Ride London 2016

kingstongraham · August 2016

snakedoc wrote:

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

The sound of those bikes breaking really spooked me - it might have seemed worse because it was in a tunnel, but made me quite cautious about being in the middle of huge groups. Still round in a time I was happy with, and had a hard fast (for me) ride, but the whole day was less carefree and not as much fun as I hoped it would be. Rolling home along the route while the roads were still closed afterwards (at about 11:00) was terrific though.

I much preferred the Velothon Wales - I don't know why it felt so different.

antonyfromoz · August 2016

Well, I enjoyed it (mainly) but won't be doing it again. My computer had me averaging just under 26kmh but this included the long walks and slow riding after the accidents and the blockage that was Wocking. I hope all of the injured get well soon - saw two down on the road with blood over their faces and many getting patched up in the St Johns tents. Got to say that the most dangerous aspects of the ride that I saw was the behaviour of riders acting selfishly and not giving any thought to the other road users. They did not appear to be the people out having a challenge ride either for charity or to meet a personal goal. Many d1ckheads cutting through the other riders on the left or not informing that they were passing on the right. I thought that the majority of the marshalls were great - enthusiastic and paying attention to what was going on. Road surfaces were pretty dire in places. Weather was great.

whatleytom · August 2016

Enjoyed the day, and pleased to get sub 4, won't be planning to do it again though. I'm of the opinion that the organisation was fairly good, and I'm amazed there aren't more serious crashes to be honest. There are crashes in a lot of road races involving people that by and large know how to handle a bike well, so when you let the mass public on a bike together, I'm amazed it's not worse. I'm not entirely certain what the org's can do to minimize it either. It's just a natural hazard of bike riding, the speed and proximity don't mix well.

mattsaw · August 2016

KingstonGraham wrote:

snakedoc wrote:

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

The sound of those bikes breaking really spooked me - it might have seemed worse because it was in a tunnel, but made me quite cautious about being in the middle of huge groups. Still round in a time I was happy with, and had a hard fast (for me) ride, but the whole day was less carefree and not as much fun as I hoped it would be. Rolling home along the route while the roads were still closed afterwards (at about 11:00) was terrific though.

I much preferred the Velothon Wales - I don't know why it felt so different.

A clubmate was in orange A and was caught up in it. Someone went down taking around 5 or 6 people with them.

He's posted a picture of his helmet broken in two. :shock:

I came through in wave B and had the fright of my life as a bottle appeared from nowhere, which I'm guessing was the debris from the crash. I managed to hop over it at the last second but it took a few minutes to get my heart rate back down.

I deliberately focused on doing negative splits, partly as a bit of an experiment, but also because I was expecting the first 20 miles to be carnage and just wanted to keep out of the way.

Once things thinned out then it was actually very enjoyable.

Anonymous · August 2016

Slowbike wrote:

Thanks to the guys and girls I caught a tow off - especially in the latter stages - I was starting to struggle a bit!

You didn't give a sweet to anyone by any chance did you?

slowbike · August 2016

Carbonator wrote:

Slowbike wrote:

Thanks to the guys and girls I caught a tow off - especially in the latter stages - I was starting to struggle a bit!

You didn't give a sweet to anyone by any chance did you?

Nope - didn't have any to give to anyone ... I had sausages and fig rolls in my pockets!

cruff · August 2016

I must be in the minority. I didn't see any really dangerous riding. Maybe because I didn't really hammer it so wasn't at the sharp end, and was out early enough to avoid the casual riders? Saw some stupid stuff (bloke bellowing "ON YOUR RIGHT"... before passing on my left (then getting passed himself 100 yards up the road - plum), two blokes going down Leith with about four inches between their wheels etc) but nothing like as dangerous as in other rides I've done

I was more annoyed with the complete lack of anything like organisation on the road - there were pacelines (badly done) and bunches (badly organised) but didn't find a single group to work with properly (two lines rotating) which that route is absolutely made for apart from the narrow bits in Surrey, the odd bit in London and the 'hills'. Spent most of the ride bridging up to pacelines, getting on the back of them then doing a turn before latching onto faster trains coming through.

