Ride London 2016

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  • poppit
    poppit Posts: 926
    Did it in 2014 and 2015 but won't do it again, just too dangerous and stressful. As the comment above, most of the incidents I saw and experienced were caused by riders in club kit, not all but most, luckily we weren't brought down in any of them but we easily could have been. It's really a social, mass participation event and not one where getting a good time has priority over safety and common sense, but you can see from the posts above that getting a fast time is really important to a lot of the participants. That factor added to the massive number of riders with a wide range of abilities is a recipe for disaster.
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  • dandrew
    dandrew Posts: 175
    I was caught up in the Pryford tailback for about 35 mins. A dog walker then showed us a narrow path behind the church which came out after the accident. Took a while to walk the bike down the steep path put eventually got going.
    The roads for next 30 or so miles were almost post apocalyptic, just the occasional very slow rider so no drafting and no buzz. 30 miles pushing air.
    I spoke to one rider who had stopped at the scene of the crash and assisted. He wasn't hopeful of the guys chances. Apparently he hit a low padded barrier and was catapulted head first into a tree.
    Not sure I'll do this again. Perhaps the event should be for no categorised riders and those who e.g aim to complete in 6 hour plus. Having Elite, Cat 1,2,3 & 4 riders on the road with sportive and fun riders is always going to be a problem. Saying that I saw 3 crashes in an hour on yesterdays Freecyle and who hasn't seen crash fests at Categorised races. It's now a victim of its own success and of the desire of London Marathon to get as many people as possible crammed onto the course.
  • onemoresolo
    onemoresolo Posts: 372
    The Pyrford crash looked awful, think we passed moments after it happened. Hope the riders are ok. Once was enough for me with this event, riding back into London was a great buzz but it was too stressful in between.
  • paul2718
    paul2718 Posts: 471
    J_MCD wrote:
    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.
    Don't leave gaps to the left, problem solved.

    Paul
  • bigmat
    bigmat Posts: 5,134
    Wow 70 riders home under 4 hours - thought it seemed fast! I wonder if they should just split it somehow - faster riders who want to race go early, people who are doing it as a genuine challenge with perhaps less experience start later. That is kind of how it works anyway, but there is obviously an issue when the two groups are sharing the same road. I was in Orange A and somehow managed to miss the crash in the tunnel. Worst one I saw was on a sharp right hander in Kingston on way out to Surrey where I few people were on the deck, had to put a foot down a few times where people where entering corners too fast then slamming on the brakes causing slow speed pile ups behind. Then some chopper rode into my back wheel in the sprint on the mall - fortunately no damage done!
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  • prhymeate
    prhymeate Posts: 795
    I rode through Richmond Park to watch the pros come through and was pretty disappointed by the number of gel wrappers all over the floor. Surely people don't need them 20 miles into the ride either... That aside, it was good watching them through the park and then later in Wimbledon.

    I hope all the sportive riders had a good time, crashes aside. Fingers crossed for those injured.
  • bigmat
    bigmat Posts: 5,134
    paul2718 wrote:
    J_MCD wrote:
    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.
    Don't leave gaps to the left, problem solved.

    Paul

    Yeah sorry mate but it was on closed roads, you can (and should) pass wherever there is space. Unbelievable how many people were glued to the left, even on descents. Only time that was necessary was on the hills where I found people pretty considerate.
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  • bigmat
    bigmat Posts: 5,134
    Prhymeate wrote:
    I rode through Richmond Park to watch the pros come through and was pretty disappointed by the number of gel wrappers all over the floor. Surely people don't need them 20 miles into the ride either... That aside, it was good watching them through the park and then later in Wimbledon.

    I hope all the sportive riders had a good time, crashes aside. Fingers crossed for those injured.

    Yep, annoying seeing people chucking wrappers and even empty bottles. Some people just have no class.
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  • rich_e
    rich_e Posts: 389
    ugo.santalucia wrote:
    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

    To be fair though, he looks to have been ahead of the major accidents, so is unlikely to have commented on them.
    The BBC coverage of the 100 even itself is fairly minimal, so it's not like they can really do much more than ask some celebrities how their ride went. I think by the time anyone aggrieved was back, they were too busy with the Classic coverage.

    dandrew wrote:
    Saying that I saw 3 crashes in an hour on yesterdays Freecyle and who hasn't seen crash fests at Categorised races. It's now a victim of its own success and of the desire of London Marathon to get as many people as possible crammed onto the course.

