Evans Ride It King Of The Downs

nunowoolmez

Anyone doing this?

I'm doing it & hoping it won't be as brutally hot as last year. Also looks like the massive gap between water/feed stations will still be there. Good route tho, looking forward to it.

TheStone

The sufferfest is upon us again!

ugo.santalucia

Had a near collision with an idiot taking part in this event... completely on the wrong side of the road and looking at the butterflies. Those surrey lanes are not suited to take hundreds of imbeciles: there were so called cyclists all over the road, thinking they can descend like Nibali... wouldn't be surprised if a few ended up sampling the Surrey tarmac... a real idiot-fest... I start sympathising with local motorists... might actually write to complain with the organisers

bikergirl17

I was on the ride -- and the only idiots I saw, ironically enough, were about 20 dynamo out on their regular Sunday ride flying the single track decent off ranmore common and nearly knocking me into the hedges as they passed.

A car coming the other way & we would all have been taken out.

ugo.santalucia

bikergirl17 wrote:

I was on the ride -- and the only idiots I saw, ironically enough, were about 20 dynamo out on their regular Sunday ride flying the single track decent off ranmore common and nearly knocking me into the hedges as they passed.

A car coming the other way & we would all have been taken out.

While you can't stop a club ride going through narrow lanes, you can avoid a large event with hundreds of cyclists going through the same lanes... that is my point... idiots can be found everywhere

Iamnot Wiggins

I did the full loop, can't say it was too much fun after 90 miles but I persevered!

I've only ridden one other sportive (the Flanders route) and thought the KOTD was well organised. However, some of the signage on the route was a bit suspect, especially towards the end, and the supplied maps were unreadable due to the tiny text. Excellent cake though.

bikergirl17

Guess you'll be looking forward to the prudential ride. The bit on leith hill and descent off box hill terrifies me as will be total chaos -- and I'm taking part.

nunowoolmez

I have one more ride planned in Surrey & then that is it for me. The shocking state of the 'roads' have beaten me finally. Honestly, some of this route was just not rideable, unless you are on a mountain bike. It just makes riding unpleasant & not enjoyable. I honestly spend my time looking for where the next shi@#y bit of road is & how to negotiate my way around it rather than just concentrate on my riding. It takes up so much more energy & just beats up the body, it just isn't fun.

So thanks Surrey roads, we have one more final fling together, & then I will have to say thanks, but no thanks.

Chastise1943

Choo choo! Choo Choo!
We are the Dynamo train,
"Coming right! you suckers" our typical refrain,
With our boxers made by Rapha, we're elitist carbon crankers,
And every weekend morning, we become pretentious w******

wavefront

I wasn't part of the ride on Sunday, but my usual morning ride took me along the same route from Shere to Boxhill, so I unwittingly joined the procession to boxhill for a while. On my return leg, on the way back up the single track to Ranmore, I saw a couple of off's by cyclists just being a little bit too brave (read : silly). I really didn't enjoy cycling back up that hill being only inches from cyclists tearing down towards me on the wrong side of that road.

phreak

nunowoolmez wrote:

I have one more ride planned in Surrey & then that is it for me. The shocking state of the 'roads' have beaten me finally. Honestly, some of this route was just not rideable, unless you are on a mountain bike. It just makes riding unpleasant & not enjoyable. I honestly spend my time looking for where the next shi@#y bit of road is & how to negotiate my way around it rather than just concentrate on my riding. It takes up so much more energy & just beats up the body, it just isn't fun.

So thanks Surrey roads, we have one more final fling together, & then I will have to say thanks, but no thanks.

Can empathise with that. Seems rare now to find even small stretches of roads that aren't in an awful state. A lot of the time it's not even just potholes but the general state of the whole road. Toys Hill is an example. Coming up it from the north is great, with a nice smooth road, but the approach to it from the south side is horrendous.

And that's before you have to navigate the third world roads of London to even get out there.

Heading out to Italy in a few weeks and literally cannot wait to ride on some great roads in one of the most beautiful places in the world.

Mccaria

Some of the roads on the KotD are really quite bad now. I have done this event for the past 4 years and whilst the road surfaces have always been poor in sections, the deterioration from last year has been particularly notable. Some parts are beginning to remind me of the quality of roads in India (post monsoon).
I do most of my riding on the roads that make up the second loop of the KotD, over the North Downs. These days I tend to just ride a limited set of routes, not because these roads are better, but at least I know where the pot holes and road surface disintegration are located.

AchillesLeftKnee

That's about right re: the roads Mccaria. They were never great, but the last few winters have been quite hard and have really taken their toll. The council are slowly working their way around the larger roads and appear to be using a good quality surface, but I suspect the smaller roads will be in that state for a good while.

