Ride London 2016

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  • surrey_commuter
    surrey_commuter Posts: 18,867
    The organisers really will have to look at the route, total numbers and how they stream riders.

    As well as the poor sods lying by the side of the road there are thousands of others who have ended up spending several hundred quid to do a closed road century and ended up very fustrated.
  • ooermissus
    ooermissus Posts: 811
    The lack of information from the organisers is lamentable.
  • itboffin
    itboffin Posts: 20,064
    i'm seriously of the opinion that this event shouldn't happen, adding so many people on bikes with very little bike handling skills is just a recipe for disaster, imagine doing the same sort of event on a racetrack with cars or motorbikes it would be a blood bath.

    this is not the same as running at least when running if you fall its just you taken out, there's no machine or device for you to master other than your own fitness.
    Rule #5 // Harden The Feck Up.
    Rule #9 // If you are out riding in bad weather, it means you are a badass. Period.
    Rule #12 // The correct number of bikes to own is n+1.
    Rule #42 // A bike race shall never be preceded with a swim and/or followed by a run.
  • surrey_commuter
    surrey_commuter Posts: 18,867
    itboffin wrote:
    i'm seriously of the opinion that this event shouldn't happen, adding so many people on bikes with very little bike handling skills is just a recipe for disaster, imagine doing the same sort of event on a racetrack with cars or motorbikes it would be a blood bath.

    this is not the same as running at least when running if you fall its just you taken out, there's no machine or device for you to master other than your own fitness.

    They should chop the numbers and have a proper seeding system based upon Strava or performance in other specified events. That way you would have fewer people on the roads and be of more equal ability.
  • itboffin
    itboffin Posts: 20,064
    i'd say insist on proof of club membership or similar experience of riding in a group / bike handling skills
    Rule #5 // Harden The Feck Up.
    Rule #9 // If you are out riding in bad weather, it means you are a badass. Period.
    Rule #12 // The correct number of bikes to own is n+1.
    Rule #42 // A bike race shall never be preceded with a swim and/or followed by a run.
  • ooermissus
    ooermissus Posts: 811
    itboffin wrote:
    i'd say insist on proof of club membership or similar experience of riding in a group / bike handling skills

    Zero chance you're going to get roads closed for three days for a souped up club run.
  • itboffin
    itboffin Posts: 20,064
    My point is this event is just not suitable for unskilled riders, make it shorter with less people
    Rule #5 // Harden The Feck Up.
    Rule #9 // If you are out riding in bad weather, it means you are a badass. Period.
    Rule #12 // The correct number of bikes to own is n+1.
    Rule #42 // A bike race shall never be preceded with a swim and/or followed by a run.
  • feisty
    feisty Posts: 161
    It was set up as a social ride not a competition. The problem is the club riders treating it as a club ride; not the social riders treating it as social ride. Club riders are the problem in this event. After 2014 I vowed never to do it again after seeing club riders cut up social riders. I thought it far too dangerous
  • mattsaw
    mattsaw Posts: 907
    Anecdotally I don't think you can point the finger at the novices on much of this.

    I went in wave B today and the only issues I had were with club riders. I was almost taken out as one moved from left to right with out shoulder checking and almost cleaned out my front wheel in the process.

    The first crash apparently was caused by a club chaingang with the lead rider clipping a kerb taking everyone else out in the process.

    Either way it's a bit reactionary. If you have an event with tens of thousands of riders, then it's odds-on on that some of those people will be selfish dicks. On the whole I think it's pretty well run and organised considering the numbers.
    Bianchi C2C - Ritte Bosberg - Cervelo R3
    Strava
  • iPete
    iPete Posts: 6,076
    Wish a speed recovery to those injured.

    Same s**t, different year. I'd personally like to see it run as a Gran fondo but I suspect any of these large scale events on the continent have the same issues(?).