    I've ridden in the Freecycle before just for fun, but it's not really worth the risk if you value your bike!
    There are so many people of different abilities that everyone is all over the shop, I spent the whole time just trying to dodge and anticipate what people were going to do next. There are also a good few idiots with not that much experience on bikes who will be trying to go fast through tiny gaps in large groups of riders.
  • fat_cat
    fat_cat Posts: 566
    Just reflecting on the comments above. I'm not a club rider, but I do know how to ride in a bunch, and whilst not the quickest, got round in a reasonable time 5.30 or so.

    One of the biggest issues for me is groups of mates riding 2 or 3 abreast down the middle of the road so that anyone overtaking has to go a long way round them. Most of the route is plenty wide enough, and if people keep left unless overtaking it would make it safer.
  • shaunclaridge
    shaunclaridge Posts: 87
    Anyone struggling to get the ride from gamin connect to strava? Is there system issues with weight of traffic maybe? Its on my garmin connect but hasnt shown on Strava with my other rides from today?
  • j_mcd
    j_mcd Posts: 473
    shaunclaridge wrote:
    Anyone struggling to get the ride from gamin connect to strava? Is there system issues with weight of traffic maybe? Its on my garmin connect but hasnt shown on Strava with my other rides from today?

    I had the same problem. It will come up eventually although mine took a while.

    WRT to the overtaking, there was space on the right and there wasn't space on the left without dangerous weaving and then slamming on the brakes and nearly causing a pileup.
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  • paul2718
    paul2718 Posts: 471
    I overtook plenty of times on the left. I'm on my line, there's a gap, what else to do? Take a big sideways swerve to a small gap on the right? Perhaps there are people travelling faster than me (especially today) expecting to use it.

    I don't understand why the organisers didn't grid better, there were plenty of hopelessly-unlikely-to-be-anywhere-near-5 hour riders in my wave, and much earlier waves. People walking on Newlands, Leith, Box that I passed. This damages the experience for everybody and is completely unnecessary.

    There was an incident on the right coming down Putney High Street. A marshal pointed me to the left of a traffic thing, so I went. And there were two other marshals holding a dark coloured rope across the road. Fortunately I was able to duck, and we'd slowed down. Rope didn't catch on my helmet.

    At the finish people were stopping just over the line, dismounting, taking photos, stuff like that. Recipe for disaster. You ride a 100 miles and have to brake before the end. Management failure here.

    One fat bloke can block the road if they come to a near halt on a gentle upward incline and aren't hard left (or right). Even on a relatively wide road. It's not their fault they cannot maintain reasonable progress but some consideration would be appreciated.

    Why are so few cyclists capable of even semi-competent cornering?

    Paul
  • kingstonian
    kingstonian Posts: 2,847
    Read above that the person receiving CPR on Kingston Bridge was a fatality. Terrible to hear that, it didn't look good when I crossed the bridge after my training ride - I warned a couple of families with young kids who were approaching the scene because I know my kids wouldn't want to see some poor person having CPR.
  • mattsaw
    mattsaw Posts: 907
    Was that a rider or spectator?
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  • DeVlaeminck
    DeVlaeminck Posts: 9,106
    Sounds like a need to determine whether this is a continental style sportive or a London to Brighton style social ride. Given the way it's marketed and the fact they publish times you can't blame people for riding it "for a time".

    Difficult to say which side is right - personally I'd treat people in this a bit more cautiously than say the Marmotte and in turn I'd be more cautious there than a road race. That said if you enter a timed mass participation event you have to be able to cope with people riding in close proximity without losing it and be aware that people will pass you if you leave a gap on the left.

