UK Eroica takes itself very seriously

Monty Dog

Entered for Retroronde - 25 Euros for an informal ride out the Paterberg and Koppenberg on Saturday, a Retro-crit around the centre of Oudenaarde in the evening followed by a 100km ride on Sunday - all with a great, informal atmosphere. The 50 quid saved will pay for a heap of beer for Saturday night!

ugo.santalucia

Monty Dog wrote:

Entered for Retroronde - 25 Euros for an informal ride out the Paterberg and Koppenberg on Saturday, a Retro-crit around the centre of Oudenaarde in the evening followed by a 100km ride on Sunday - all with a great, informal atmosphere. The 50 quid saved will pay for a heap of beer for Saturday night!

Indeed...
I was pushing for this one again, but in the end we decided to do the Paris-Roubaix the week before... they are both great events, although the Retroronde is more fun and less logistics.
Without Simon I suppose you've got a shot to win the Crit... if that bolt of a Van Something Flemmish guy doesn't show up again...

ugo.santalucia

Really horrible organisers... they had promised a reduced price of 55 pounds to the first few hundred to pre-register and now they have changed their mind and charge 70 pounds for those too...

How can you give 70 pounds to someone who has changed his mind about the entry fee three times already? Comes June they might have changed their mind about the period bike theme altogether :?

rolf_f

I did register really early but since then have heard nothing (though folk on the Retrobike forum clearly have) so probably they don't like me! Besides, I'm not sure my 1987 Raleigh Randonneur would pass the age limit despite being identical spec to the 1986 version - it's that number 7 on the bottom bracket that did for me!

It's a lot of money given that they seem very disorganised......

cycleclinic

I thought about it then I thought no for £70 in fact it will be £85 for general ballot after the first 500 tickets which are already sold. I do not want to camp for three days just head up stop at my sisters ride and drive back.

Instead I spent 56 euro (with some extra's) and entered the Tour of Flanders cyclo in april 259 km or well pain I suppose. Ugo is planning something else french (more pain) later in the summer and that is cheaper too and it will be more fun. Shame as I have the perfect bike for the Peaks L'eroica but I will not be riding it there.

U.K events are just to expensive. The only u.K sportives I will do are the local reliability rides run by West Suffolk wheelers, cycle club sudbury and Boxford bike club. All of these are in the £4 -£5 price range and you get tea and cake at the end. I think the best way to tell the organiser what we think of the prices is to not enter, they will get the message. Also Italian food in yorkshire what that about (as ugo will probably atest Italian food in britain is not quite the same). Fish and chips (with scraps) and a pint should be all that is offered.

ugo.santalucia

thecycleclinic wrote:

I think the best way to tell the organiser what we think of the prices is to not enter, they will get the message. Also Italian food in yorkshire what that about (as ugo will probably atest Italian food in britain is not quite the same). Fish and chips (with scraps) and a pint should be all that is offered.

The organisers run a restaurant in Sheffield, it's an "Italian" restaurant and I remember eating there many years ago when I lived close by on the Ecclesall Road... classic pseudo-Italian food, jammed with double cream and tons of garlic... best avoided...
Similarly, I will avoid the Eroica Britannia for a number of reasons, most importantly as I have done at least 50% of the course to death over the years and paying all that money to ride there again is not overly appealing.

cycleclinic

"Italian" restaurant, there was one of those in Sudbury. It is the only place I had to order two mains as the portions were so small. Even them I had to eat alot of bread which I had to ask for more of when I finished and pay extra for. After all that I think I went and got some chips. The best Italian food I know of in Britain is round my mums when she is back from Italy.

Ron Stuart

In a nutshell

From the website...
"We present L'Eroica Britannia 'the most handsome bike race in the World' alongside a 3 day bike and style festival in the green, very pleasant and spectacular lands of the Peak District National Park, UK."....

Plagiarism:- the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own.

From 'Cycling Weekly'...
"L'Eroica Britannia recreates the Italian event on British soil and hopes to "mirror the original Italian ethos which celebrates and values sustainability, territory, environment, heritage, well-being and the joys of local food and drink".

Pretentious:- 1. making claim to distinction or importance, esp undeservedly
2. having or creating a deceptive outer appearance of great worth; ostentatious

Frankly L'Eroica is as Italian as a Ferrari or Sophia Loren and cannot be done anywhere else other than on the Strada Bianche!

Nothing wrong with having a bike ride in the Peak district but it ain't the L'Eroica :shock:

ugo.santalucia

I have just noticed they also use images from the event in Tuscany, which is of course false advertising... It also seems they have not been able to sort out the payment issues they experienced weeks ago... what a bunch...! :?

