A male cyclist collapsed and died yesterday during the Prudential RideLondon-Surrey 100 mass participation event, organisers have confirmed. It’s the second year running the event launched in 2013 has been overshadowed by the death of a participant.
In a statement released yesterday evening, organisers said: “It is with deep sadness that we confirm the death of a participant in the Prudential RideLondon-Surrey 100 today.
“A 55-year-old man collapsed on the lower part of the ascent of Leith Hill and, although he received immediate medical attention and an air ambulance attended, the death was confirmed at the scene.
“Our immediate concern is for the family of the deceased and no further details will be released at this time. We would like to express our sincere condolences to his family and friends.”
– Woman whose boyfriend died during RideLondon 100 rides this year in his memory
After some of the 25,000 participants experienced delays of up to three quarters of an hour at the foot of the climb while the stricken cyclist received emergency treatment, riders were diverted away from Leith Hill through Abinger Hammer and Westcott.
Among those riding yesterday was Nicola Tait, who had been taking part in last year’s edition with boyfriend Kris Cook, 36, when he collapsed and died from an undiagnosed heart condition during a climb at Newlands Corner.
Nicola’s efforts have succeeded in raising around £3,500 for the charity, Cardiac Risk in the Young.
19 thoughts on “Cyclist dies during yesterday’s Prudential RideLondon-Surrey 100”
R.I.P. and very well done
R.I.P. and very well done Nicola, yr a star.
The death is very sad, but I
The death is very sad, but I think it is wrong to suggest it overshadowed the whole event. 1 death per day in a mixed-aged group of 25,000 is not statistically very unusual even if they weren’t taking part in a 100 mile cycling challenge.
JamesJ wrote:The death is
Equivalent of one death every 68.5 years…
Yes, co-incidentally almost
Yes, co-incidentally almost exactly the average life-expectancy of a UK male. A rough calculation using the death rate for England and assuming a random selection of the population (which it obviously isn’t) gives a probability of about 0.65 or about 2 deaths during the day for each 3 years the event is run.
I don’t say this to diminish in anyway the sadness of anyone dying during an event to celebrate cycling and raise money for charity, but it is important to get the probability of this kind of event in perspective otherwise it’ll be allowed to overshadow the event almost every year and add to the false reputation of cycling as a dangerous activity. Deaths from heart attacks are pretty much unavoidable in mass participation sports events and should not be compared with avoidable deaths of cyclists from road traffic accidents caused by poor road design.
Very sad news. He was being
Very sad news. He was being resuscitated by cyclists as I climbed Leith Hill. For the rest of the ride, I was hoping that he was going to make it. Thoughts are with his family. RIP.
Well done to everybody. I
Well done to everybody. I didn’t ride this year (got lucky in the ballot if not with the weather last year, and wanted to give someone else a chance), but was watching in Dorking. In spite of the hold ups and delays to the riders, spirits were very high, and it made for a great spectacle to be by the side of the road. Also, the bottleneck gave me a chance to look at the bikes on display and choose my n+1.
My thoughts go out to the family of the deceased also.
Terrible terrible news.
Terrible terrible news. There were some bad crashes too, and even 2 high speed “collisions” that I have heard of between riders and pedestrians; I think all resulted in walking wounded.
Did anyone see the London Dynamo rider being knocked off on the way to the Blue/Orange entry area at about 5.30am? There was a wing mirror on the ground, suggesting a hit and run, but nobody has come forward and the rider has memory loss as well as facial injuries and a broken arm. If you did see anything, there has been an appeal for witnesses: you can email membership at londondynamo dot co dot uk.
Sorry, need to add ten years
Sorry, need to add ten years to get average male life expectancy in UK (it’s 78 not 68), but the rest of my comment above stands.
At an average life expectancy
At an average life expectancy of 78 years you’d get doing very rough math a 1 in 28,500 chance of an individual dying in a given day. You’d adjust that down somewhat given the ages (the average seems to be around 40) but add to that somewhat given the fitness (of being, i.e. the fact that these people aren’t sick/injured to the point that they’re up for a longish sportive.
However, given the fact that the average time seems to hover around 7 hours, you’d have to multiply by around 3.5. So that’s about 25,000 divided by 100,000. Or about a 25% chance of one out of any group of 25,000 people will die during the seven hours ride RideLondon takes place. I’d think, however, you’d need to pool all similar events (and nail down the above math a little) to find something statistically significant.
