Ride London Accident

[Pale Rider]

I'm not sure how you can be sure of that, unless you know all the thousands of riders personally that is.

You can be sure that if @Racing roadkill has correctly identified a cheat method, many others will have done the same and used it.

 

[Lee_M]

I assumed that people just lie on the application, on the basis that they think putting down a slow time will get their application binned.

not always, whilst in the queue caused by the accident, we met a guy who had stated his completion time of 5 hours and he was given a start time of 9am!

we estimated 7 hours which was reasonable, although we managed 6, but were overtaking lots of people obviously much slower who had set off way too early.

I /think it needs tobe better marshalled at the start

 

[mjr]

I /think it needs tobe better marshalled at the start

It looked fairly slick, but the lack of security worried me. With all those people standing still for so long and some with rather large panniers on right in their midst, couldn't it be a soft target for people with bags that go bang nastily?

 

[Cuchilo]

There were loads of riders 'disappearing' up side roads (that were coned off) usually in the hilly bit from Newlands to the start of Box, only to reappear and finish the ride. As long as they hit all the timing bars, it looks Kosher. This is why there's no point in the timing system, it's too easy to blag it, and it encourages knobberism.

Why someone would pay to do a ride and then cheat is beyond me

 

[Kosong]

Why someone would pay to do a ride and then cheat is beyond me

Complete idiots. Prob just want to show off to people on Strava etc...but I'd rather come last and be knackered and breathless having completed the full course and challenged myself!

 

[GuyBoden]

It's a fantastic cycling event, it's great to see lots of cyclists out on the streets of London, but a lot of riders don't seem to know how to ride safely in a large group. Hopefully the organisers issue safe cycling guidelines and encourage the participants to get out with their local clubs before the event.

 

[Racing roadkill]

It looked fairly slick, but the lack of security worried me. With all those people standing still for so long and some with rather large panniers on right in their midst, couldn't it be a soft target for people with bags that go bang nastily?

There were some sniffer dogs, not overt, not obvious, but they were around. They have a pretty keen sense of smell. Sure if someone was really hell bent on blowing up a bunch of cyclists, it could happen ( look at the Boston Marathon for example), but I really couldn't care less about idiots like that, if I changed my plans based on them, they win. Not on my watch.

 

[Racing roadkill]

Complete idiots. Prob just want to show off to people on Strava etc...but I'd rather come last and be knackered and breathless having completed the full course and challenged myself!

That's the spirit.

 

[Racing roadkill]

It's a fantastic cycling event, it's great to see lots of cyclists out on the streets of London, but a lot of riders don't seem to know how to ride safely in a large group. Hopefully the organisers issue safe cycling guidelines and encourage the participants to get out with their local clubs before the event.

You get to learn how to anticipate the 'harmless but hopeless' riders. They are like squirrels, but you can make allowances for them. The ones that increase the temperature of my urine, are the "you shall not pass" brigade, who will do everything to prevent you from passing them, stick elbows out, start to carve around on a descent, snot rocket at you, etc. They need a shoeing. The vast majority of the riders I encountered were not too bad, there were a small minority of complete sockets, who were just going to 'club ride' and were oblivious to the danger they were causing to the majority, but given the huge numbers involved, it wasn't too bad.

 

[Racing roadkill]

not always, whilst in the queue caused by the accident, we met a guy who had stated his completion time of 5 hours and he was given a start time of 9am!

we estimated 7 hours which was reasonable, although we managed 6, but were overtaking lots of people obviously much slower who had set off way too early.

I /think it needs tobe better marshalled at the start

The organisers can't pay too much attention to 'predicted times'. They can place people more accurately if they have set a time in the previous year's event, that's obviously not fool proof, but if the evidence of my start placing is anything to go on, it was fairly accurate. I left with a large wave of 'black wave' riders, and I finished with a fairly large bunch of 'black wave' riders. We reached and passed the slower starters, on the wider, flatter sections, so that worked as well. Despite the problems caused by the Pyrford crash, we all seemed to reach the hilly bit, without many hill walkers, wobblers, and fallers, causing problems. There was one bloke ( not a rider ) walking up the right hand side of the road, on the steepest part of the Leith descent, but largely it wasn't so bad.

 

[HLaB]

Apart from an annoying wheel suckers (particularly the last nobber) it actually felt safer to me this year but that's probably because we were in a much later wave and it had started to thin out quite a bit (relatively at least) and I rode the second half solo (dropped my mate by mistake, thought he was on my wheel but it was yet another wheel sucker).

Rode in a group of three last year and when I was in the second row behind the other two riders who were side by side an unknown fourth rider joined the pack. If I was behind the slowest rider and he became marginally the faster, the idiot would jump onto his wheel forgetting I was there

He almost had me off a few times and couldn't hold his line at corners either.