On the subject of sportives (of which there are a lot locally, so driving mid-sportive isn't that much of a rarity) from a local driver's perspective, I just wish the organisers would make a decent effort in terms of signage for motorists, and that the council would fine organisers to the point of tear-inducing agony for failing to remove all signs immediately afterwards (which they currently don't, there are old sportive signs all over the place). As mentioned, a lot of the smaller roads just aren't suitable for large numbers of cyclists when there's traffic on them, but what makes it far more hair-raising IMHO is that the first indication of a sportive is often encountering a large, disorganised, road-filling group, taking up far more space than a motorist would expect*. Good signage for motorists that was only up on the day of the event** would, IMHO, help greatly with this so at least we could try to avoid the affected areas thereby making the whole thing safer / more fun for the participants, and avoiding a few annoyed drivers.

My personal interest in the whole thing is that there is, in some quarters at least, a lot of anti-cyclist sentiment in the area. A lot of this has come about as a result of the planned road closures*** for RideLondon and the bloody Vatchery bloody Triathlon, and the mood for some is very much a case of "Why is it always here?". RideLondon just about gets away with it by virtue of being a big, public event a la the marathon, and because they've communicated very well with those in the affected area, but straight-up business events really are not the flavour of the month at all. I fear that unless business events are handled with a bit more common sense and sensitivity then the council will end up caving in and doing something draconian, and that would be very sad indeed because (potholes aside) it's a great area for cycling and the overwhelming majority (a sort of 99% overwhelming) of cyclists conduct themselves impeccably.

* Two cyclists riding side by side are, assuming a reasonable margin of safety, wider than a car, and given that there are a lot of roads in the area that are very, very tight indeed for two cars, coming across something that's wider than a car (and sometimes moving an awful lot quicker than a car would be moving) is not a comfortable experience.

** There are a few "Caution : Cycling Event" signs in the Cranleigh area that have been up so long that it's only a matter of time before English Heritage lists them. I ignore them. So does everyone else. What really worries me is I get the feeling some sportive participants see them and think "Oh look, they've put some warning signs up for motorists, we'll be safer".

*** Yes, there's some NIMBYism involved, but it's worth bearing in mind that rural road closures involve closing THE road, not A road. For a lot of those on the route, there's no option to park in a side road or use public transport for the day, they are simply cut off and that's that. The original planned closures for the Vatchery triathlon, which was going to be the first of several a year, involved a whopping great all day landlocked area and a good few of those in the landlock have gone, quite justifiably IMHO, batsh*t crazy about it.

Chastise1943

Choo Choo! Choo Choo!
It's the speeding Dynamo train!
Screaming down off Ranmore,
They really were insane.
Rupert, Max and Jasper were full-gass and on edge,
Cutting up poor stragglers, as they shot into a hedge..
Their Di2's were purring, high tempo meant no talking,
These Sportful clad chaingangers are always cursed near Dorking.
You can ride in their crack 'packet', if you out holes,
Draft Surrey cycling royalty and think Camilla Parker Bowles.
They're proper Dynamo Charlies, so keep up with Viagra!
They'll laugh at you at Hampton Court if you turn up with Tiagra....

ugo.santalucia

AchillesLeftKnee wrote:

and the overwhelming majority (a sort of 99% overwhelming) of cyclists conduct themselves impeccably.

I agree with most of what you say, I don't agree about the 99% of cyclists being well behaved. As soon as you put 5 of more, the pack mentality takes over... you see them riding two abreast in tiny lanes, three abreast or in a confused bunch in slightly wider roads. I have pretty much given up attending club rides as I find the road behaviour of a large part of club members appalling and frankly dangerous. As I can't control who is there on the day, I prefer going solo most of the times, or with 1-2 others.

AchillesLeftKnee

Agreed regarding groups Ugo. That said, the lunacy is very much a Sunday morning thing, with the rest of the week being just fine despite (in this weather especially) the area still having a lot of bike traffic. On balance, I'll stick with the 99% number as there are so many well behaved cyclists out during the rest of the week as to render the problem groups a tiny minority. That said, taken from a Sunday morning only perspective, yeah, it's a lot less than 99%.

Quite genuinely, I really would like to see some of the group leaders (especially those composed of urban types) take their cars out in the hills on a Sunday morning or two. The roads feel completely different when driven to when ridden, and I think they'd be amazed at how blind, tight, and downright claustrophobic they are from inside a car. I suspect there would be an improvement in standards of conduct as a result, and if not then it would merely prove that humanity is largely rubbish and nuclear weapons therefore really do have a place.

Am very much with you as far as club runs are concerned. I'm not a member of a club, and a fair chunk of the reason for that is I have absolutely no desire to join in the Sunday morning mayhem.