Retracing Le Tour Stage 1/ British Cyclosportive

il_principe

I'm riding the route of the British Cyclosportive on the 21st of July. DOing it with a mate and I've manged to program the route into my Garmin Edge, so should be fine in terms of navigation. Anyone who rode the British Cyclosportive got any tips - parts of the route to watch out for, particularly the London leg - I don't know the area well, are the roads a nightmare? We'll be leaving at around 6am so hopefully there won't be much traffic about. Really looking forward to it but I just hope the weather behaves.

Any advice much appreciated!

Pirahna

At 6am you'll be fine through London. As the miles rack up you'll be going through town centres with all the Saturday shopping traffic so be careful. Some the lanes are quite narrow and I'd expect Canterbury to be very busy, so be careful.

To be honest, it's probably a superb ride on closed roads but was crap for the sportiv. The sportiv was probably tainted by the vast hoards of people who didn't have a clue and made the ride potentially very dangerous. I'd rate it as the worst open road event I've ridden.

There are much nicer rides, just do an audax on that day and you'll have a far better time. If you must do a Tour stage hop on the chunnel and do the Dunkirk stage.

il_principe

I'm turning off at Tenterden as my parents live down on the coast near Rye so Canterbury won't be a problem although traffic doesn't worry me being a Londoner! I guess lwaving early we'll be over the Thames and past the worst of it traffic wise before things get busy?