    Anyway, brutal ride today, legs were not in it but ticked off a sub 4 time and can tick this event off now. Time for a long nap on the sofa.
  • ugo.santalucia
    ugo.santalucia Posts: 28,313
    iPete wrote:
    Wish a speed recovery to those injured.

    Same s**t, different year. I'd personally like to see it run as a Gran fondo but I suspect any of these large scale events on the continent have the same issues(?).

    Anyway, brutal ride today, legs were not in it but ticked off a sub 4 time and can tick this event off now. Time for a long nap on the sofa.

    Yes, same sxxt, different year. The course is not suitable for 20K riders, lanes are too narrow, tarmac is not that good... they should do the right thing, limit the entrants to 5 to 10K at the very top and redesign the course to avoid the bad bits (which are very many). Or even better, look at an alternative to Surrey, riding in Surrey is not safe, even at a club level, every weekend is a massacre on those lanes

    Glad to hear you are done with it... about time! :twisted:
    left the forum March 2023
  • itboffin
    itboffin Posts: 20,064
    Well done Pete

    Yeah I'm not saying the club riders are any better but at least they will have riden in a group, just spilt the whole thing by much bigger start times or different days
    Rule #5 // Harden The Feck Up.
    Rule #9 // If you are out riding in bad weather, it means you are a badass. Period.
    Rule #12 // The correct number of bikes to own is n+1.
    Rule #42 // A bike race shall never be preceded with a swim and/or followed by a run.
  • mattsaw
    mattsaw Posts: 907
    itboffin wrote:
    Well done Pete

    Yeah I'm not saying the club riders are any better but at least they will have riden in a group, just spilt the whole thing by much bigger start times or different days

    I suspect there is a compromise between the size of event that organisers want to have balanced out against the inconvenience of closing roads in large sections of London and Surrey. I don't see there would be any chance of running it over two days.

    I think the shorter event is a good idea this year which should split the riders over more space.
    Bianchi C2C - Ritte Bosberg - Cervelo R3
    Strava
  • ugo.santalucia
    ugo.santalucia Posts: 28,313
    itboffin wrote:
    Well done Pete

    Yeah I'm not saying the club riders are any better but at least they will have riden in a group, just spilt the whole thing by much bigger start times or different days

    It doesn't matter... when you have 20-30K riders accidents will happen... the problem is what happens in case of an accident and the London 100 inevitably has to re-route riders and cause major havoc... that is what needs to change... you want to be able to keep the flow of riders going, whilst emergency rolls in, like in most other big events
    left the forum March 2023
  • milemuncher1
    milemuncher1 Posts: 1,472
    There's been another big pile up as well. Leith Hill descent this time. The original big crash was purely down to the guy not slowing for the corner ( despite the shouts from the Marshalls). That held everyone up for the best part of an hour. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but if you ignore instructions, bad things happen.
  • surrey_commuter
    surrey_commuter Posts: 18,867
    They are trying to do too much, record number of people, open to everybody, pro race afterwards adding time pressure.

    Agree with Ugo that some of the roads are unsuitable

    And shutting a hundred miles of road and massively inconvenience hundreds of thousands of people for a bike ride
  • smithy21
    smithy21 Posts: 2,204
    It's 4 years since the Olympics. It doesn't have to be in Surrey. Vary the route maybe, send it out east or into Kent?

    Agree that accidents are always going to happen on these sort of events especially with the numbers involved here. I get that people want to challenge themselves, get a good time and take advantage of closed roads but at the end of the day it's a sportive. You have got to be a grade A arsehole to be treating it as a race and take risks on descents etc. It's not anyone's career and we all have to go to work on Monday.
  • kingstongraham
    kingstongraham Posts: 28,166
    Was anyone involved in a crash in the first tunnel on orange wave A? I got barged into by someone and managed to stay upright but I heard a very loud horrible crunching sound a couple of bikes behind. Sounded like quite a few broken bikes.

