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Ride London 2016 – debrief

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  • August 2, 2016 at 9:04 am #26088
    listerine

    I did the Ride London Freecycle on 30 July and the 100 mile ride on 31 July. 

    Loads of of fun all round, with the Sunday ride my first century (both metric and imperial) and first proper group ride – it was surprisingly fast, as I tried to keep up with the big boys.

    It was a learning experience as well – I learnt about half way through that (unlike for the Freecycle) the expectation on the 100 mile route was to keep towards the left hand side of the road, to let faster riders pass on the right, and, in retrospect, I probably over cooked it a bit at the beginning, leaving my legs a little sore for the remainder.

    The descents were absolutely exhilarating – screaming downhill at 50km, centimetres away from other riders, and hoping not to slip on gel packets. The supporters were amazing too. 

    I saw a few serious looking crashes, which was sad and sobering, and narrowly avoided the same a couple of times, due to marshals trying to direct race traffic and not quite anticipating how fast we were going. I got held up by what turned out to be a very sad incident just before Pyrford, and, being told that the queues looked like they would take a couple of hours to clear, managed to skip the queues with a few others by taking a few side roads and bridle ways.

    7 hours start to finish, and very pleased with the result.

     

    How did you all find it?

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  • August 3, 2016 at 1:00 pm #875903
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    Notgettinganyfaster
    AST1986 wrote:
    I had similar experiences to those that have already been posted. I think that the ride has now become too big for the roads it is run on which causes too many pinch points, thereby increasing the risk of accidents. Compounding the issue this year was having the 46 mile riders rejoining the 100 mile route towards the end.

     

    I dont think its a problem of size or numbers – there is 100 miles of road to spread out on after all. For me it is the mix of abilities and aspirations all lumped in together, the balance appears to me to be all wrong.

    I went off at 6.04, in a wave pen containing a vast mix of ability, some of which were clearly not fast.

    They need to sort out a method of seeding better. If everyone went off with groups of a similar ability then there wouldn’t be so much of a coming together out on the road, where faster riders meet slower riders. Ability should, generally speaking, be broadly comparable. In an ideal world, wave groups would stay pretty much together.

    I think this year people cottoned on to the potential for delay of going off late, so put a fast time in to get an early slot if they got a place. Which kinda defeated the point.

    I think they should go further with seeding, and allocate the early waves to fast riders only, and have a more onerous seeding criteria for these waves for those that want to race (sod it, lets make it competitive as thats what it is anyway). Later waves should be for other riders less concerned with time.

    There should also be course marshals with the ability to withdraw entrants for dangerous riding.

     

    August 3, 2016 at 12:27 pm #875901
    0
    Al__S

    4th time doing the 100*. Want

    4th time doing the 100*. Want to do it a fifth time for sure.

    Did get held up for an hour by the Pyrford crash. It’ll be interesting to see if they do try to modify the route- looking at a map the only bigger alternative in that area is to go on the Woking perimiter., which means all sort of other issues with disrupting more people. outside the event. The Wey valley in that are is wide, flat and has few roads across it. Everyone that I saw seemed to take the disruption well, very polite.

    Most people did seem to be get (and it was in the briefing) stay left if slower, pass on the right. The odd slower rider to the right, and faster rider weaving around and so passing on the left, but few and far between. Obviously this is different to the freecycle- whilst it is “not a race”, with the timing chips, timing tracker, etc there’s encouragement to set a target for yourself and try to beat or match it in terms of time at an official level, whilst the Freecycle has no timing and is explicitly a sight seeing event.

    Chatting with team mates, whilst riding, it was clear that especially in the early stages every nasty pothole had a drift of bidons- cages that don’t grip well meeting poor road maintainence.

    The littler thing is sadly common to most mass-cycling events. It doesn’t take many people to make it a mess, and obviously being bigger than any other this is a multiplier.

     

    Generally I found it really positive- I do get that experience varies- event. I really enjoyed doing it as part of the British Cyling Club Challenege, always more fun to be riding with friends of similar ability. Enjoyed chatting to some from Folkestone Velo in the first third. Had some fun banter with the crowd from the RAF whilst winding up the speed through Fulham towards the end, leading to a mass sprint finish. Up Leith Hill, when able to catch breath to speak, there was a good atmosphere and lovely banter from the marshals on the course.

     

    As ever, great to see people out to cheer along the whole route. Brilliant to see towns and villages in full festival or fete mode to celebrate the event, great seeing local business grabbing the day as an opportunity not an impediment.

     

    And fun flopping into the Silver Star at the top of Whitehall to meet with one of the staff of this parish for a “few” beers to watch the race.