These seem like very cold calculations given that two people died. May them both rest in peace. I just wanted to acknowledge that there does seem to be a cardiac risk incurred in being an endurance athlete. That risk seems to be much, much lower than the cardiac cost of not doing regular regular exercise according to everything I’ve read, but there is a danger in overdoing it. See: http://velonews.competitor.com/cycling-extremes
Also:
http://road.cc/content/
Also:
http://road.cc/content/news/147709-mamils-shouldnt-worry-about-cardiac-arrest-while-riding-says-new-study
Looking at the London
Looking at the London Marathon, as another mass participation event, they look like they had 11 deaths from ’81-2012. Another paper published in 2007 [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17465632] suggests 1 death per 80,000 finishers as well as a similar number of resuscitations. I’m not sure whether the more compact nature of the marathon would aid the resuscitation rate compared to a cycling event. Average marathon pace seems to be 4:21 so the “exposure” time of the Surrey 100 is longer. All in all a death is unfortunate but not unexpected.
Having gone past the tragic incident on Leith Hill I don’t think that more could have been done. 3 participants who were medics rushed past me to help but there were about dozen people helping and they seemed to be doing, to my mildly trained eye, a good job with enough people (to the extent they turned down my offer of help).
I got my math pretty close by
I got my math pretty close by dumb luck but the logic was wrong (my middle school probability teacher would’ve given me a solid D) .
The odds should actually be 1 – odds_of_it_not_happening to the number_of_people. So 1-(99,999/100,000)^25,000 ~ 22.12%.
RIP fellow rider. As article
RIP fellow rider. As article states immediate medical attention was given, the following may not have applied but in many such instances a heart attack need not be fatal if you can administer hands only rescucitation- basic hard and fast chest compressions.
The BHF have a great app that simply requires you or whip out your phone, open the app and potentially save someone’s life. It could be a stranger’s or even a loved one.
https://www.bhf.org.uk/heart-health/nation-of-lifesavers/hands-only-cpr/cpr-app
And you get to listen to the Bee Gees.
I don’t wish to sound cold
I don’t wish to sound cold and callous but with not much information to go on the question is was he an experienced cyclist, trained to/capable of doing the ton or was he a person who thought I’ll have a go at that, this could have been a reason why this tragedy happened.
Perhaps there should be some form of scrutinizing of the applications for the ballot, every year there are people who get a place but have retired before a quarter of the way round this obviously spoils it for others that want to take part.
FATBEGGARONABIKE wrote:I
Subsequently going on to say “was he a bit rubbish? only, if he was, he’s sort of spoiled it for those of us who aren’t rubbish” does sort of sound a bit cold and callous, doesn’t it?
They do ask for experience,
They do ask for experience, such as sportives and how much riding you do. Some of this they can check as I presume they have the data, for instance I could put in my number from last year’s event when entering this year. But yes you could overstate your ability.
I believe that the riders are sent off with the faster ones at the front. Given I passed the incident I would presume that the rider was deemed as capable as I am of cycling the distance (although I had stopped a few times by then as I wanted to enjoy myself).
So I don’t think he was a “have a go” cyclist but someone who was probably capable of completing the ride.
FATBEGGARONABIKE wrote:was he
I don’t think it matters whether he was or not, this is a mass participation event, bit like the marathon, where coming and having a go is accepted. Sudden death can strike us all, fit or unfit, at any time.
Being the same age as the dead man, I’ve told my family that if I keel over on a big sportive, understand that I enjoyed doing big rides, and I accept the risks involved. Maybe he was the same.
My condolences go to his family at this sad time.
He’s now been named, Stephen
He’s now been named, Stephen Green, 55, an experienced cyclist who rode the event in 2013. He was riding to raise money for Action for A-T, his fundraising page is here.
I think the organisers go out of their way to open up the event to people who wouldn’t normally participate in a sportive. Like the London Marathon, it seems to be promoted as achievable for most people with a normal level of fitness provided they are prepared to put some effort in to train for it. Personally I think this is realistic and they get the balance about right.
As soon as you start to vet people for experience and you are going to restrict participation to people who already ride sportives, which in my view would be utterly counterproductive in using it as a showcase to promote road cycling and change the wider perception of it as a niche activity only of interest to a narrow demographic. Of the people who signed up having never ridden close to this distance before, for every one who withdrew halfway round I’m sure there are loads more who really pushed themselves, and got round with a fantastic sense of satisfaction. This is a good thing IMHO.
This is a side topic, but I
This is a side topic, but I think it is worth being aware that this type of incident is more likely to be cardiac arrest, which is different to a heart attack, and credit to the article for the wording
There are important differences between heart attacks and cardiac arrest. One thing to note about the latter is, that it is not related to the health/fitness of the individual.
http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/General/Cardiac-Arrest-versus-Heart-Attack-Infographic_UCM_450698_SubHomePage.jsp
In terms of treatment, the time between the arrest and initial treatment is very important, so awareness of cardiac arrest and the correct immediate treatement is knowledge that should be widely shared.
I am in no ways an expert, so I include my source of these comments, which was this excellent online lecture series:
https://www.coursera.org/course/cardiacarrest