Daily Mail does it again!

[PoweredByVeg]

Reading and watching reports on Sunday's London-Surrey Cycle Classic it looks like it was a great event watched by thousands.

I even cycled up Box Hill Saturday and the route looked fab too.

But NO! According to this article in the Daily Moron, it seems that hosting some insignificant cycle ride is nothing compared to people not being able to drive when and where they goddam want to

FFS, is it just me or are there more important things than sitting in your car and going to Ikea on a Sunday?

 

[Holdsworth]

I first heard about the closures on the Stargazers Lounge forum when a member was venting their frustration about not being able to get to work on time, plus the length of time it took to clear the road blocks after the cyclists had passed.
The thread then descended somewhat into a bit of mild cyclist bashing about road tax and the like and was locked by the mods.

Still it looks like the event itself went off without a hitch, I even might consider watching at least the cycling part of the Olympics this time round rather than pretending the entire event isn't happening.

 

[moralcrusader]

I drove through the centre of London Sunday lunchtime and it was no more or less busy than it was on any other Sunday. Usual Daily Fail BS.

 

[ianrauk]

The Evening Standard ran a similar story.

 

[Broadside]

I cycled over to Box Hill from Fleet on Sun as I have never ridden it before, quite fancied having a go. I had no idea about yesterday's race so was a tad annoyed that I managed to pick the one day it has ever been closed off!!Still it was nice riding on the A24 and A25 for about 15 miles of closed roads and I got to experience a lot of the Surrey Hills by diverting down to Cranleigh on the way back home. I have to say I am puzzled why quite so many roads were closed though - I checked the race route last night and there were massive sections of roads closed (that I sneaked through on) that the race route did not cover.

 

[uphillstruggler]

Apart from the complete lack of tolerance of an event as supposedly important as this race on behalf of motorists who are making journeys of a 'few' miles, The worst thing about this is the amount of media shite that the Debbie jeavons and leon so and so spout in reply to the problems. Do these people really think they can pr speak their way out? What colour is the sky in their world?

Bit like the lottery allocation of tickets. I for one am unfortunately sick of the Olympics already. Still, at least the blokes in suits who probably don't cycle, run or take part in anything else apart from the corperate tennis day are making cash from it.

At least that's my take on it. Sorry.

And breathe

 

[downfader]

Patron Saint of all things chubby and unhealthy, Eamon Holmes was bemoaning being 30 minutes late home from work on twitter.

 

[Flyingfox]

Patron Saint of all things chubby and unhealthy, Eamon Holmes was bemoaning being 30 minutes late home from work on twitter.

Can't believe you 'follow' Eamon Holmes on Twitter - you need to get out more

 

[al78]

I drove through the centre of London Sunday lunchtime and it was no more or less busy than it was on any other Sunday. Usual Daily Fail BS.

There was more congestion than usual around Victoria Station as routes towards Hyde Park Corner and Buckingham Palace were closed/diverted.

I did find it a bit tricky to get from Victoria Station to Holborn as pretty much every route that would take me in that general direction had a closed road. I ended up walking the bike through some of the closures until I worked out that the officials at the roadblocks didn't seem to mind cyclists cycling through the closures.

 

[jefmcg]

Interesting to note that all the pictures accompanying the article are nice ones of the race. Where are all the traffic jams?

I was pootling around Twickenham on Sunday, enjoying the road closures and dodging the race (Noam Chompsky "[spectator sport is] training in irrational jingoism"). I didn't see any traffic jams, except for the a***hole driver who briefly managed to block the A316 arguing with the stewards. The jam consisted of about 5 cars.

 

[Red Light]

Seems to me the answer is simple. The motorists in London should have left their cars behind and gone by bike

 

[jefmcg]

Partly, is this due to publicity? I live about 1/2 mile from a road closure, and didn't see any posters, emails (I'm in neighbourhood watch, so the local police could have used that and also a member of the residents association), nothing came through our letter box. I happened to stumble upon it on the TFL cycling site.

I assume there were "Advanced Warning: Event" signs on A-roads, but I didn't see any.

So the fact that drivers didn't make other plans was because they didn't know it was on?

 

[ClichéGuevara]

For so many reasons, London was always the wrong venue for the Olympics.

The world would get a far better and far more accurate vision of Britain and the legacy much more evenly spread if the Olympics were just about anywhere else. It would also have got more national support as people don't feel much affinity with London.

Unfortunately, despite them being an unrepresentative minority of this nation, the Londoncentrics hold sway.

 

[John90]

I haven't read the reader responses, which probably contain the usual rants, but the article itself doesn't seem too bad. Criticising the organisation of the event rather than the event per se, and without too strong an editorial line on it, other than the headline perhaps.

 

[Jonathing]

I saw that article by accident yesterday. My favourite bit was the caption:

Taking up the tarmac: Competitors are spread across the entire width of the road along the London-Surrey route

So the pros are supposed to ride single file in the gutter are they?