    Very sad that someone has died and hope those injured are ok.
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  • rich_e
    rich_e Posts: 389
    I see a lot of people talking about this person who required CPR having died, but I've not seen that report anywhere. The BBC last updated their story on the two injuries recently and didn't mention it. Does somebody know for sure that a person died? Last year when somebody passed away on the ride, they reported it quite quickly.
  • kingstonian
    kingstonian Posts: 2,847
    Rich_E wrote:
    I see a lot of people talking about this person who required CPR having died, but I've not seen that report anywhere. The BBC last updated their story on the two injuries recently and didn't mention it. Does somebody know for sure that a person died? Last year when somebody passed away on the ride, they reported it quite quickly.


    My post above was in response to an earlier post, I've not seen the fatality (if that was the outcome) mentioned in the press either. I'n fact I've not even seen any mention of the incident in the press.
  • johngti
    johngti Posts: 2,508
    Well I didn't /not/enjoy it but I'd echo a lot of the feelings above. I particularly feel aggrieved at the way in which the good club riders behaved as if a shout of "on your right" qualified as the cycling equivalent of blue lights and sirens. Given the narrowness of some of the roads, there's a point where you have to suck it up and wait for a safer place to pass. And the other thing was the folk walking up Leith two abreast, making it even harder to get past safely.

    I got caught in the Pyrford wait and that knocked my overall time on the road (according to the excel file linked to). My knees hurt at the best of times but that wait really got stuck in to them. Properly leaden feeling afterwards and cramps in the right. Obviously nothing compared to the accident but... Still, 12000 people were still slower than me!!

    What really made it for me was the support from everyone. Loved that and the fact that a bunch of complete strangers put themselves out to support us was stunning.
  • mroli
    mroli Posts: 3,622
    Far too many people on the road. Not safe.

    For too few stewards/marshals. Putting a bloke in an orange tabard is just bollocks unless he knows what to do in case of accidents and can contact someone.

    Some f&£King lunatic course design. Toilet stops in narrow downhill sections just before turnings that people could use safely being a prime example.

    Selfish c u n t s more concerned about a 5 hour flat hundred time than the safety of people around them.

    Very little on course communication.

    With the exception of Hampton court, piss poor food stops.

    Ok, now I've vented, it was a lovely day and the vast majority of people really nice. A lot of tandem love. All our charity riders got home safe and sound. Don't care about spending an hour standing around when someone is hurt. Wife chuffed to have finally done whole 100 at third attempt.

    My abiding memory however was standing in the road just before Newlands corner trying to slow bikes down because there was a crash in the middle of the road and there being another crash 20m before the accident as people panicked. I was yelling and waving my arms and we (2 riders) were off our bikes trying to funnel people left and some piece of work bombed up on the right swearing at me as I was getting in his way. Eventually a police bike came up and we felt OK to leave and I saw the girl lying in the road with blood coming down her face. If that bloke is reading this - you were wearing a dip dye Rapha top, you should take a good long hard look at yourself.....
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  • dandrew
    dandrew Posts: 175
    shaunclaridge wrote:
    Anyone struggling to get the ride from gamin connect to strava? Is there system issues with weight of traffic maybe? Its on my garmin connect but hasnt shown on Strava with my other rides from today?

    Yes I had to manually upload the Garmin files to Strava. ( upload file click on Garmin icon, hit activities and upload the one/s from today )
  • ooermissus
    ooermissus Posts: 811
    Rich_E wrote:
    I've ridden in the Freecycle before just for fun, but it's not really worth the risk if you value your bike!
    There are so many people of different abilities that everyone is all over the shop, I spent the whole time just trying to dodge and anticipate what people were going to do next. There are also a good few idiots with not that much experience on bikes who will be trying to go fast through tiny gaps in large groups of riders.

    I went round towards the end and it was at least 50% kids and their families. They should do that bit one Sunday a month and make the West End pedestrian only that day as well.
  • dandrew
    dandrew Posts: 175
    The M25 is 183km in length. It's hardly iconic ( unless yore an ex raver ) Using it may pi**s people off but it's a might wide road and the London Marathon will have to look at using suitable roads if Ride london has a healthy future. Any other route suggestions?
  • Thigh_burn
    Thigh_burn Posts: 489
    I loved it. It was very special being on those closed roads.

    the dangerous riding I saw was from experienced riders, riding inappropriately. Some blog shoulder barged me as we came down off Leith. I was ahead of him and he comes shooting down, accuses me of not holding my line. Posit I wasn't hitting the apex perfectly, but I wasn't weaving, I wasn't crossing the central reservation and we were lucky he didn't bring us both down.