Ron Stuart

For those like me who would prefer the real deal http://cyclingtips.com.au/2012/10/leroica/ and an extract from the offical Italian L'Eroica website "L'Eroica is a Foundation, the purpose of which is to safeguard the heritage of the white gravel roads of Tuscany. This was the motivation behind the cycling event which started in 1997."

ugo.santalucia

Ron Stuart wrote:

For those like me who would prefer the real deal http://cyclingtips.com.au/2012/10/leroica/ and an extract from the offical Italian L'Eroica website "L'Eroica is a Foundation, the purpose of which is to safeguard the heritage of the white gravel roads of Tuscany. This was the motivation behind the cycling event which started in 1997."

I did it for the first time in 2005, when it was still a relatively small event... I remember my race number was in the hundreds.
The following year it really boomed and I had a 1,500+ race number.
In 2011 I've done it last... it was becoming a massive event, with former glories, lots of sponsors but still a very captivating and incredibly well ran event. The lit white road to the Castle was a great addition to the previous course.

Now, I'd like to see how they are going to give an identity to the UK event, but I am not going to pay for it... guess I'll make do with youtube videos... and if my skepticism is proven misplaced, then I'll do it in 2015

Ron Stuart

I have a friend called http://www.tonyhewson.com/ who is planning to do the Italian L'Eroica this year, he will be in his 80th year and plans to do the Medio route.

Tony had a chapter featured to him in Ned Boultings new book 'On The Road Bike'

Oh! and I'm in the lower photo with Tony doing the last mile on the front, I did the first 21!

Ciao

ugo.santalucia

Good man...
The first Eroica I did, when I got to the first food stop in Radi I saw this old man curled on his bike... a guy there told me he was famous locally, having been a domestique of Fausto Coppi.... :shock:

jimmythecuckoo

Just had a look at the website... i am always skeptical of those arty looking cycling websites. All a bit Rapha and out of my price range.

ugo.santalucia

jimmythecuckoo wrote:

All a bit Rapha and out of my price range.

Except Rapha events are free...

metronome

Anyone going or been today?

I popped by earlier. Great setup and planning, lots to look at. Recommend a visit this weekend if your in the area.

http://www.eroicabritannia.co.uk

ktuludays

we're planning on going on sunday with the kids. looks good.

rodgers73

Yep, riding down to Bakewell to have a look around on Sunday. I think the retro stuff is a bit daft to be honest, but still a fun spectacle

DeVlaeminck

Reports I've heard about the weekend have been universally positive. I must admit I shared some of the more sceptical thoughts about the event but they do seem to have pulled it off and hopefully it can grow into something really big in future. It could give a kickstart to the classic bike scene (if there is such a scene) too - I know a few who are talking about getting a qualifying machine for next year already.

rodgers73

An impressive show they put on today - enjoyed the trip over to Bakewell

ugo.santalucia

Good news!

cougie

I mocked too - but it did give me a chance to sell my wifes old Peugeot to someone who wanted to ride this.

Hope he had a good day on it.

mpdouglas

I took part in the Medium route (55 miles) on my 1969 Flying Scot. It was absolutely fantastic. Amazing countryside, awesome foodstops (beer!, PIMM'S!, cold cooked sausages, bakewell tarts etc etc) and very friendly locals. It was not a part of the world I knew well but I'll be back. Not least because I wanted to do the 100 miler but needed to be back in London for 20:00 for a show. With the amount of off-road sections, average speeds were a good bit less than your typical Sportive - the organisers were advising 9-10 hours for the 100 miles, even for a strong club cyclist. And the joy of the event is that there are no timing chips, no bleeping Garmins and you don't feel guilty about stopping for photos or enjoying the foodstops.

A good proportion of the riders had travelled from overseas. The ones I spoke to on the ride couldn't believe how beautiful it all was and how well we had recreated the Tuscany version. They really seemed to like the whole festival setup back in Bakewell with live bands etc.

With regard to the route, there were one or two off-road bits that didn't really suit 23mm tubulars, but no punctures and no offs for me so it was all fine. I think I walked about twenty yards of the entire route where I really would have crashed in a heap. The views from up on the Monsal Trail were breathtaking. There was a decent amount of climbing with fairly testing gradients which on vintage gearing made for a fairly testing ride (about 1,500m of climbing on the 55 mile route and nearly 3,000m on the 100 miler). My granny gear was only 42/24 which is no match for the modern compact chainring setup that I have on my modern road bike). Lots of fantastic old steel bikes to look at too.

nochekmate

I rode it with a few pals of mine - it was a great event and helped by beautiful weather. Well organised & the food and drink stops were terrific. Sitting and drinking multiple glasses of Pimms in the wonderful surroundings of Chatsworth was really enjoyable.

Lovely to see some fine old machines - the only downside for me was the Mercian bike that I borrowed from my neighbour had a bottom gear of 42/18 which made some of the hills a bit of a grind (can't believe how many people were casually walking up them!)

A promising start given that this was the first one that had been organised.