Also had far too much left in the tank at the end - so obviously didn't give it enough on the run in to London. Managed 4:31 - which was pretty much what I was aiming for, so no real complaints. Definitely could have achieved 4:10/4:15 if I'd managed to jump in the 6:00 start with a mate's club, but as I say, the riding might have been a bit more spiteful then

Regarding the later problems with crashes and delays:

A - It's run by London Marathon, there's no way they'll reduce the number of entrants as they wouldn't make as much money.
B - You can't restrict it to people who have experience of previous sportives, because, as someone else posted, that would make it a glorified club run and there's no way you'd be able to justify closing huge swathes of London's roads for that every year.
C - You can't go the other way and stop advertising timings & stuff to make it more like a 'fun ride' because it's people who don't have experience that generally cause the pile-ups.
D - You can't reduce the length of the ride, because the fact that it's a hundred miler is what gets a lot of people interested in it due to the 'challenge' aspect (riding 100 miles is a bloody big achievement for a lot of people).
E - You could take Leith Hill out of it - it's the only real challenge of a hill, and apparently has carnage every year as people stop dead in front of other riders - and often has crashes on the descent (there was a bad one yesterday, apparently) - but doing that would piss off anyone who cycles regularly and wanted to challenge themselves.
F - There's potential to move the pro race to the Saturday - in fact, a split between the two is what takes place at the vast majority of other events like Paris-Roubaix, Tour of Flanders etc - but that would mean closing roads in Surrey for two days and the people who live on the route already moan about the Sunday, and are very influential cos they're rich
G - You simply can't account for p1ss poor riding like I saw yesterday. Some of it was laughable - especially from riders who (you would think) should know better

The Tour of Cambridgeshire was much better organised - the Gran Fondo is a UCI sanctioned race and acts as a qualifier for the amateur world championships, so there are thousands of riders racing it, and there's a sportive afterwards with much larger numbers. That doesn't have the problems Ride London does, admittedly there aren't any climbs to cause bottlenecks, but the route is very narrow in places, and there are still nasty turns on sh1t road surfaces. Maybe the fact that it isn't in London helps.

homers_double · August 2016

I'd mentioned entering this to my regular riding pal but reading some of the comments above I might give it a miss.

MikeWW · August 2016

I really enjoyed it. Left at 7.40 with a couple of club mates and thought it was great fun on the closed roads. Weren't many riders to work with but we went through the fits 50 in just under 2 hours. One of the guys tired a bit (and crashed on a descent after hitting a big pothole) so it was just under 4.30 riding time in the end. Didn't think the riding was too bad to be honest. Never like to see crashes but very hard to avoid when you have that number of people riding. A lot safer than your average 3/4th cat race

ugo.santalucia · August 2016

zebulebu wrote:

E - You could take Leith Hill out of it - it's the only real challenge of a hill, and apparently has carnage every year as people stop dead in front of other riders - and often has crashes on the descent (there was a bad one yesterday, apparently) - but doing that would wee-wee off anyone who cycles regularly and wanted to challenge themselves.

One solution would be to go up Whitedown lane, which is a challenge and then the main road down Ranmore Common into Dorking, which is wide enough and much safer than Leith hill, if properly marshalled.
Only issue, Whitedown lane will quickly get filled with walkers, I suspect, but that's OK, it happens at the RVV every year and the quick riders will get through before it happens

harry-s · August 2016

I started, a bit late, at around 6:25. I didn't see much in the way of accidents, apart from the one in the tunnel. All in all, like MikeWW, I thought it was ok. Any event this big is going to have it's fair share of tools, - there were some strong riders in the groups, but some with no idea of how to ride in a group, but I think you've got to take the rough with the smooth, it's always going to be the way with an event this big. People will always want to go for a time, it's human nature, and I don't think you could make it the cycling equivalent of a fun run. Most of the time the roads are wide enough to give erratic riders a wide berth, although they seemed to come into their own on the descents.
Anyway, one for the over 60's at 4:31 for me. It's nice to see how you compare to a field this big, but that's about as far as it goes. I won't be getting a tatt.
Putting in Whitedown would be a disaster Ugo, you'd alienate half the participants, and it would be a complete log jam. There are plenty of nice climbs around those parts, but I think the organisers have got a fairly decent balance between a challenge to most but not a boring flat run out.

umop3pisdn · August 2016

Rode the tandem, had a great day out despite the crashes, queues and walks. A few dickheads, but that's life. 99.9% of people having a great day out on a bike. Only 7 people made the 'she's not pedalling joke', expected more.

umop3pisdn · August 2016

Specialized_Nick wrote:

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?