    I'm conflicted on all the issues over over crowding. It was great to do it, but the crowds did get silly at times.

    I was surprised how bad the feed stations were. They appeared entirely overwhelmed and often with little or nothing there. I stopped at one of the later hubs to top up my bottles and there was stuff there, but it was so close to the end, not worth filling up.
  • cremator
    cremator Posts: 99
    Hope you all had good ride can you get your official time any where as this was my first time doing it
  • dandrew
    dandrew Posts: 175
    cremator wrote:
    Hope you all had good ride can you get your official time any where as this was my first time doing it

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  • Der Kaiser
    Der Kaiser Posts: 172
    Just awoken and I am reading through the comments with interest.

    My official time was over 9 hours. My actual time was 7. I was caught behind the accident for an hour and a half in Pyrford then we walked for about a mile very slowly. This reduced my average speed by about 2.5mph.

    I was then in a group that was stopped before Leith Hill. Stopped there for about 45 mins then walked slowly to a corner.

    As we approached Box Hill somebody said they had closed it but when I got there It was still open and riders were streaming through.

    I did the full 100 miles. Very pleased to have done it.

    Pluses
    Very good organisation.
    The people on the route were lovely.
    The medal is just brilliant.
    The volunteers were lovely.

    Minus
    Too many riders
    Too many with no experience in group riding. (Middle of the road at slow speeds)
    Experienced riders acting like fuckwits. (No shouts as you pass, Weaving like they think they are a pro, Chain gangs)
    Feed stations ran out of food at several places.

    On the ones that treat it like it's a race why don't you join your local race league and ride that. I wouldn't ride in a race league because I'm not a racer. So don't ride a sportive like it's a race dumbass!

    I won't do this again next year. I enjoyed it but all the crashes and subsequent waiting took a little of the shine off it.

    Peace and Love!
  • specialized_nick
    specialized_nick Posts: 427
    Well that was my first time riding it, started just before 9 after waiting for my mates that were in the last couple of waves so was on a hiding to nothing after that.
    Got stuck like many others and knew at that point they'd have to shorten the route which was dissapointing.
    Enjoyed the day overall minus the walking!
    Did anyone else see the big guy on the TT bike in full TT gear, disc wheel the lot, didn't even have a number on?
  • slowbike
    slowbike Posts: 8,498
    In the 6k for ranking - elapsed time of 5:26 - our moving time was 5:11 - so happy with that (ok I would've liked 5 or just under - but didn't do any long training rides so fair enough).

    Organisation was great - surprised at just how many marshalls there were about - ok a few seemingly acting like fools with their flags - but there you go.

    No real issues with other riders at all - I kept left on the climbs where I knew I'd be slow. Sure there were a few obstacles to contend with but overall I can't complain.
    Didn't try the hubs or bottle stops - two 750ml bottles filled to the brim took me round - the stopping was loo break (not mine), puncture (not mine!) and road closed at wimbledon - I should've stopped midway to refill though - could've done with more water rather than the sickly energy drink!

    Did see one chap with a disintegrated front wheel the carbon wheel was in at least 2 pieces! - no idea what happened but he and a mate (wearing the same kit) were at the side of the road wondering what to do next. Saw a few marshal shielded riders on the ground - didn't stop to look (!) - assume they were "ok" even if their ride was over. I feel sorry for those who did crash out due to no fault of their own. I can see how it happens - all you need to do is overcook a corner or for someone to swearve around a pothole (I did come across 1 pothole - too late to do anything except jump it!).

    Thanks to the guys and girls I caught a tow off - especially in the latter stages - I was starting to struggle a bit!
  • milemuncher1
    milemuncher1 Posts: 1,472
    The timings are pretty irrelevant. I spent so long waiting at accidents / having to slow to a crawl, I haven't got a clue what the 'official' time really means. Judging by my Strava PR's, I was a fair bit quicker this year, when I was actually moving. The official time is over 1.5 hours slower. That's life I guess.

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