sound of another being hit and then the clatter of a bike hitting the ground a few riders back.   At that point I pulled out of the group I was in and went with one that was riding a little less enthusiastically.

Heading back into London they were back again.   Central reservations also seemed to be a surprise to some riders with last minute swerves to avoid them, and quick reactions from riders around them meaning there was no crash.

Setting off into the sun meant I lost everyone I started with within about 2 miles!  Didn't meet up again until I worked my way through the crowd at the incident site.

Leaving the finish area and into central London traffic was horrendous!  I don't know how people ride up there!!

 

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Surreyrider replied to SurreyHiller | 1 year ago
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There was a lot of road furniture that could easily be missed in a big group. I didn't have the same experience of riding after the finish (I only had to go straight essentially to Waterloo) but the finish area was a bit chaotic. 

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mark1a replied to Surreyrider | 1 year ago
2 likes

I was staying at Battersea Travelodge, the ride to the start at 0530 was very easy without traffic, but the ride back afterwards, as someone who lives in Dorset, I thought that if this is what riding in London is like, I can understand where the anger comes from. 

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nniff replied to SurreyHiller | 1 year ago
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My office is the one immediately to the left on the ramp towards Tower Bridge. My standard route home was disrupted a bit by having to go down Tooley Street rather than one of the quieter roads a bit further south.  Traffic was a great deal lighter than 6pm or so of an evening, especially around Elephant and Castle and south past Stockwell and Clapham. I did realise that I know all the potholes on my commute, but not on the others.....

The traffic cones were for the out and back parts of the route. Not great. I saw someone hit one but stay upright

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AlsoSomniloquism replied to nniff | 1 year ago
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Do you work at QA? 

If I had come down, I would have had to get to Bexleyheath after so sounds like the road I would have had to take anyway. What did they do for the people needing to go back north of the River. Diverted to London Bridge or could you get back over Tower Bridge?

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nniff replied to AlsoSomniloquism | 1 year ago
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AlsoSomniloquism wrote:

Do you work at QA? 

If I had come down, I would have had to get to Bexleyheath after so sounds like the road I would have had to take anyway. What did they do for the people needing to go back north of the River. Diverted to London Bridge or could you get back over Tower Bridge?

I do, and the finsh fed you along Tooley street towards London Bridge....

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nniff | 1 year ago
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When I got to the hold-up, it was just a bit in front of me.  They let a group through on foot, but decided to stop that, which left me three people away from freedom.  We stood around and confirmed with a marshall that nothing was going to be happening for a long time; everyone settled down, I changed a slow flat and got cold.   the marhsall did what they could to let people know why they were waiting, but easier said than done in that location. About an hour wating in total, I suppose.  Whatever, it was nothing compared to the bad day out that the guy they were looking after was having.  300 yards further up the road from that one, there was another which they were attending to at the same time.  On the run in to that point there were a fair few misshaps and a swa several near misses - traffic cones in the middle of the orad for the out and back sections, loose gravel in places, and lots of people not keeping their line going around corners in a group.

Lots of groups but, unlike previous rides of a similar ilk I've done, very few in which groups became properly organised.

Top marks for the air ambulance for doing an Insta/bookface flyby to maximise their social media coverage (the patient left by road ambulance)

Timing all over the place as a result, but I'm taking the Wahoo Timing of Truth as gospel....

 

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holloway55 replied to nniff | 1 year ago
2 likes

You were right next to me, (White top with VTC on it). Me and the guys I was riding with got seperated after they stopped people walking through.

Yeah their quoted 30min delay was definitley more like 50mins actually.

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RunFBRun | 1 year ago
3 likes

I hope the IP is ok

I saw a hold up for an injury or something, I think about 50km / 30 miles in, but not the one mentioned above.

The start was chaotic! I arrived at the appointed time, but queued for over an hour to get to the start line. I was pretty calm about it (slightly anxious about my train back to Leeds...!). But I imagine other people might have been impatient. I think the cause could have been people arriving whenever they felt like it... due to contradictory instructions... arrive on time, arrive early, don't arrive early arrive late if you want. Result: 0730 through to 0830 overloaded.

And why couldn't they have published the start times months ago? I booked my trains as soon as they went on sale 12 weeks ago, without knowing my start time.

Overall, I enjoyed the event.

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Awavey | 1 year ago
3 likes

Hearing feedback from friends who did the ride, heading Eastwards towards a rising sun, might not have been the greatest route plan ever devised, and with bollards,speed bumps early on and lots of 90 degree turns in the mix on the route as well as concerns about gravel on the road, riding in big groups became a lot riskier than theyd expected from previous Ride Londons.

Several of them saying they saw enough crashes that made them kind of sit up and adopt a ride to survive to the finish mindset much earlier than theyd planned. And thats not an unusual thing to experience in these kinds of closed roads events at some point as it can start to feel a bit manic at stages when fatigue sets in and with riders hitting the deck, you can lose confidence quickly, but its just to highlight only the most serious accidents ever get the press focus.

