Ride london 2020 stay in london or travel down.

tubbs_214

So as above. I'm coming down from manchester and I dont know what to do if I should pay a stupid amount for a hotel and stay over for the weekend or do the 4 hour drive and park then drive back.

Any advice on where to park or a hotel to stay in that would let me keep my bike in the room I've only got a small car so the bike wouldn't fit in that plus I wouldn't feel safe leaving it over night in the car.

Any help appreciated

Mark

joe_totale-2

Have you factored in collecting your registration stuff from the Excel centre the day before?

I'd find a Premier Inn, they're all fairly cheap, comfy and happy for you to keep your bike in the room.

fenix

That's a bloody long day if you don't stay. Plus you need to collect your number from the expo before the day.

Although who knows if they'll even have an expo this year ?

If you stay near the start then you'll need to ride back after.

Alternatively stay in the centre and ride to the start.

Good luck finding a hotel now.

carbonclem

Best hotel (for this event) I had was the Premier Inn at the Excel. Not expensive (relatively), a short walk to the Exel for registration, amongst all the pro teams staying in hotels there and a short ride to the start, plus you can drive to it and avoid all the road closures that are in place on Saturday - worth considering. Bike in the room is no problem.
As previous, its a bit late now but see what you can find. No chance I'd do the whole thing in one day.

Longshot

I have stayed at the Queen Mary University (Google 'stay qmu') three times. It's been £40 per night for a student room but you can put your bike in it no problem. Only a mile or three to the start lines too.

It worked out well.

kingstongraham

Regardless of the ridiculous need to collect your pack the day before, if your start time is 7am, a 4 hour drive starting at about 2am would probably make the whole weekend thoroughly unpleasant, which kind of defeats the point.

homers_double

We're not far from Manchester, Littleborough. Four of us in a team.

We're booking a hotel or apartment for two nights, driving down Saturday and collecting our packs from Excel, do the ride on Sunday and going out on Sunday night.

Using my pick up we'll easily get four bikes plus gear in the boot.

bigmitch41

We stayed at the Premier Inn Excel centre too, handy, cheap, let you bring your bike into the room and the food was ok, they even did an early breakfast for us.

homers_double

If you're going to enter this event you know it's going to cost a few quid so make it a weekend away with the mrs. That's what we are doing, two couples for a night out on the town!

capt_slog

I saw this yesterday...

https://www.facebook.com/surreylivenews/posts/3892811840746549

Comes with the usual bunch of "good, so pleased I might not be able to find something to moan about once a year" type comments, but it's sad to see.

I hope it continues, i used to look forward to that.

ugo.santalucia

Is it not the case that the UCI race has been axed and therefore as a standalone event it has lost the council support?

When you think about it, how does this benefit the communities in Surrey? There's a lot of people flying past on bicycles, but hardly anyone stopping for cake and coffee... it might not even make up for the lost revenue due to closing the roads

brundonbianchi

ugo.santalucia said:

Is it not the case that the UCI race has been axed and therefore as a standalone event it has lost the council support?

When you think about it, how does this benefit the communities in Surrey? There's a lot of people flying past on bicycles, but hardly anyone stopping for cake and coffee... it might not even make up for the lost revenue due to closing the roads

Correct.

joe_totale-2

The route could do with a shake up anyway, perhaps do some more challenging hills in Kent instead?

brundonbianchi

joe_totale-2 said:

The route could do with a shake up anyway, perhaps do some more challenging hills in Kent instead?

Maybe head out towards Sevenoaks and tunbridge wells and include a couple of laps of Brands Hatch on the way out or back.

elbowloh

ugo.santalucia said:

Is it not the case that the UCI race has been axed and therefore as a standalone event it has lost the council support?

When you think about it, how does this benefit the communities in Surrey? There's a lot of people flying past on bicycles, but hardly anyone stopping for cake and coffee... it might not even make up for the lost revenue due to closing the roads

The riders don't stop no, but lots of people come out in the towns in particular lining the streets - many of whom I assume do have cake and coffee.

I used to live in Dorking which is on the route and it never bothered me, in fact it was something to look forward to. In fact the thousands of people on the route cheering on the riders seemed to enjoy it too.

I also lived in Merstham along the route for the BHF London to Brighton ride and couldn't get my car out of my road on those days, but i thought, it's only once a year so why get annoyed by it.

ugo.santalucia

well, clearly if the council withdrew their support it's because the drawbacks are greater than the benefits

shirley_basso

Probably the time and money responding to critics...

veronese68

The level of entitlement from the SUV drivers of Surrey is really quite something, anything that gets in the way of their driving to Waitrose really does bring out an extraordinary amount of anger.

ugo.santalucia

veronese68 said:

The level of entitlement from the SUV drivers of Surrey is really quite something, anything that gets in the way of their driving to Waitrose really does bring out an extraordinary amount of anger.

I wouldn't generalise. I think the specific event is littered with difficulties. I think it only went smoothly the first time, then it's always been accidents and troubles. I doubt there is much trade generated for the communities involved and maybe they should be looking at a course on larger roads that can be bypassed using motorways, rather than a million local lanes closures that trap people in their homes and cause an accident per mile.

elbowloh

ugo.santalucia said:

veronese68 said:

The level of entitlement from the SUV drivers of Surrey is really quite something, anything that gets in the way of their driving to Waitrose really does bring out an extraordinary amount of anger.

I wouldn't generalise. I think the specific event is littered with difficulties. I think it only went smoothly the first time, then it's always been accidents and troubles. I doubt there is much trade generated for the communities involved and maybe they should be looking at a course on larger roads that can be bypassed using motorways, rather than a million local lanes closures that trap people in their homes and cause an accident per mile.

I think a lot of it is on major roads that can be bypassed e.g. much of the south section is on the A25 and A24 which is bypassed by the M25.

I think it could benefit from the route being mixed up a bit though so it's not the same roads every year.

ugo.santalucia

elbowloh said:

I think it could benefit from the route being mixed up a bit though so it's not the same roads every year.

risk assessment is a big hassle. Once you've done it, you don't want to start all over again

thegreatdivide

That’s that then https://road.cc/content/news/surrey-withdraws-support-ridelondon-278377

ugo.santalucia

thegreatdivide said:

That’s that then https://road.cc/content/news/surrey-withdraws-support-ridelondon-278377

makes total sense. These large sportives in essence are an opportunity for entitled middle class cyclists to pay to get an "experience", which comes at a cost for those who are not involved in it. You might argue the cost is small, but nonetheless, they don't get to benefit from it.
Of course, there are closed road events which are acceptable and beneficial to the economy of the area, like the Caledonian one... but this one has always been more trouble than it's worth.