FT London Cycle Sportive

theotherjake

Anyone doing it? Does anyone know how the parking will be at the start?

Brakeless

£42 for a 100 mile ride round the surrey hills!! I'm all for sportives and have ridden plenty but £42 is just stupid.

theotherjake

I guess so. But you get feed stations and a finish at the velodrome! :oops: I booked it after failing to get a ballot place on Ride London, thanks to Wiggle I now have a place on that to.

Brakeless

Feedstations! You'd get quite alot of cake at the top of Box Hill for £42!

964cup

I'm doing it. I see it as good training for the Ride London 100. I agree the price is ambitious.

foxydan

I'm doing this as well booked it yesterday. I did think it was steep but have o2 prority moments and managed to get 12 quid off so £30 which is not too bad in the end. So if anyone is thinking of doing it and you have this then go through o2.

Not done an event by human race before so hopefully organisation will be good. Parking is a rip off tho as they are charging £6.50 to park in Dulwich park. I will park in the streets around as they are free of restrictions.

Looking foward to finishing on herne hill velo tho.

theotherjake

Just hope now the weather holds out. Anyone received their pack in the post?

daddy0

I did think £40+ was a bit steep when I booked this but as its my first cycle event I had no point of reference.

Still, looking forward to it now. It will be my first century :-)

Austin316

Daddy0 wrote:

I did think £40+ was a bit steep when I booked this but as its my first cycle event I had no point of reference.

Still, looking forward to it now. It will be my first century :-)

And mine! 730 start,ouch!

daddy0

So I managed to do 120 miles all in all yesterday.

As this was my first Sportive I have nothing to compare it to. However, it did seem a bit unorganised. My main gripe with it was that one of the roads was closed and manned by the police who wouldn't let us through due to planned cabling work. So several hundred riders on the long course had to make up part of the journey ourselves. A friend of mine did the medium course and told me several hundred people on that course also got lost, arriving at Box Hill from the wrong direction.

The bike mechanic who looked at my bike wasn't all that great either. Seeing as I was waiting to start and he was there I thought I'd get him to look at my gears. He made them worse, and cut my FD cable short so I couldn't adjust it myself afterwards! Normally I'd do all the work on my own bike, but I thought "I'll get a pro to do it and see how much better he does it than me", that'll teach me!

I kept getting held up by slower riders. I HATE having to brake on descents! Quite a few dangerous riders too - not too fast, just unaware, no indicating, no warning of dangers such as pot holes, not slowing for horses, not holding their line (sometimes at speed)...

Had an awesome day though. The weather was glorious (helped rule #7). Got chatting to a few nice people. Scalped hundreds of cyclists, didn't get overtaken - even up the hills which was a surprise. Raised a few hundred quid for charity.

And I got a medal.

theotherjake

I was on the medium route and the detour was chaotic to say the least, a lot of irate drivers got caught up in a group of a couple hundred cyclists trying to get through a pinch point. A few got out of their cars to shout abuse at us. This was caused by holding up big groups leaving the first feed station.

Overall a good day, there will always be less experienced riders at these events. Par for the course.

KPHC

My experience on the day was shambolic and at times left me wondering if there had been any thought to rider safety or support in the planning of the ride.

Just 16 miles into the planned Long Route, I narrowly avoided crashing off the road on that suicidal left corner on Gangers Hill (just after the junction off The Ridge, a little before the 17 mile mark on the Long Route). I escaped unscathed, but my rear wheel had buckled under braking (buckle was touching chainstay to chainstay) so I was now stuck.

Called into Event Control at 9.05am, noted that I had was unable to carry on and that a marshal needed to come down to the corner and warn cyclists of the blind bend. I was told that I could either wait around for the sweeper van (?!) or walk back to the first feed station on the Short route as ‘there was a mechanic station there’ and I had only passed it a short distance back. That would at least give me some chance of getting the bike rideable so I started to walk back. After a 45mins / 2 mile walk (with my bike on my back) to feed station 4 as advised, it turned out there was no mechanic there, nor was there planned to be at any stage during the day, in fact the feed station was only just opening up at all so they were completely surprise that people were coming to them for mechanicals (2 other riders had been told to go there after I had arrived).

Feed station staff called to get a mechanic out or sweeper van over, but noone came, despite several calls in from them, so after nearly 3 hours of waiting I ended up having to get a lift back with the feed-station team as they were closing up for the day. Just to note that it was only 10 minutes prior to that when the sweeper van came through, making the initial advice that I was given on the 9.05am phone conversation even more annoying.

Unhappy to say the least!

bobinski

I really felt for some of the riders yesterday. I just tagged along for a ride as far as Biggins hill. The start seemed reasonably good and well managed but the rest of it really did seem shambolic, sign posting was terrible, especially near quite major junctions and roundabouts. I hardly saw a marshall-though lots of accredited photographers-and the motorbike riders seemed to go around in 2's and 3's rather than sheperding the route or protecting riders at the more dangerous points. The participants paid a lot to take part and really should be given more support and protection along the route.
Some of the riding was awful, probably because the riders knew no better, 2 or 3 abreast in narrow country roads actually posing a danger to the many cyclists out for a ride and coming back against the flow of the sportive traffic. Just no road sense. And some of the speeds riders were going at downhill swerving around less confident or experienced cyclists was just stupid. Mind you some of the drivers on the roads really were shocking too But i don't think it helped that they were held up for long periods by some of the riders.
Still, what a day for it and lovely to see so may people out and smiling and enjoying themselves!

