Ride London 2014

birdie23

I've now eaten an industrial amount of chicken so might not actually be able to move in the morning.

Octopus1

Packed and ready to go tomorrow morning.

7.40 start time, blue wave.

I still can't dedide whether to go arm warmers and gilet or waterproof jacket. I only have an endura gilet which has a mesh back so would be getting wet.

Packed enough food to feed the 5,000 as I'm not planning on stopping. I was aiming for 6.45 but that has pretty much gone out the window now as on winter bike with guards and four seasons.

Let's hope that they don't cut the hills tomorrow, but I do understand they may not want the liability and potential for crashes.

marcusjb

Urgent request - anyone in East London with a 31.8mm seatpost collar I can borrow or buy tonight?

Only gone and stripped the thread on one of our seatpost collars.

I am in E17 and happy to travel.

Game over if not.

birdie23

Octopus1 wrote:

Packed and ready to go tomorrow morning.

7.40 start time, blue wave.

I still can't dedide whether to go arm warmers and gilet or waterproof jacket. I only have an endura gilet which has a mesh back so would be getting wet.

Packed enough food to feed the 5,000 as I'm not planning on stopping. I was aiming for 6.45 but that has pretty much gone out the window now as on winter bike with guards and four seasons.

Let's hope that they don't cut the hills tomorrow, but I do understand they may not want the liability and potential for crashes.

You'll just get wet through sweat in the jacket. Basically, you're getting wet. What you wear just depends on what'll keep you warm despite being wet.

Dippydog2

Simon-R7 wrote:

Slight change of subject, did anyone else feel ripped off at having to pay £15 to park for 15 minutes to pick up their registration pack :shock: Luckily some kind soul gave me their ticket which I then passed on.

I may be forced to use the winter bike with mudguards an GP 4 seasons if it is really wet. Both bikes packed in the car, will decide in the car park in the morning which steed to use :?:

Yes.

And even worse I had to drive 100 miles to london and pay for a ferry, just to pick up a few stickers and a plastic bag.

It's ridiculous that you have to register in advance, in person and sign a form in front of someone.

It's not rocket science. Work a way to send stuff to people. Excel for me is a six hour trip. Each way FFS.

sherer

I'm pack but running out of space for stuff now. If it was a bright summers day i would be ok. Will step outside in the morning and decide what is best

veronese68

marcusjb wrote:

Urgent request - anyone in East London with a 31.8mm seatpost collar I can borrow or buy tonight?

Only gone and stripped the thread on one of our seatpost collars.

I am in E17 and happy to travel.

Game over if not.

I've got one, but I'm in Kingston. You are welcome to have it if you want it.

Octopus1

birdie23 wrote:

You'll just get wet through sweat in the jacket. Basically, you're getting wet. What you wear just depends on what'll keep you warm despite being wet.

yes pretty much figured its going to be a very wet day. Bin bag ready for the wait at the start. I'll probably do with the arm warmers and the gilet just to avoid boil in the bag.

Have a safe ride everybody, hopefully the wind won't be as bad as feared.

marcusjb

Veronese68 wrote:

marcusjb wrote:

Urgent request - anyone in East London with a 31.8mm seatpost collar I can borrow or buy tonight?

Only gone and stripped the thread on one of our seatpost collars.

I am in E17 and happy to travel.

Game over if not.

I've got one, but I'm in Kingston. You are welcome to have it if you want it.

I was about to whizz back home to twickenham, but it looks like I have a spare sourced.

What a muppet. Never threaded anything my life before.

dandrew

They run the Expo to make money. I quite enjoy it. Saying that this year I was away until yesterday. I would have paid to have had my race numbers sent to me.
Now, Hurricane Bertha, which way are you heading tomorrow.

birdie23

Octopus1 wrote:

birdie23 wrote:

yes pretty much figured its going to be a very wet day. Bin bag ready for the wait at the start. I'll probably do with the arm warmers and the gilet just to avoid boil in the bag.

Have a safe ride everybody, hopefully the wind won't be as bad as feared.

I've just created my very fashionable bin liner vest will wear gilet and arm warmers to the start and then see how it feels.

deswahriff

..gilet and arm-warmers here...all pocket stuffable if it gets hot, and little pak-a-jack thing in the spare bottle cage (for the mountain descents!...)....I reckon I have to leave at 4.30am to get parked and cycled from london Bridge in comfortable time for my 7.22 start, so good night all and good luck..!

kingstonian

boris54 wrote:

Can someone who's received this email post content in this thread? I've not got it - and its not on the RideLondon twitter feed either?
Just back from the Freecycle which (for those like me who are based in London) was terrific - a 4 year old towed around on my Aligator-tow-bar and a 5 year old doing the whole circuit and now crashed out asleep. Shame the weather won't be the same tomorrow....
Happy to see some advice from more experienced types ref. clothing - I've got pretty much everything you could want, just not so experienced in riding these conditions to know what to choose!
Good luck to all and see you tomorrow. I'll be wearing a bin bag in the pen at the start!

