Litter left by RideLondon 100 riders in Richmond Park is up 90 per cent on last year, according to a local conservation charity, which has reiterated warnings about the lethal effect of litter on deer.
Friends of Richmond Park say they found 182 gel wrappers and opening strips in just 600m of the 100 mile course, 24 hours after July 31 when 27,000 amateur riders and professional cyclists passed through.
Event organisers, who admitted there had been a communication issue with litter patrol teams after this year’s event, said they may install cameras on the route next year to identify and ban those who litter.
Chilterns cyclists asked to clean up their act
Friends of Richmond Park trustee, Richard Gray, told Your Local Guardian litter can have serious long-term consequences for deer: “They swallow the plastic and if they eat enough it can stop them digesting other food.
“We’re not anti-cyclist, but we wonder why they have to throw the packets on the floor; why can’t they tuck them into their lycra?
“They blow onto the grass, which make them hard to see for litter-pickers.
“We just don’t want them to get into the deer and preventing them from eating.”
Event director, Hugh Brasher, said next year there will be a dedicated litter clean-up team, who will do one pick after the amateur event, and one after the professional cyclists have passed through.
He told the paper there will be cameras in secret locations throughout the park to catch and ban riders who ignore the event’s anti-littering message.
Mr Brasher said: “We have done an enormous amount of messaging through our #LoveWhereYouRide campaign, which calls on riders to take home any rubbish with them from training rides and to use the waste facilities provided throughout the Prudential Ride London event.
“We have suggested a meeting and dialogue with Friends of Richmond Park.”
#Lovewhereyouride and BIN your litter! https://t.co/UXnuP1kI6Z
— RideLondon (@RideLondon) August 2, 2015
Last year litter pickers found 96 gel wrappers in 600m of the RideLondon course. Of the 100 mile course 6.1km runs through the Park on the outward leg, before heading for the Surrey Hills and back to Central London. The Friends say littering was a problem the year before.
Of course, some participants proudly take their wrappers home with them.
Took all my wrappers home. @RideLondon #proveit #LoveWhereYouRide #RideLondon pic.twitter.com/zZo9yy1c0O
— Steve Castle (@stevecastle) July 31, 2016
66 thoughts on “RideLondon litter up 90% in Richmond Park”
Never mind the deer, have you
Never mind the deer, have you seen what a lime energy gel does to a Rapha jacket?
Yorkshire wallet wrote:
Oh, how funny – a comment showing apathy to wildlife rather than the retards who think it’s fine to throw their rubbish anywhere they like.
STiG911 wrote:
Oh, how funny – a comment showing apathy to wildlife rather than the retards who think it’s fine to throw their rubbish anywhere they like.— Yorkshire wallet
Calm down. I stick my rubbish back in the pockets I took it from thanks. My comment was meant to illustrate some people would rather drop theirs than stain their pockets.
Yorkshire wallet wrote:
Oh, how funny – a comment showing apathy to wildlife rather than the retards who think it’s fine to throw their rubbish anywhere they like.
— STiG911 Calm down. I stick my rubbish back in the pockets I took it from thanks. My comment was meant to illustrate some people would rather drop theirs than stain their pockets.— Yorkshire wallet
Aye, someone isn’t so good at spotting sarcasm
STiG911 wrote:
Oh, how funny – a comment showing apathy to wildlife rather than the retards who think it’s fine to throw their rubbish anywhere they like.— Yorkshire wallet
I think you might need to have your sense of humour chip adjusted…
Shameful behaviour that gives
Shameful behaviour that gives all cyclists a bad name. I saw one cyclist throwing litter on the approach to Box Hill during the ride and gave him a good ear-bashing. These Rapha-clad littering Londoners shouldn’t be allowed outside of the M25!
jurassicjay wrote:
That’s a pathetic generalisation…
PaulBox wrote:
And no generalisation is wholly true, including this one.
jurassicjay wrote:
Shameful behaviour that gives all cyclists a bad name. I saw one cyclist throwing litter on the approach to Box Hill during the ride and gave him a good ear-bashing. These Rapha-clad littering Londoners shouldn’t be allowed outside of the M25! — jurassicjay
nope, it was brexit voting outsider cunts coming in and trashing the place 😉
Fair play, no excuse for
Fair play, no excuse for dropping litter.
However, I wish the gel manufacturers would develop an opening method which means that the tip remains attached to the main sachet. That’s the bit that sometimes gets away by accident.
PaulBox wrote:
None whatsoever. Selfish wankers.
