Nottingham Evans Ride It Cancelled

markhewitt1978

From Evan's facebook page:

This is an important notice to let you know that we have had to cancel this weekend’s Nottingham Ride It! event.

Unfortunately we have received a very late request from the local emergency services requiring us to provide stand by ambulances and additional first aiders for this event, which despite our best efforts we have not been able to secure in the short time frame available to us.

We pride ourselves in running safe events and in almost 6 years and 150 events we have never received a request like this before.

We fully appreciate the inconvenience this late cancellation will cause and apologise for this. All riders will receive an email explaining the circumstances and will get a full refund on their entry fee which we will process early next week. We are attempting to reschedule this event over the comings weeks and will let you know when this is confirmed.

Once again we are extremely sorry to cancel an event that many of our customers were so looking forward to.

The Ride It! Team.

JSS

Not a good sign...hope this isn't start of the emergency services deciding that the risk of a local sportive means they will ask for them not to happen unless they are paid to cover it (as happens with horseracing point to points etc). I can see this could become a problem for sportive organisers in future.

Just hope it is a bit of local difficulty...or maybe it is linked to the high number of cycling deaths this week and the publicity around it.

turnerjohn

yet again Health and Safety ruining things !

yes of cause every ride I do I'm followed by my own personal ambulance :roll:

BenderRodriguez

oxoman wrote:

Ball ache caused by over zealous health and safety

Or more likely, as is usually the case with these 'elf n safety' stories, the powers that be are just trying to pass their responsibilities onto someone else, or are using the 'safety' excuse to prevent somebody from doing something that they are opposed to on other grounds.

Caer caradoc

markhewitt1978 wrote:

From Evan's facebook page:

Unfortunately we have received a very late request from the local emergency services requiring us to provide stand by ambulances and additional first aiders for this event, which despite our best efforts we have not been able to secure in the short time frame available to us.
.

Please note the word, 'request'. They do not have the statutory power to prevent the event.

With such a large mass of numbers, Evan's decision is probably sensible but it is worth remembering that many other sportives and all audaxes, do not make any provision for ambulance back-up etc. Given the high risk of accidents at sportives, Evan's decision is justified though nothing to do with legal requirement.

apreading

I suspect that even though they dont have the statutory power, they in effect forced this - it would not surprise me if Evans insurers refused to insure the event if they did not follow the legal recommendations from the police.

thefog

Remember that Sportives are events, even though its a series of cyclists riding on open roads. For many events, organisers need to submit event management plans that include emergency services plans. It may have been that the emergency services in Nottinghamshire were stretched with other activities this weekend and could not give a commitment to provide cover in the event of any incident at Evans' weekend. In that situation they would have therefore requested that Evans provide cover themselves at their cost [ie St Johns]. Entirely reasonable and shows some sense and responsibility from Evans.

thefog

apreading wrote:

I suspect that even though they dont have the statutory power, they in effect forced this - it would not surprise me if Evans insurers refused to insure the event if they did not follow the legal recommendations from the police.

A key point. I know from elsewhere that the saturation of sportives are becoming a real concern - whilst they are not regulated and cannot be effectively stopped, if a sportive organiser goes ahead without the support of the police and the local authorities, it may well mean their insurer isn't covering the event, thus highly risky if anything goes wrong [no matter how unlikely].

markhewitt1978

I think in some areas eg the South East there may be a saturation of sportives but that certainly isn't the case in the North East.

deanstacey

Hi Guys

Thanks for the comments. Just to clarify a few points.

We had our insurers support for the event.

The reason the event was cancelled was due to us not being able to provide 8minute medical cover to all
riders at all times. At the end of the day, despite the fact that we thought this was excessive, we couldn't go against these recommendations. Thus we had to cancel


Please note the Police and EMAS have been very helpful and have put extra effort into trying to look at this event at very short notice ( which is not ours, or their fault) and we are now in a place where, if we were to come back, putting on an event in Nottingham might be possible.

Many thanks for reading the "short" version
Note:I have reread this post and decided to edit it right down as it seemed like a bit of a rant, which it wasn't supposed to be.

Dean

BillyMansell

If the EMAS decision is to be a precedent then it may well be a concern for anyone organising an event not only in Nottinghamshire but any of the counties in the East Midlands.

awavey

but how would you provide 8 minute medical cover to all riders at all times, I dont understand if EMAS made the request, but then were being very helpful...where has the requirement come from as EMAS dont even provide that level of service to 50% of the people living in its covered trust area, the 95% response time is 20mins.

DeVlaeminck

No it seems a bit odd, if insurers were happy to insure it then can't really see why it was cancelled. I suspect there is more to it but the organisers don't want to upset the emergency services for fear of creating further problems down the line.

thorncroft

Most posts here seem supportive of Evans; yet Dean does not tell us how long Evans were sitting on the risk of this event being cancelled. As someone who had made special arrangements in order to attend this event, a heads-up on the issue would show a greater concern for its customers than did the blanket email sent at 4pm on Friday. :?

deanstacey

Hi Thorncroft.