Prime cockwomble. Someone should have told him that his bumbag was killing his aeros.

mroli · August 2016

umop3pisdn wrote:

Rode the tandem, had a great day out despite the crashes, queues and walks. A few dickheads, but that's life. 99.9% of people having a great day out on a bike. Only 7 people made the 'she's not pedalling joke', expected more.

Ha - they must have used them all up on us and our tandem! We got it about 50 times! Also (pretend) irate women on the side shouting "that's cheating" at us. Had a lot of lovely chats with people as we went around though. People love a tandem. Didn't see you guys - we saw about 6 others though (but you look quicker than us).

We had a lovely sprint up the Mall - just went on the "racing line" wide right and had a clear gallop in....

umop3pisdn · August 2016

Heh, yeah we did the same. Crossed the line at 27mph apparently.

chrisaonabike · August 2016

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?

Prime cockwomble. Someone should have told him that his bumbag was killing his aeros.

He should not have been allowed to even start with TT bars on.

Not difficult to enforce, that one.

"Oi, you - out."

Simple as.

It would get rid of a few of the more cuntish ones - if you a) can't read instructions and/or b) don't give a sh.it about instructions, then you're not going to be one of the considerate riders.

The event would be better off without them.

surrey_commuter · August 2016

ChrisAOnABike wrote:

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?

Prime cockwomble. Someone should have told him that his bumbag was killing his aeros.

He should not have been allowed to even start with TT bars on.

Not difficult to enforce, that one.

"Oi, you - out."

Simple as.

It would get rid of a few of the more cuntish ones - if you a) can't read instructions and/or b) don't give a sh.it about instructions, then you're not going to be one of the considerate riders.

The event would be better off without them.

Agreed entirely.

Also anybody who is in a Wave because they estimated a sub-6 hour time and walk up Sawyers should be removed from the course

ajkerr73 · August 2016

Had my first shot at this yesterday.

Personally thought that Newlands climb was the toughest of the three, but that might have been because it was the busiest when I passed through it.

Saw at least 3 guys caning it on Bromptons....one with drop bars fitted!!

I started after 7 and although I spent most of the ride overtaking people, I had absolutely no complaints over the riding I witnessed. (maybe all the complaints are about me :-) )

PS, road surfaces were well above the average for up here in Scotland.

Bike rides of all sizes and levels of experience involve crashes. It stands to reason that 21k riders on the course will mean more crashes. These crashes may well be caused by "insert abusive/childish insult here" riders but are more likely caused by people making mistakes, and that is human nature!

One thing I can guarantee is that no rider is going to deliberately take another rider down as its likely that they will eat tar themselves.

PPS. Organisers of these rides should be duty bound to take a "broom" wagon round after the riders and collect gel wrappers etc. If you take in £1.5m+ in entry fee's alone then its hardly going to bust the bank. You could argue that taking a gel from your pocket, eating it then having to put it back into another pocket doubles the chances of an incident with one hand on the bars (tenuous I admit!!)

kingstongraham · August 2016

ChrisAOnABike wrote:

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?

Prime cockwomble. Someone should have told him that his bumbag was killing his aeros.

He should not have been allowed to even start with TT bars on.

Not difficult to enforce, that one.

"Oi, you - out."

Simple as.

Was that picture at the start? Never mind the TT bike, how would you be allowed to get to the start with no number?

vpnikolov · August 2016

Right... reading a lot of comments that people who exaggerated their estimated finish time should be removed or whatever - I think you should be more considerate of genuine circumstances of such people. I for example estimated 5, finished 7:40 official with 6:30 moving mainly due to a knee injury that kept me off the bike for more than a month before the ride. Needless to say I was not in top shape and knee flared up again. Still sucked it up and managed to finish (without walking on a single hill), although was considering pulling out halfway through.