If people use gels but don’t want an empty wrapper in their overpriced jersey pocket then why don’t they take a tiny bag to stuff them in? Charity bags are distributed in pouches that would be ideal or perhaps those poo sacks so many dog owners love to leave behind. Or why not stop at the roadside or feed stop to neck it safely and put the wrapper in a bin? It’s not difficult.
Torq have attempted to address this:
http://road.cc/content/news/82278-torq-release-raspberry-ripple-flavour-gel
150 vs 20,000 in the sportive…. ?
PaulBox wrote:
Zipvit Zv7 gels are meant to but it doesn’t work particularly well.
Regardless of how carefully
Regardless of how carefully everyone takes out/puts back gels, bars, bananas etc there’s always going to be litter floating out of a back pocket and certainly in a large pack moving at speed no real way of telling where/who it came from. The solution is pretty simple – the organisers put up big catch nets about a mile after each feed stop (on the downwind side!) and request that people simply throw things there.
Worked perfectly on Etape du Tour and on numerous other events in Belgium & France that I’ve ridden.
Realistically, no-one is going to pull over, stop and carefully place their litter in the nearest bin when riding along in a huge bunch at 30mph, in fact to even try that would be dangerous.
I’d guess that a lot of it comes from the pro race in the afternoon where they DO throw gels and bottles at random and again, no matter how good the post-event clean up, it could be blown half way across that park by then.
crazy-legs wrote:
If people are stopping at the feed stations to get their gels and using them in the subsequent mile I’m not sure why they can’t just neck them there and then?
Tape the tabs to your top
Tape the tabs to your top tube then you can open with one hand and keep a jersey pocket for empties. I gave all my wrappers to marshals on Ride London, a quick shout, a please and a thank you and they all gladly took them from me as I barrelled past 🙂
I was out the next day and
I was out the next day and the road between Leith Hill and Dorking was an absolute disgrace, 1000s if energy gel wrappers.
182 out of 27000 – thats less
182 out of 27000 – thats less than 1% of entrants littering, there will always be idiots.
Also, there is a high probability that some of the litter was pre-existing, I see gel wrappers after most weekends in RP.
Notgettinganyfaster wrote:
Nope, that’s less than 1% littering over a 0.4% long segment of the course. It only represents 1% of the riders if every rider eats a gel during that 600m. Unfortunately the actual percentage littering is going to be far higher 🙁
The Dutch have a simple
The Dutch have a simple solution that makes the disposal of litter fun.
http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2009/02/rubbish-bins.html
Whilst it is no excuse for
Whilst it is no excuse for the litter from Ride London but have you seen the mess that smokers leave everywhere. I commute by bike and public transport and the state around many, if not all, entrances to buildings that prohibit smoking inside them is disgraceful and yet it is accepted as part of every day life these days, so regarded as normal behaviour.
Don’t take gels out any more,
Don’t take gels out any more, too bulky and messy. Pour them into a soft flask before you leave and use that. Makes life way easier.
Got that from Alan Hansen’s GCN episode and have been using it since. Best ‘why didn’t I think of that’ moment I’ve had in ages.
That said, have switched to making my own ow. Basically just use maltodextrin powder with a flavoured electrolyte tablet. Super cheap and have stress tested it up to 125miles at race pace. No solids.
Definitely try it, saves a fortune, cuts out loads of bulk and there’s no messy packets to deal with.
unconstituted wrote:
I started to use: http://www.wiggle.co.uk/high5-energy-source-plus-22kg/?sku=5360562933
It means that you don’t really need to take any gels out with you at all, unless you are doing rides where 1.5l of fluids is going to be used up. When I did RideLondon this year I had a bar at around 50 miles & another at 74 & that was it.
Also a point worth making is that the excellent, regular, feed stations were supplied with the full range of free Clif products. The http://www.clifbar.co.uk/products/clif-shot-gel actually have a “litter leash” which stops the top from being seperated. However the lightbulb produvt for me was the http://www.clifbar.co.uk/products/clif-shot-bloks. They are both easier to eat on the move & if you have a kersey which has one of the small pockets on the side then you can cut the packet into 2 & have then 4 lots stuffed easily in!
unconstituted wrote:
Was that the football pundit special?
Problem Solved?
Problem Solved?
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/high5-gel-flask/rp-prod89836?gs=1&gclid=CLjrvNukuc4CFcQV0wodM_cEdw&gclsrc=aw.ds
Problem Solved?
Problem Solved?