     

    *Year 1: Ballot, but the bit for anyone that chose to donate their entry for an extra chance. Year 2: Asthma UK. Year 3: Asthma UK. Year 4: British Cycling Club Challenge team

    August 3, 2016 at 11:51 am #875899
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    Alessandro

    I had similar experiences to

    I had similar experiences to those that have already been posted. I think that the ride has now become too big for the roads it is run on which causes too many pinch points, thereby increasing the risk of accidents. Compounding the issue this year was having the 46 mile riders rejoining the 100 mile route towards the end.

     

    I’ve read on various similar websites that a number of others won’t be entering next year because of the potential for accidents caused by the congestion. I’ve ridden the event every year and this was definitely the crashiest and most nervous one in my experience. That may have been due to my later start time of 0735 compared to 0600ish in the previous three years but it just seemed that the roads were pretty clogged up the whole way round. 

     

    One thing I was particularly disgusted with was the amount of rubbish that riders were just chucking on the road and hedges. I rode up beside one guy and (apologies for the passive aggressive nature of this) informed him that he appeared to have chucked his gel wrapper on the floor. He just looked at me as though I was the one in the wrong by having the audacity to question him before I rode off shaking my head. I rode the Etape a few weeks ago and liked the idea of the rubbish zone with netting at the sides of the road – perhaps a similar feature at two or three points along the route would reduce the amount of litter? 

     

    Overall, lots of fun and I’ll definitely enter the ballot again for next year but, unlike previous years, I won’t be too disappointed if I don’t get a place. 

    August 3, 2016 at 9:57 am #875897
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    stealfwayne

    Personally, I thought

    Personally, I thought considering the unplanned difficulties throughout the day the organising and marshalling was at a level to be applauded. They for the majority of the time kept us rolling. The only thing to raise was the lack of communication as to why we were being held up 5 miles before Newlands for 25 minutes. other than that it was well organised. Oh and the chap who was permitted to ride with full on TT bike who was swinging all over the road making others adjust their line to accommodate him was more of a danger than he probably thinks.
    The proper conduct can’t be said for the riders who refused to ‘Make way for the riders on the right’ as a sort of obstinate choice of behaviour as opposed to those who just didn’t read the pre flight instructions. In some cases that was downright dangerous.
    I was following a sort of slow train up Leith Hill on the very edge of the road, to have a rider swerve into me without looking, then shout at me when I scared him by being there !!! luckily I managed to avoid stopping. There were other episodes that I won’t go into, but I did feel lucky to have made it to the finish line without incident. And thoughts go out to those that were not so fortunate.

    In my humble opinion more ‘rubbish containers required. a few more marshals before pinch points to assist with getting us all through. But a very successful event it was too. The crowds at the side of the road were fantastic and very vocal which was an experience.

    My Endomondo app (other are available) said 6hrs 22 min moving time but I too had sections of very slow riding due to the incidents so could take off 15 mins at a guess. Much faster than I had anticipated so another reason to be over the moon at the event.  Will be in the ballott next week. I filmed the event with my go pro so aim to have some footage of it if I can manage the editing by the end off the month.

    August 2, 2016 at 11:56 pm #875895
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    dottigirl

    Quite alarmed that it took
    Quite alarmed that it took until halfway round for you to realise you needed to stay left. Did you not spot the advice/requests on the pre-ride info?

    Good you enjoyed it though.

    August 2, 2016 at 9:40 pm #875893
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    Paulmgreen

    Yes I got stuck at Pyrford

    Yes I got stuck at Pyrford too…..   Thought about going back and finding a route but stuck with it …. Initial stop there was hour and a half so really not best for your legs standing still for all that time ! 

     

    Then an got further delayed on Leith Hill after a crash there !   In total was stuck in various places for 2 1/2 hous    Actual moving time was 5.45 including several slow miles due to sheer numbers as we moved off from the jams…..  But overall was out for 8 hrs 20 so long day !!

     

    when I saw the main crash site just after Pyrford it wasn’t surprising ….. Very narrow road  … Downhill…. Sharp bend …..  Didn’t seem especially signed well with warnings ? 

     

    But it despite this absolutely loved the whole experience… Fantastic crowds and riding through some of the Surrey villages and towns the support and sheer delight of the crowds was simply amazing .

     

    i was  riding for Alzheimer’s Society and the shouts and support were incredible.  Especially the old man in a village who actually flagged me down.  He said thank you for riding for Alzheimer’s and that I was a hero    He actually had a tear in his eye    I thanked him and rode off with tears in mine  

     

    I really hope to get a place next year .  Amazing event 

     

     

     

     

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