Sorry to the late reply, I only check here around the time of our events so missed this.

I found out on the Wednesday before the event at 5pm about their 8minute response time. At this time it was to late to contact our insurers. I did this on Thursday and we had to wait whilst they checked our status. At this point I did flag up on FB and the blog that there was an issue and that's why there was no info/GPX files posted up.

On Friday midday I got the go ahead from the insurers to run the event and told the EMAS. Before this point they had told me that the 8minute rule was based on a guide from UK Athletics for running an endurance road running race, which has no relevance to a no competitive road ride, thus our insurers were happy that if something did go wrong we would have a good stance. When I told EMAS, they them said, yes, it was based on these guidelines, but, the heads of EMAS had sat down and decided that this was what they wanted. So now we were going up against the guidelines of the NHS.

Now, referencing another comment above, our insurers where still happy to insure the event. The problem was this. If someone had a heart attack on the route and died because the ambulance took 15 minutes to get there ( which it possibly could have done on any day of the week for the general public), but if we had followed the guidelines and had private ambulances who reached them within 8minutes and they lived. Then technically it could be argued that the only reason they died was because we didn't follow the guidelines. That is not a risk we were willing to take.

Unfortunately this all took time and hence the 4 O'clock email on Friday.

I'm sorry that you had made special arrangements. We don't cancel events without good reason, there are plenty of pictures of out riders out in snow and ice for example, and there was a lot of frantic phone calls being made in the back ground whilst I paced up and down the hotel room. I had staff with me, on the motorway, just about to leave home, the event centre booked, both days routes marked out, all the food bought etc. In total we lost about £4k cancelling the event.

And to top it all off, one of our vans broke down at about 5pm so we'd have really struggled to put the event on anyway :roll:

Hopefully that gives you an insight into what went on and the timescale.

Again, EMAS and the Police were very helpful, even if we didn't see eye to eye.

Dean

DeVlaeminck

So the insurance was only valid if you weren't going against the EMAS demands ?

Sounds ridiculous that a branch of the NHS are effectively making it harder to hold sporting events by imposing higher safety requirements than we all live with day to day. No wonder there is an obesity epidemic.

DaveMoss

The logic of this seems flawed to me. It's all too easy for your public servants to cover their backs and play ultra safe without having to bear the consequences. Why 8 mins? why not go 2 mins? If someone had come up with a 2min suggestion and asked them EMAS boss would probably have said "yes that's what we want" rather than stick their neck out and say that's unreasonable. If someone suffered a heart attack they are as likely to die between 2 and 8 mins as between 8 and 20 or more. Any anyway, should heart attack risk come into it? Nothing about the event increases the risk of heart attacks; now the event is cancelled everyone who entered will probably still go for a bike ride and if they were going to have a heart attack, they still will, but with no one around to help.
To my way of thinking the risks in a sportive event are only marginally greater than a solo bike ride, no greater than a busy club run, and arguably safer because of event signage and "safety in numbers" factor. Own risk assesment and satisfaction of insurers is reasonable. An 8 min response not reasonably practicable and does not need to be a deciding factor; EMAS don't have authority to make the rules.
But it would take a brave organiser to ignore them, better not to ask.

mattbabs

The 8 minute rule is probably based on research findings.
It has been estimated that if you haven't received any treatment (CPR or defibrillation) within 8 minutes of your cardiac arrest you will have virtually no chance of survival. Of course in a group event you would be unlucky if there was nobody nearby to start effective CPR. I recently did a ride with 3 cardiologists in my group but none of them brought a defibrillator

DeVlaeminck

So an ambulance getting to us in 8 minutes is vital....but.......
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... Eheadlines

If this was some extreme sport I could understand it but we are talking about a non-competitive bike ride.

mattbabs

The irony is that lots of 999 calls would be avoidable if as a nation we drank less, smoked less and exercised more. It might be a coincidence but there's often a paramedic rapid response vehicle parked outside our nearest McDonalds, it certainly will meet the 8 minute target! I also saw one parked at the top of Greenhow Hill in Yorkshire but unless I'd collapsed right next to it (which I did feel was possibly going to happen) there was nobody around to ring 999.

markhewitt1978

Of course the irony is that on the day if you're going to have a heart attack it's going to be much much safer to have it while other riders are around and who will stop to help you, rather than a solo ride out on your own where nobody may come along for an age - thinking of the recent story of a cyclist found dead in a quiet lane with no apparent reason.

But sadly such logic doesn't penetrate the realms of Health & Safety and officialdom.

BTW, one of the main reasons I got back into cycling was that my doctor told me that if I didn't (that or other sort of exercise) then I would have a heart attack!