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/high5-gel-flask/rp-prod89836?gs=1&gclid=CLjrvNukuc4CFcQV0wodM_cEdw&gclsrc=aw.ds
So good I posted it twice
No one was a pro, it wasn’t a
No one was a pro, it wasn’t a race. Anyone intentionally dropping litter is a selfish, arrogant object. If caught on camera, ban them from entering in the future.
Anyone needing a gel by the
Anyone needing a gel by the time they got to Richmond park needs to train more
GCN recommended a gel 20
GCN recommended a gel 20 minutes in, in one of their videos!
Yorkshire wallet wrote:
Was it sponsored?
I never touch gels, didn’t pick up or eat any during RideLondon last year. Somehow I still seemed to have a collection of half a dozen the next day. Too much crap handed out.
The Friends of Richmond Park
The Friends of Richmond Park are anti-cycling in Richmond Park.
They put out the same crap last year. Using numbers (“90%”, “182 gel wrappers”) doesn’t attach any scientific/statistical merit to what is basically an annual protest at the use of RP for a passtime that the FoRP disapproves of (certainly when engaged in within the Park). Was any attempt made to determine whether any of the gel wrappers had been discarded by participants in Saturday morning’s parkrun, which begins just inside the same gate?
I’d like to see RP (and Wimbledon Common and Bushy Park) host a round of the London CX League. It’s sufficiently big that you could construct an MTB circuit (with some “red” trail options) without unreasonably affecting other users. The actual chance of this happening is zero, because of people like FoRP. According to the RP Management Statement “The purpose of The Royal Parks is to balance the responsibility to protect, conserve and enhance the unique landscape, environment, ecology, wildlife, heritage and vistas of the eight Royal Parks in London with active and creative policies to encourage wider access to them and to increase opportunities for enjoyment, delight, sanctuary, information, education, creativity and healthy recreation for everyone, now and in the future.” (My emphasis.) FoRP (and their ilk) ignore the bit about “balance” (and they aren’t interested in being creative) in favour of exclusion.
But people should put their gel wrappers in their pockets and take them home.
The Friends of Richmond park
The Friends of Richmond park do seem to push an anti-cyling agenda.
Their report (in pdf) is here: http://www.frp.org.uk/pdf/news/1397_Press_release_Ride_London_2016_monitoring_v5.pdf
The photo show 5 gel wrappers and 170ish tear strips which isn’t good. There is a second photo whcih shows other litter including a coffee cup, pot noodle, beer can and plastic plant pot. This can’be from the riders and is more likely is litter from previous days that hadn’t been picked up before.
I raised on their facebook page how this compared with amount of litter that is left behind by people having picnics on a sunny weekend (the bins overflowing and plenty of litter blowing about until the cleaning on monday morning). That problem is much worse, but doesn’t involve cyclists, so the FoRP don’t make much of a fuse.
As for dangers to deer in the park, the last figures I could find showed that an average of 18 deer are killed each year. 6 hit by cars, 6 by eating litter, and 6 after dog attacks. The FoRP don’t seem that keen on stopping cars using the park as a shortcut (the majority of speeding cars), or restricting dog walkers. But anything to do with cyclists gets lots of attention from them.
thereverent wrote:
Cyclists should not drop litter anywhere on any ride. Period.
But so far as RP is concerned, let’s not forget that they often have to cull the deer as they over-populate. Surely that’s far more cruel than discarding litter?
Jem PT wrote:
Eh? I imagine whatever method they use for culling the deer is more humane than them dying by choking…
Jem PT wrote:
The deer are culled yes, but it’s a death that is fast, and unexpected (gun from a park car) vs struggling death.
clearly people shouldn’t be dropping this stuff, there was a breadcrumb trail of this stuff though the parks and Kingston and I assume elsewhere, for a few days.
The other question is since rideLondon is a busness surely they should be putting some more effort /money into the clean up.
rogermerriman wrote:
The business aspect is the largest cause. Those that ride and use sports products regularly know to take their garbage home with them. The problem is the massive amount of stuff handed out by the sponsors to people who don’t really need it. Most people should be eating “food”, and possibly gels after the final hub to get them home. Richmond Park is before quarter distance.
Jem PT wrote:
At the risk of starting another debate, no it isn’t. Managing deer numbers is important for many reasons. Deer levels in the UK are thought to be at the highest level for 1,000 years. If there are too many deer, disease spreads more easily, they can die of starvation in the winter, they can wander into traffic and cause accidents and they cause massive damage to trees and crops.