Shame I couldn't do it this year, my youngest ( 5 yrs old) had a minor op yesterday but we thought doing this ride the day after a general anaesthetic was not such a good idea. Will have to do it next year, both my boys would love it.

paul2718

ugo.santalucia wrote:

paul2718 wrote:

And perhaps they'll raise the entry bar next year, to reduce the density of riders who are unlikely to cope with trickier conditions.

That will never happen... in time you will find fewer and fewer Strava types and more and more people dressed like teddy bears. Joe average at the side of the road rightly struggles to understand why some want to compete in a non competitive event

I think Joe Average at the side of the road will be wondering why the city is rerouted so that people dressed as teddy bears can dawdle round. It was supposed to be 'Olympic Legacy', which means sport, and which means competitive. There is an opportunity here to introduce something more like a continental cyclosportive, in conjunction with the charity ride for non-cyclists. And I think the UCI and BC are both thinking along those general lines. Something for mass participation that falls between traditional racing and charity dawdling.

The problem here is that all marathons are hard, and even regular runners would prepare for a marathon. But the Ride London 100 is easy, probably the easiest 100 mile ride you could do, and most regular cyclists could complete it without preparation. So as a charity event it is limited to complete beginners who haven't taken it too seriously.

But as an opportunity to ride 100 miles fast on good surfaces and closed roads it is unique in the UK. So it seems a shame to mostly close it to regular cyclists. Not good for promoting the sporting aspect of biking. IMO.

Anyway it may be a bit wet tomorrow. It's weather, adds to the challenge, (wo)man up....

Paul

chippyk

paul2718 wrote:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

paul2718 wrote:

And perhaps they'll raise the entry bar next year, to reduce the density of riders who are unlikely to cope with trickier conditions.

That will never happen... in time you will find fewer and fewer Strava types and more and more people dressed like teddy bears. Joe average at the side of the road rightly struggles to understand why some want to compete in a non competitive event

I think Joe Average at the side of the road will be wondering why the city is rerouted so that people dressed as teddy bears can dawdle round. It was supposed to be 'Olympic Legacy', which means sport, and which means competitive. There is an opportunity here to introduce something more like a continental cyclosportive, in conjunction with the charity ride for non-cyclists. And I think the UCI and BC are both thinking along those general lines. Something for mass participation that falls between traditional racing and charity dawdling.

The problem here is that all marathons are hard, and even regular runners would prepare for a marathon. But the Ride London 100 is easy, probably the easiest 100 mile ride you could do, and most regular cyclists could complete it without preparation. So as a charity event it is limited to complete beginners who haven't taken it too seriously.

But as an opportunity to ride 100 miles fast on good surfaces and closed roads it is unique in the UK. So it seems a shame to mostly close it to regular cyclists. Not good for promoting the sporting aspect of biking. IMO.

Anyway it may be a bit wet tomorrow. It's weather, adds to the challenge, (wo)man up....

Paul

The London marathon has become a charity event attached to an athletics event. Championship and GFA aside, the VLM is rammed full of people who are not serious runners,some of whom have done little prep and loads dawdle around. The difference is is that everybody knows about the charity side, other than the elite race it's all Brendan Foster bangs on about. Most non atheltics people know it as THE marathon, run the Chester marathon and people ask if it's the same distance as THE marathon, I.e. London. Yes marathons are hard, but a run/walk or mainly walk strategy isn't that bad and no worse than a big 100 mile ride on its own, many cyclists will knock 100 out most Sundays, even in training few runners will go 22+ as it's harder to recover from. The public though see a marathon as heroic fundraising, a sportive in Surrey as MAMIL poncing about.

So far as I am aware, there is little opportunity for the average Joe to race 100 miles or any ther distance on a bike, an Etape or Marmotte type event could be great if it didn't get charity hijacked.

sherer

Now I'm really not sure about what to wear. Weather isn't too bad at moment but could turn at any point

birdie23

sherer wrote:

Now I'm really not sure about what to wear. Weather isn't too bad at moment but could turn at any point

Summer gear.

Gilet and arm warmers in your pockets.

thefilbertfox

So the route has been shortened. A belated good luck to everyone doing this today, hope the weather holds off.

speshsteve

I hear no box or leith hill and 86 miles...real shame as these were the best bits

There will be some quick finishers on a completely flat course of 86 miles, people will be done in 4 hours!

ugo.santalucia

Cup of coffee, looking from the window at my car getting a free wash, what's not to like?

Wouldn't want to be out there right now.... the drizzly bit of an hour ago was OK, but now it's a wall of rain! :shock:

thefilbertfox

Live commentary on the get surrey website here...
http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/live-ridelondon-surrey-100-classic-races-7580614
Mmmmm, moist
And a video of the conditions in Esher
https://vine.co/v/MVU03iuhlha

DeVlaeminck

I think the future of this event is to stay as a mass participation charity type event as it is now. Club riders will do it for a bit of fun, I bet it is a great day on the bike, but it's never going to be a focus of anyone's year the terrain just isn't there and taking out a couple of easy hills because it's raining just reinforces what the target audience is.

buccal

Flippin eck, its now torrential rain in SW London.