    Some people refuse to accept that they can't always ride as fast as they want, sometimes you go at the group's pace. Trying to weave through is bound to cause problems.
  • rich_e
    rich_e Posts: 389
    For anyone who is also following the Classic race, they had to neutralise and stop it because of the problems in the 100. So it's definitely not going to reflect well on how the event went down today once the dust has settled. I wonder how many people also had their ride cut short by having to take a diversion.

    If they don't want to reduce the numbers, then maybe they need to extend the length of the event so that riders are more staggered, you could then have the pro race finishing in the early evening. I would imagine though that they are already at the limit of what they can do with the extensive road closures.

    The reason it probably won't move to another route in London though is because an event like this requires a huge amount of planning and infrastructure to make it happen. All the work for the Olympics and the test event took care of that, so to move it somewhere else would likely require a lot more money and red tape to get through.
  • fat_cat
    fat_cat Posts: 566
    Saw 3 nasty looking accidents. The one in Pyrford looked nasty. The descent of Leith Hill is an accident waiting to happen, narrow road, steep descent and cr@p road surface. I was just behind the accident, and at least one guy was laying on the road with someone holding his head, hopefully as a precaution.

    Was also another crash on the descent into Dorking, ambulance in attendance.

    Best wishes to all that were hurt.

    Enjoyed the ride myself, but not sure I'll do it again.
  • surrey_commuter
    surrey_commuter Posts: 18,867
    There is no way they will be permission to close the roads for longer.

    I read somewhere that the problem is a few hundred stragglers so maybe he solution is to have a harsh cut off and make people do the 46 mile. Maybe tag people walking up Sawyers and save them from themselves.
  • jwshale
    jwshale Posts: 13
    Times in Excel format. If you're your interested in such things...
    http://www.filedropper.com/rl20162
  • snakedoc
    snakedoc Posts: 200
    I was Orange wave A and also saw the aftermath of the accident in the tunnel - people on the ground and what looked like broken bike bits strewn in the middle - had to take evasive action to avoid. Hope they were OK and nothing serious.
    Managed a 4:15 time so pleased with that
  • marcusjb
    marcusjb Posts: 2,412
    Mrs. JB home and pissed off after walking about 75 miles. Lots of stopped time, lots of walking, lots of diversions (including being put back onto open roads without being warned about it!). No hills at all.

    Luckily it doesn't cost much for us (even with a hotel the night before), but for those from further afield who are spending hundreds and hundreds of pounds on this, it must be extremely aggravating. Some people in tears at not being allowed to ride 100 miles.

    A great shame.

    I saw a lot of riders with no numbers. That can not help either. Marshals with big sticks to poke in their wheels. Or machine gun nests every 10 miles.

    3 times for Mrs JB and she has yet to manage to ride the full course! She was flying until Kingston as well. So disappointed for her.
    Stuff about riding a bike a long way
  • charlie_potatoes
    charlie_potatoes Posts: 1,921
    jwshale wrote:
    Times in Excel format. If you're your interested in such things...
    http://www.filedropper.com/rl20162

    Thanks for that. Top 1%. Happy days :)
    "You really think you can burn off sugar with exercise?" downhill paul
  • milemuncher1
    milemuncher1 Posts: 1,472
    Rich_E wrote:
    For anyone who is also following the Classic race, they had to neutralise and stop it because of the problems in the 100. So it's definitely not going to reflect well on how the event went down today once the dust has settled. I wonder how many people also had their ride cut short by having to take a diversion.

    If they don't want to reduce the numbers, then maybe they need to extend the length of the event so that riders are more staggered, you could then have the pro race finishing in the early evening. I would imagine though that they are already at the limit of what they can do with the extensive road closures.

    The reason it probably won't move to another route in London though is because an event like this requires a huge amount of planning and infrastructure to make it happen. All the work for the Olympics and the test event took care of that, so to move it somewhere else would likely require a lot more money and red tape to get through.