A competent shot from a .308 or a .243 is pretty much instant and I’m sure the sale of the venison makes an important contribution to the running of the park.
Jem PT wrote:
The culing is quick and humaine. Without it the deer would die of more painful dieseses and starvation (as the park can only support a certain number).
They can’t move the deer elsewhere and there are no controceptives approved for deer in the UK. So it’s the best way they have at the moment.
thereverent wrote:
Ah the ‘humane’ fallacy.
When people conveniently justify killing another species based on their own values.
unconstituted wrote:
Well the other non-culling options are:
– Leave the deer to die of starvation and diesese while they strip the park of greenery. A number would also escape the park and be killed on the surrounding roads.
– Introduce a natural predator such as wolves (which would at least cut the numbers of dog walking anti-cycling NIMBYs in the park). Would also make cycling and running in the park more exciting.
No workable alternative solution to culling is availble at the moment.
Even the Bitish Deer Society back culling: http://www.bds.org.uk/index.php/advice-education/why-manage-deer
thereverent wrote:
I think this is the best idea ever, I would be well up for packs of wolves roaming RP.
(I imagine it would also put the wind up the foxes and the rabbits, both of which could do with a culling.)
surly_by_name wrote:
I’ve advocated the ‘pack of wolves’ idea here before. I’m glad you’re all coming around to my way of thinking. 😉
Shall we start a petition?
unconstituted wrote:
Why is it a fallacy in this case? In the absence of natural predators to control numbers, and a limited space for the deer (the park), would their numbers expand to the point where they were unsustainable through lack of food? Starvation would be a natural method of population control. If that is the alternative then a quick death by bullet does sound more humane.
What would your alternative be? Remove the fences? Relocate the deer to wilder areas (although they are culled elsewhere too)? Bring more food into the park?
thereverent wrote:
Not to mention the cull that happens each year, where they shoot a whole bunch of them to keep the numbers down.
OK hands up who took on
OK hands up who took on protein before Sawyers Hill and discarded that empty tin of John West tuna ? 😉
I’m absolutely in agreement that we shouldn’t litter, and that RideLondon doesn’t need the bad press. I can see how a proportion of that might have escaped as it was being put into a jersey pocket and it just wasn’t feasible to stop, turn around and look for it with the vast quantity of riders come at you – or that it was lodged in a pocket and came out unawares.
To have any statistical meaning though that route would have to have been fully cleared of all litter prior to the start of the event and any previous gel wrappers removed.
I took on a gel as I entered the start funnel to fuel my first 30 minutes and then as I entered Richmond tucked into a Lucho Dillito – a block of guava wrapped in a dry banana leaf (which I discarded – it is very much biodegradeable) to power me though Sawyers. I wouldn’t have wanted to hit that (relatively small I know) incline an hour into the ride without some extra energy. I’m on the every 30 minutes fuelling regime.
I had a couple more over the rest of the 46 miles (I did the baby route) and whilst I had another caffeine gel in the jersey didn’t need it. I’m consciously moving to the Lucho Dillitos – less chemicals, and no foil wrapper to worry about post consumption. Well worth a look.
No need to ban cyclists, all
No need to ban cyclists, all they need to do is go through the ballot for next year. No chance of ever getting a ride!
And I thought that guava was
And I thought that guava was a posh word for bird poo.
You learn something new every day.
Kapelmuur wrote:
I’m often accused of talking sh*t, but in this case the word you were thinking of is guano 😀
Couldn’t agree more that
Couldn’t agree more that wilful littering is shameful and should be stamped out. I slot my empties up the leg of my bibs or down the front of my jersey, they sit flat and it’s no hassle.
However, I thought the amount of litter dropped this year was much, much less than in 2014. The hill on the way out of Kingston past a station (Norbiton?) was littered before, none this year.
Curious about this… “there had been a communication issue with litter patrol teams”… is that the sort of ‘communication issue’ that results in them not doing their job?
I live within 1km of the
I live within 1km of the route in Surrey (so don’t do it – just go down to cheer on those that do every year), and, piqued by the reddit about this yesterday, rode the route from Leatherhead to Esher today looking for litter. Among the discarded nappies, bits of plastic, paper, cars, bottles, fag packets, fizzy drink cans etc it was hard to see any gel wrappers. Maybe the deer (of which there are numbers round here outside the Royal Parks) had eaten them all. Or maybe the clean-up squads only removed the wrappers.
So I’m with surly_by_name, and thereverent on this one.
It’s true that Friends of
It’s true that Friends of Richmond Park never miss a chance to criticise people for cycling (whilst denying that of course). They’re not exactly alone in that club of “Friends of” groups.