A wee bit OT as to the last wheel sucker but I'll tell you anyway I had an annoying yellow blob sitting on my wheel for over 10 miles at the end aka (wheel sucker/nobber)

I didn't have the energy to up it to beyond 21mph to lose him so I tried the opposite tactic to lose him going downhills at 15mph, the nobber and his noisy freehub just sat there though. I tried it a few times but he still sat there. And I must admit although my instinct was to give hand signals after a while I deliberately stopped doing it, probably pointless as my shoulder check before moving out gave every movement away. With all the slowing down I got a fresh set of legs for the penultimate 5miles and was motoring at 25mph he still sat there but it worried me less as there was more of a gap. About 2miles from the end two blokes went by at speed and I became the wheel sucker to lose him (it finally worked). I was going to come by but I then thought what if I blow up and get the wheel sucker back so I stayed on their wheel to the end. In the unlikely event they are reading this, thanks and sterling effort guys.

 

[Cuchilo]

You get to learn how to anticipate the 'harmless but hopeless' riders. They are like squirrels, but you can make allowances for them. The ones that increase the temperature of my urine, are the "you shall not pass" brigade, who will do everything to prevent you from passing them, stick elbows out, start to carve around on a descent, snot rocket at you, etc. They need a shoeing. The vast majority of the riders I encountered were not too bad, there were a small minority of complete sockets, who were just going to 'club ride' and were oblivious to the danger they were causing to the majority, but given the huge numbers involved, it wasn't too bad.

I thought the whole point of BC offering clubs team spaces was to avoid this . I know my clubs team was off early .

 

[huwsparky]

Apart from an annoying wheel suckers (particularly the last nobber) it actually felt safer to me this year but that's probably because we were in a much later wave and it had started to thin out quite a bit (relatively at least) and I rode the second half solo (dropped my mate by mistake, thought he was on my wheel but it was yet another wheel sucker).

Rode in a group of three last year and when I was in the second row behind the other two riders who were side by side an unknown fourth rider joined the pack. If I was behind the slowest rider and he became marginally the faster, the idiot would jump onto his wheel forgetting I was there

He almost had me off a few times and couldn't hold his line at corners either.

A wee bit OT as to the last wheel sucker but I'll tell you anyway I had an annoying yellow blob sitting on my wheel for over 10 miles at the end aka (wheel sucker/nobber)

I didn't have the energy to up it to beyond 21mph to lose him so I tried the opposite tactic to lose him going downhills at 15mph, the nobber and his noisy freehub just sat there though. I tried it a few times but he still sat there. And I must admit although my instinct was to give hand signals after a while I deliberately stopped doing it, probably pointless as my shoulder check before moving out gave every movement away. With all the slowing down I got a fresh set of legs for the penultimate 5miles and was motoring at 25mph he still sat there but it worried me less as there was more of a gap. About 2miles from the end two blokes went by at speed and I became the wheel sucker to lose him (it finally worked). I was going to come by but I then thought what if I blow up and get the wheel sucker back so I stayed on their wheel to the end. In the unlikely event they are reading this, thanks and sterling effort guys.

To me, you probably entered the wrong event!

 

[Simontm]

View attachment 137187

It happened right in front of that church on the hill, about a minute before we got there. It was caused by a bunch of knobbers 'chain ganging'. The Marshalls shouted at them to slow down, and if you look carefully, you can see the bright pink "caution" sign, on the left, by the start of the corner, but one of them clipped the kerb, and wrapped himself around a tree. He broke his neck.

Church lane? I checked my speed a couple of weeks ago and that was just me and no traffic whatsoever on road. Was worried last year but was in a nicely spaced out set so no drama

 

[Stinboy]

Apart from an annoying wheel suckers (particularly the last nobber) it actually felt safer to me this year but that's probably because we were in a much later wave and it had started to thin out quite a bit (relatively at least) and I rode the second half solo (dropped my mate by mistake, thought he was on my wheel but it was yet another wheel sucker).

Rode in a group of three last year and when I was in the second row behind the other two riders who were side by side an unknown fourth rider joined the pack. If I was behind the slowest rider and he became marginally the faster, the idiot would jump onto his wheel forgetting I was there

He almost had me off a few times and couldn't hold his line at corners either.

A wee bit OT as to the last wheel sucker but I'll tell you anyway I had an annoying yellow blob sitting on my wheel for over 10 miles at the end aka (wheel sucker/nobber)

I didn't have the energy to up it to beyond 21mph to lose him so I tried the opposite tactic to lose him going downhills at 15mph, the nobber and his noisy freehub just sat there though. I tried it a few times but he still sat there. And I must admit although my instinct was to give hand signals after a while I deliberately stopped doing it, probably pointless as my shoulder check before moving out gave every movement away. With all the slowing down I got a fresh set of legs for the penultimate 5miles and was motoring at 25mph he still sat there but it worried me less as there was more of a gap. About 2miles from the end two blokes went by at speed and I became the wheel sucker to lose him (it finally worked). I was going to come by but I then thought what if I blow up and get the wheel sucker back so I stayed on their wheel to the end. In the unlikely event they are reading this, thanks and sterling effort guys.

Did you perhaps explain to him at any stage that you were unhappy with him sitting on your rear wheel?

Congratulations though on the number of times the expression 'wheel sucker' appears in your post. Truly epic ;-)