    That's not surprising. The big crash in the morning resulted in the guy breaking his neck. The crash on Leith has ended up with all involved in hospital, and one in intensive care, the cardiac arrest in Kingston is a fatality. This was a bad do this year.
  • surrey_commuter
    surrey_commuter Posts: 18,867
    marcusjb wrote:
    Mrs. JB home and pissed off after walking about 75 miles. Lots of stopped time, lots of walking, lots of diversions (including being put back onto open roads without being warned about it!). No hills at all.

    Luckily it doesn't cost much for us (even with a hotel the night before), but for those from further afield who are spending hundreds and hundreds of pounds on this, it must be extremely aggravating. Some people in tears at not being allowed to ride 100 miles.

    A great shame.

    I saw a lot of riders with no numbers. That can not help either. Marshals with big sticks to poke in their wheels. Or machine gun nests every 10 miles.

    3 times for Mrs JB and she has yet to manage to ride the full course! She was flying until Kingston as well. So disappointed for her.

    Exactly my point. The organisers have a duty of care to the entrants but also a duty to lay on a 100 mile event. They have failed to do this for the last three years.
  • j_mcd
    j_mcd Posts: 473
    Saw a couple of accidents although not the big two. I went out at 6:14 (and am not a club rider) and the vast majority of problems I saw were with club riders trying to outpace other club riders. I guess that with the earlier times there simply aren't many novices to get in the way which probably helps.

    One other thing I noticed was that a lot of (in their eyes) elite club riders stopped and awful lot of the time which meant them haring past again, and every time they stopped it allowed more 'novices' to get in front. Jesus, just man up a bit and ride the route. You only need to stop once to recharge your water.

    Also, and I think this is one of the biggest problems, what is the deal with overtaking on the inside? I had to have a go at some d1ck who was weaving in and out of people on the left hand side coming down Leith. Shouting 'on the left' doesn't make you a master of the racing line, it makes you a tw4t, especially on a bit of the course when people are tired and going at speed. Full club kit as well so surely he should have known better.

    At the end of the day there's little you can do to make it safer as there will always be genuine accidents and there will always be arseholes. No way around it.

    (Personally I was slower this year than last, more training required probably. I also really enjoyed it up until mile 90 when I got terrible cramp in both legs)
    Giant Defy Advanced 0 - Best
    Planet X London Road - Wet
    Montague Fit - Foldy thing that rarely gets used these days
  • ugo.santalucia
    ugo.santalucia Posts: 28,313
    Funny how none of this makes the headlines. Interviews on TV to celebrities doing the London 100 give the picture of such a great and well organised event... Mark Webber was lavish in compliments.
    As usual the official coverage of this event is heavily biased
    left the forum March 2023
  • wonky donkey
    wonky donkey Posts: 3
    Well I managed 100 miles this time, unlike in 2014. Sorry to hear about others who did not. They really shouldn't call it the RideLondon *100* given how often it is shortened...

    Thank you to the marshalls, volunteers, and the thousands of supporters and residents out on the course and who take the disruption in good spirit (and often with spirits, it seems).

    I got stuck for over an hour behind the big smash at Pyrford. Hope anyone injured there or elsewhere is OK, although that is a nasty tight descent. Same with Hollow Lane coming off Leith Hill, especially as the road surface is pants there. If the organisers won't change the course to avoid such parts, they could put a speed limit in place, timing mats at the start and end of the section could ensure that anyone exceeding it is disqualified, named and shamed, and maybe fined.

    The "diversion" around Pyrford seemed particularly amateur, a pink highlighter drawn (and then amended) on an OS map. Every year there seems to be a major delay somewhere on the course, this year it resulted in the pro race being delayed. Hopefully the organisers will consider more eventualities in future.

    Overall most were very polite and considerate, as usual a few louts not recognising the wide mix of abilities. Hope you all had a good day,

    Wonky

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