Must give a special mention to the Friends of Southwark Park, who seem to have a problem with the equality act. There response to queries about this was to block people and call them trolls.
bikebot wrote:
In my experience, the “Friends of…” type groups exist to help *their* friends. They like to try and turn public spaces into semi-private spaces for “the right sort”.
“Local parks for local people; there’s nothing for you here “.
brooksby wrote:
My experience of Friends groups is the opposite. Their aspirations and efforts may for the parks (what they think is “best”) will be conditioned by their own background/outlook (disproportionately older, white, middle-class?) but they are giving up their time to help others and keeping the local authority (usually the park’s owners) on their toes.
Community politics can get nasty though, so these groups do need to be monitored.
Theres a simple solution to
Theres a simple solution to this, for those that have don’t want to be accidental litter louts. Get one of those little 150-200ml plastic hip flasks for runners and pour your gels in to that before the ride. Fits easily in a jersey pocket, and is easier and safer than faffing with sachets when riding in a tight group, plus no chance of accidentally dropping litter. Just need to avoid the temptation to neck it all in one go!
Etape Caledonia and many
Etape Caledonia and many other sportives have dedicated litter drop zones, usually lasting about 100 yards out of a feed station. They’re manned by people with grabbers and bin bags so nothing’s left behind. Simple and sensible idea and you keep your trash until you reach one. Ride London has the resources to do this quite easily.
The prevalence of gels and
The prevalence of gels and energy foods says a lot for the advertising selling these products, but not much for the knowledge of the people using them. I bet they were all wearing helmets too.
Honestly, the gullibility of the average human seems to be rising, not falling. Or perhaps the advertising industry has got better. Whatever. As H. L. Mencken said “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.” Excluding the nationality issue, so very true of this country too.
burtthebike wrote:
Probably, as you cannot start the event without one…
alansmurphy wrote:
Maybe they should throw them away onto the roadside verges too!
alansmurphy wrote:
Which is why I will never enter an event which mandates helmets, as the organisers are clearly incompetent.
burtthebike wrote:
Leaving aside how difficult it must be for you to find an event to participate/compete in, it doesn’t mean that the organisers are incompetent. More likely it means that the insurance they have procured compels them to require participants to wear helmets. Which – if my understanding of the insurance market is correct – means that people are betting real money that wearing a helmet is likely to reduce the cost of injury.
As an aside, do all threads have a kind of “half life” after which they descend into a futile debate about either disc brakes in the pro peleton or he wearing of helmets?
surly_by_name wrote:
Leaving aside how difficult it must be for you to find an event to participate/compete in, it doesn’t mean that the organisers are incompetent. More likely it means that the insurance they have procured compels them to require participants to wear helmets. Which – if my understanding of the insurance market is correct – means that people are betting real money that wearing a helmet is likely to reduce the cost of injury.
[/quote]
There are plenty of events run by competent people who have some knowledge of cycling and risk which do not mandate helmets.
The insurance myth is one I’ve heard dozens of times, with the organisers claiming that “it ain’t us guv, it’s the insurance company”. Except that every time I’ve checked with the insurance company, they say that they have made no such stipulation, but then, in their business, they understand data and statistics, unlike many event organisers. Not only are the organisers incompetent, they’re not even very good at lying.
Sorry, but your understanding is wrong, and insurance companies know very well that cycle helmets have no beneficial effects.
Or culled
Or culled 😉
tucking into the gels by the
tucking into the gels by the time you get to richmond park? have a word!
No excuse for littering deliberately either!
I saw several cyclists over
I saw several cyclists over the course of 100miles blatantly throwing their empty gel/food wrappers on the ground. Thoroughly disgusting behaviour.
Who needs gels anyway? Just
Who needs gels anyway? Just amateurs bimbling around a pretty course, they’re hardly in glycogen debt crisis! I stopped using energy drinks and gels years ago, get by with water in my bottles and a bit of soreen in my back pocket.
I guess some people just like to fantasise that they’re in a race.
dodgy wrote:
Exactly. As someone said recently, you can get all the energy contained in a large handful of gels in about 30 pence worth of maltodextrin and make your own in a 150-200ml bottle.
A massive marketing coupe to pull in the gullible and those with more money than sense.
The Etape this year, among
The Etape this year, among others, had a great solution – they had sections of road that were drop zones. Fantastic idea. You drop out of the zone, you’re disqualified, within the zone, it’ll get swept up during the day.