Evans Cyles Ride it ! North London 19th April

kez78

Has anyone ridden one of the Evans Cycles Ride it ! sportives in the past ?
Are they any good ? how many people usually ride ?

Thinking of riding it, but not to comfortable handing over a tenner to Evans, is it worth it ?
http://www.evanscycles.com/ride-it/nort ... -19th-2009

guinea

I haven't done one, but it looks like a nice route.

I think I'll sign up for that if the weather's looking good nearer the weekend.

The other sportive I was looking at that weekend was - http://www.cyclosport.org/eventdetails. ... entid=2227 but the Evans one looks easier to get to and from for me.

schlepcycling

Not done the road rides but have done several of the Saturday off road rides and they're great and the Evans organisation has been excellent.

The routes are well signposted and on the off road rides there's at least one drinks station. At the HQ, which is usually a local school they have bike hire, Gore clothing on a ride before you buy scheme and food and drink for sale at reasonable prices.

Why are you not comfortable handing a tenner to Evans, is it the fact that it's Evans or a tenner?.

kez78

It's not the tenner...it's giving it to Evans ! I'd rather do an event where a local club benefits, but as there’s nothing else going on, and I suppose it's all good for cycling...

alan14

I've done the Milton Keynes road ride twice. I thought it was well organised with good route signage and 3 drinks stations. You get a gel bar and map and 15% discount voucher. If you look at the rider times you'll see that over 150 people take part with most doing the 60 mile route.

They have an offer whereby if you book in April it costs £7.50 instead of £10.

As an introduction to sportives I think they're good value.

guinea

I did this run today. It was fine but there were very few riders on the longer route. I did almost the whole thing solo. I think I had company for 5 miles.

Anyway, it was a good day, but the road surface was a bit grim. Lots of miles of stone chips and lots of mud and pot holes on the off road sections. I puctured twice in the first 20 miles and used all my tubes. The rest of the ride I had my fingers tightly crossed.

The route itself was great with a few short steep hills at the end just to make sure you get some work. Bread and Cheese Road was fun.

It was well organised and well signed. A good day.

hambones

I also did this today - I had a free entry voucher and it was local, run on many of my weekend routes. I only did the medium distance (which I clocked at just over 58 not the 54 advertised) and spent the entire time riding alone!!

3000 ft of climbing might have surprised a few and I could have done without Carbone Hill et al at the end!!

NUFCrichard

I did this today and found pretty much they same as you guys. I was a bit worried when all my starting group were dropped after 300m but I did manage to get into a couple of groups until turning onto the long route.

I was pretty suprised that it weighed in with nearly 1500m of climbing considering it got 2/4 of the difficulty, I guess a 4/4 must have 3000m+!!

purplehaze

I only did the Medium ride - really enjoyable and well organised Sunday morn in the countryside - even saw some Llamas(?). Agree with the road surfaces being poor and seemed to be lots of re-surfacing happening. This was my first real trip out this year and struggled on the surprisingly hilly return. Will def look to do more Evans rides - good value. But if that was a 2 - 'need to get fitter for the 3&4's.... :P