The_Gate

KPHC - I also almost came off at the same point, I got very lucky yesterday. I managed to continue straight into the run off which was a footpath, and got away unscathed but there was no warning about the sharp left. I think I saw you walking back with the bike on your shoulder.

I also got very lucky with the detour, we seemed to be in a group who knew roughly where we were going, so ended up with a 2-3 mile extra detour but ended up approaching Box Hill from the correct side. I saw loads of people coming back up Box Hill as I was descending and felt for them.

The organisation did seem a bit shambolic, and couldn't say that I had value for money, but I still had a great day as the weather was fantastic.

Also, when I got to Herne Hill velodrome, there was an old chap who was clapping everyone in - that gave me a warm feeling.

jonomc4

I did the ride yesterday too - signposting was a little iffy in places - but I was warned of the lane closure in advance (the council closed the road that day and hadn't told the organisers apparently) so dealt with it quite easily. Never trust the mechanics at events so no issue there and pleased to say I had no major problems

I didn't come off though but then again I was just riding it and not racing it. As for the feed stations I always carry enough to be self sufficient and never bother with queuing for food. What really annoyed me was the lack of toilets at rests - really that was stupid in the extreme.

Great weather though and I thought the course was reasonable in terms of hills. Don't regret doing it.

Big lesson learned though - is not to forget to inject my insulin at half way - basically all the energy bars did was raise my blood sugar (25 at the end) because I forgot to use the insulin to burn that energy - meant I was just probably running of fat reserves (got a bit spare) for the last 40 miles as my body was not converting the carbs I was drinking or eating..

Austin316

I started early so managed to get through that road closure.

I thought mostly a decent event but plenty of scope for accidents with some twisty descents on poor roads and then a long drag on busy main roads from Croydon onwards on the way back.

And yes once all the routes joined back up then picking your way through more inexperienced cyclists a challenge but should probably be expected at such an event.

daddy0

Austin316 wrote:

I thought mostly a decent event but plenty of scope for accidents with some twisty descents on poor roads and then a long drag on busy main roads from Croydon onwards on the way back.

Yeah agree on this too. One or two of the descents had pretty rough road surfaces and some very sharp turns which could've caught me out on another day - they should've been signed as dangerous IMO.

Having to ride back through Croydon with all the fumes and congested/aggressive driving was just horrible - its like the route planner gave up trying to find a nice road for everyone to ride back on and just chose the worst one instead...

KPHC - thats awful! I hope you write and complain?

Smirf

I was disappointed with the route back from boxhill. Who thought that coming through Croydon and Thornton Heath on a Sunday afternoon would be a good idea?!

Personally i would have reversed the route and gone out early to boxhill, then back via the way we came out or Titsey Hill :twisted:

Overall? won't be rushing back to do it again.

jorhys

Fully endorse the above criticisms. Some of the roads, although undoubtedly pretty, were too narrow to accommodate a mass ride. It would be different if this were a closed road event. And what exactly is the point of motorcycle marshals if they go AWOL when they are needed? The road closure near Reigate may have been unforseeable, but the organisers should have ensured that marshals were on hand to sort out the chaos and redirect riders. It was potentially a dangerous situation, with narrow lanes full of bewildered cyclists and angry motorists. I also agree that the route between Chipstead and the Velodrome was completely inappropriate. As a Sarf London lad I could have devised half a dozen alternative routes that would not have involved a main trunk road through busy town centres. I have ridden numerous sportives and I'm afraid this was the least well organised. It's a great shame. The underlying route was a good one - with the bonus of a ride up Box Hill and a spin round the Velodrome - but the event was compromised by poor organisation and inadequate support. Having said that, it was an enjoyable day, despite everything!

daddy0

One more criticism!

I just checked the SportCam website to look at the photos that were taken of me... £12 for a download of a digital image, or £38 to download all of them. Got an e-mail saying I get 20% off with a code, but even then thats too much IMO.

I'm not surprised TBH. I expected them to charge for photos. I think it's a bit dumb when a digital download costs more than getting the smaller prints sent out in the post...

I would've downloaded one or two images for a few pounds, maybe even stretched to £5 for a really awesome picture but I think £12 (or £9.60 with 20% off) is extracting the urine.

padders

Can't disagree with any of the critcsism above, the route back via Croydon was particularly grim, as was a lot of the riding I witnessed through that part of the course.

As for the Sportcam site, their rider identifcation system is the by far the worst I've seen.

964cup

It was a good ride in general, I thought, but a little spoiled for me by poor signposting, disappointing (and badly-located food stops) and a couple of mechanicals. I missed the key left turn for the long route after Biggin Hill and ended up following the short route for a while until I met riders coming the other way; when the penny finally dropped and I turned round, I'd done an extra 10k to get back to where I went wrong. Why on Earth didn't they colour-code the arrows - or use a neutral colour, not red, so one wouldn't assume that red arrow = long route?

The food stops were a) crap and b) in stupid places. The second one was parked on the roadside with no safe stopping space, just before the two steepest climbs, to ensure that everyone who stopped arrived at the climbs with cold legs and full bidons; the third one was just after the Box Hill cafe, so everyone stopped at the cafe instead without realising the food stop was there. In any case the choice of food was poor, and the only provided drink was vile. I stuck with water, and then cramped up through salt loss.

The last bit of the route back through Croydon was, I agree, fairly unpleasant, but I suspect anything that avoided the main roads more would have been hard to follow.

The finishing village was disappointing, I thought - I expected more of a party atmosphere. Not having medals to hand out seemed weak, as did receiving nothing else apart from a carton of coconut water.