It is completely unnecessary to shame people because "they lied".

vpnikolov · August 2016

KingstonGraham wrote:

ChrisAOnABike wrote:

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?

Prime cockwomble. Someone should have told him that his bumbag was killing his aeros.

He should not have been allowed to even start with TT bars on.

Not difficult to enforce, that one.

"Oi, you - out."

Simple as.

Was that picture at the start? Never mind the TT bike, how would you be allowed to get to the start with no number?

Mine was not checked at all, just rode in the allocated wave and that was it. Or he might have joined somewhere along the course.

specialized_nick · August 2016

umop3pisdn wrote:

Specialized_Nick wrote:

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?

Prime cockwomble. Someone should have told him that his bumbag was killing his aeros.

Thats the one!

umop3pisdn · August 2016

KingstonGraham wrote:

ChrisAOnABike wrote:

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?

Prime cockwomble. Someone should have told him that his bumbag was killing his aeros.

He should not have been allowed to even start with TT bars on.

Not difficult to enforce, that one.

"Oi, you - out."

Simple as.

Was that picture at the start? Never mind the TT bike, how would you be allowed to get to the start with no number?

I saw him at the start, presumably (hopefully) being told he couldn't start on that machine. Took the photo at Dorking, just after that he was pulled (apparently not for the first time) by a marshall for not having a number.

He was with a few mates who all seemed like knobbers.

Anonymous · August 2016

umop3pisdn wrote:

Prime cockwomble. Someone should have told him that his bumbag was killing his aeros.

Everyone around him was a cockwomble too though if they don't give a fcuk about him enough to point him out.
The organizers are the ultimate cockwombles for not enforcing their own rules and not having an enviouroment/event where people would feel that worthwhile though.

Its a modern thing to have rules that are not enforced lol
Does not bode well for the future :roll:

Personally I would like to live in a world where someone who did that had his bike smashed up by staff with baseball bats, but hey, he would be straight to the Hague crying about his human rights being violated :roll:

bflk · August 2016

It seems that the story about the cardiac arrest is now confirmed which is very sad.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-ox ... e-36940216

deejaysee · August 2016

^^^^ I passed that guy just as he was receiving CPR from spectators, no medics there at the time.
Gave me chills - RIP

specialized_nick · August 2016

umop3pisdn wrote:

KingstonGraham wrote:

ChrisAOnABike wrote:

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?

Prime cockwomble. Someone should have told him that his bumbag was killing his aeros.

He should not have been allowed to even start with TT bars on.

Not difficult to enforce, that one.

"Oi, you - out."

Simple as.

Was that picture at the start? Never mind the TT bike, how would you be allowed to get to the start with no number?

I saw him at the start, presumably (hopefully) being told he couldn't start on that machine. Took the photo at Dorking, just after that he was pulled (apparently not for the first time) by a marshall for not having a number.

He was with a few mates who all seemed like knobbers.

He finished shortly after me, saw him several times along the route.

Anonymous · August 2016

Anyone have any good Cockwomble stories?

A guy in wave D with a wave K number climbed back out over the barrier to get to a space further up (imagine if we all did that). He nearly knocked some poor sods bike over (like he would have given a sh1t).
I so wanted him to fall and stamp on his, or one of his sad friends derailleurs, but it was not to be.

Anonymous · August 2016

Specialized_Nick wrote:

He finished shortly after me, saw him several times along the route.

Please tell me you were on a Sirrus Hybrid with Panniers :P

antonyfromoz · August 2016

Carbonator wrote:

Anyone have any good Cockwomble stories?

A guy in wave D with a wave K number climbed back out over the barrier to get to a space further up (imagine if we all did that). He nearly knocked some poor sods bike over (like he would have given a sh1t).
I so wanted him to fall and stamp on his, or one of his sad friends derailleurs, but it was not to be.

There was one man on a flat bar hybrid who I saw on several occasions riding up hill, standing, with the bike the second or third highest gear on the cassette - and wandering all over the road as he ground his way up..

Ride London 2016

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