Hope everyone gets round safely.

hatone

Looks well crap out there, made worse by shortening the route. Box Hill and Leith Hill are just bumps. Not exactly getting what you paid for, eh?

Glad I deferred my place to next year - at least there's a chance I might ride 100 miles...

rich_e

paul2718 wrote:

I think Joe Average at the side of the road will be wondering why the city is rerouted so that people dressed as teddy bears can dawdle round. It was supposed to be 'Olympic Legacy', which means sport, and which means competitive. There is an opportunity here to introduce something more like a continental cyclosportive, in conjunction with the charity ride for non-cyclists. And I think the UCI and BC are both thinking along those general lines. Something for mass participation that falls between traditional racing and charity dawdling.

The problem here is that all marathons are hard, and even regular runners would prepare for a marathon. But the Ride London 100 is easy, probably the easiest 100 mile ride you could do, and most regular cyclists could complete it without preparation. So as a charity event it is limited to complete beginners who haven't taken it too seriously.

But as an opportunity to ride 100 miles fast on good surfaces and closed roads it is unique in the UK. So it seems a shame to mostly close it to regular cyclists. Not good for promoting the sporting aspect of biking. IMO.

Anyway it may be a bit wet tomorrow. It's weather, adds to the challenge, (wo)man up....

Paul

If it wasn't for the charity aspect, I would imagine its unlikely the event would have been able to get off the ground and have the backing it does. As much as anyone who is going for ballot places or is a serious rider might begrudge the charity aspect, it is a required part of it, especially given that its shutting down half the capital. People who hate cyclists and any event that messes up their day will complain regardless of whether its for charity or not. I saw a man openly swearing outside Buckingham Palace yesterday evening when I was shooting some photos of the women's pro race about "Messing up our ***** time for what we want to do because of some ***** cyclists". Those kind of attitudes never change.

I feel like you are missing the point with the Olympic legacy though, which was to 'Inspire a Generation'. The purpose of it was to get people involved in sport, it doesn't mean you have to be competing or taking things seriously, its just getting people off their arses and doing something. The Ride London event has already more than successfully achieved that, unless you missed all the coverage of the 2013 event?

I think the people who have been calling for CAT ratings to be required in this thread need to remember that this is a sportive, its a non-competitive event. I'm pretty sure the standard response for this is that if you want to race, then go and race instead.


It really is miserable out there and a shame that the course has had to be shortened. They probably had no choice really. As I said earlier in the week, Leith Hill was one of the most congested points last year and there were accidents on the descent on a perfectly dry day, so throwing in this weather and the sheer number of riders would have made it pretty nasty. I'm not feeling so bad about not getting in on the ballot this year!

There is an app called Ride100 available which you can use to track people on the course based on their timing points and estimates. It's interesting to see that some of the faster riders I know are coming home very quick with all the hills skipped out.

hatone

Rich_E wrote:

I think the people who have been calling for CAT ratings to be required in this thread need to remember that this is a sportive, its a non-competitive event. I'm pretty sure the standard response for this is that if you want to race, then go and race instead.

Take the London Marathon for example. The opening of the marathon is a competitive event, with world class runners coming all over the world to compete. The organisers even allow championship entries from those who hold solid marathon times with competitive placings to show for it.

Why couldn't the organisers apply this to the RL100 based on the BC category classification system, then allow all the ballot and charity riders to follow?

That way, you could leave the course as it is regardless of the conditions for the E/1/2/3 groups but for the charity & ballot riders shorten for safety reasons. Charity and ballot riders are usually inexperienced, likely to be involved in crashes and generally ride with the objective of raising money for charity and be happy to just finish...?

That way, you make it categorically clear the event is divided, competitive and non-competitive.

iPete

I've no issues with the shortened route, that was wet but great great fun! Some machine dragged us around in 3:32 (24mph). You don't need a cat system to sort out the bunch, it's a sportive.

Although popping a spoke on the last corner was both a pain in the arse but equally lucky!

ugo.santalucia

iPete wrote:

Although popping a spoke on the last corner was both a pain in the ars* but equally lucky!

The curse of black spokes?

Sir Velo

My son in law just got, he managed to get some of the route done in the lighter rain but certainly got sketchy going through Kingston in the torrential rain.

Manage to be sub 3.30hrs, but had hoped to be a bit quicker, the conditions were not good for risking it.

SV

kingstonian

I didn't ride it this year, but went into Kingston with my wife and sons to watch people come through. Those that came through early missed having to go through the flood under the railway bridge - was about 9 inches deep when I saw it.

Hope the guy I helped that had a busted spoke made it to the finish ok.