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Global Nomad replied to Awavey | 1 year ago
2 likes

agree that some of the turns were a bit tight - the few 180 degree returns in the docks area particulalry....awkward in spaced out early groups i'm sure htey must have been a bottleneck with larger numbers later on.  on the return there was a missing direction sign between going over flyover and down through roundabout - our group went down following others and went into traffic at the roundabout - at the end of the ride and tired this wasn't good. 

signage elsewhere was present but "turn ahead" signs didnt mention which way, so you couldnt really prepare position - felt like cost saving of printing left and right turns signs.

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lonpfrb replied to Global Nomad | 1 year ago
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Global Nomad wrote:

agree that some of the turns were a bit tight - the few 180 degree turns in the docks area particulalry....awkward in spaced out early groups

The use of whistles by the Marshall's was effective to get rider attention to the hazard and to their directions. I thought it worked well, though roadside supporters in Essex also had whistles which caused me some confusion! Better too much attention than to little....

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lonpfrb replied to Global Nomad | 1 year ago
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Global Nomad wrote:

signage elsewhere was present but "turn ahead" signs didnt mention which way, so you couldnt really prepare position - felt like cost saving of printing left and right turns signs.

Possibly to avoid the risk of the sign being installed incorrectly so 180 degrees wrong.

I found it possible to look beyond the turn to see which side was full of bikes so know that direction.

There were also marshals with pointer flags to help avoid street furniture that was helpful.
My GPS also had junction alerts though didn't add much given the above.

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mark1a | 1 year ago
1 like

The delay was nearly an hour more like, i must have been just behind it given how close the air ambulance was, as mentioned, as soon as we saw the helicopter everyone saw the gravity of the situation and just got on with it. I would imagine the speculation over the incident might have been because half of Essex Police came past us, leading to thoughts of an investigation. 

Overall, a great day out though. 

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Surreyrider replied to mark1a | 1 year ago
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Agree. I was there 45-50 minutes. But at least I was just getting bored - the poor rider being helped was having a really bad day out. 
I saw the aftermath of a couple of nasty crashes. One bloke lying in the road (being attended to) and looked to be out cold. 
I thought the 180 turns and bollards weren't clever planning and riding directly into a blinding sun from the off was briefly difficult. 
The start was very disorganised - I left early but by the time I'd walked to the start entrance I was a bit late for my wave - but the organisers got away with it, at least early on when I went through. 

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Global Nomad | 1 year ago
2 likes

Must have been ahead of the delay, but saw several injured riders being tended to by paramedics...was told to ride on the right in one section to avoid tacks. People with brooms clearing them up. All told a good event though.

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ccparkhill | 1 year ago
2 likes

I took a puncture from 2 tacks at Chipping Ongar. Was stopped for the accident but managed to find a way around rather than wait, hope the person is ok. 

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Miller | 1 year ago
2 likes

Someone had a heart attack is what I hear. But otherwise it seems to have gone well. As for that lame proposal for a 22mph lead car: fastest known ride 3hr 43minutes, 200 riders inside four hours smiley

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Oldfatgit | 1 year ago
1 like

Hope whoever is involved is fine.

All those riders in the photo all look like they are trying desperately not to think "FFS, whats the hold up .. I waannnna get goooing .... "

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lonpfrb replied to Oldfatgit | 1 year ago
1 like
Oldfatgit wrote:

Hope whoever is involved is fine.

All those riders in the photo all look like they are trying desperately not to think "FFS, whats the hold up .. I waannnna get goooing .... "

Yes, that was the initial reaction but once the medical emergency became known riders just put on something warmer and waited. Happily the restart was not an issue and we got warm again quite soon...

Overall I think it went well and I suspect that if you had the data about 25,000 Sunday rides there would be a similar number of medical issues with the exception of crashes on crowded roads. Actually I didn't see any such crashes, though I don't know why other riders needed medical attention. It doesn't follow that those were all crashes.

What stood out for me, compared to the previous Surrey 100s was the amount of walking to the start and from the finish, plus the mass stop & restart. So I would advise shoes that like walking as well as pedaling at the next Essex 100.

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IanMSpencer replied to lonpfrb | 1 year ago
1 like

Perhaps they should follow the trend and put in a complete gravel section  3

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lonpfrb replied to IanMSpencer | 1 year ago
0 likes
IanMSpencer wrote:

Perhaps they should follow the trend and put in a complete gravel section  3

Ha-ha, can you hear the complaints about damage to deep section aero wheels and carbon frames?

For something that 'Is not a Race' there were loads of race bikes with deep section wheels. Even a few Tri-Bars, despite the supposed ban on anything non-standard...

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