RideLondon-Surrey 100 (2015) Anyone?

[Dogtrousers]

Just Pre-registered for Velothon Wales. I have to admit, the elevation graph @Dogtrousers did makes it look a bit easier that the stated elevation and distance. Saw a picture of a sign for that climb and it said 10% over 6km.

There seems to be a trend here. Get or try and get a place and then think about logistics London was only 40ish miles away, Cardiff is a bit more of a trek.

I threw that together quite quickly, I hope I haven't made any errors. I'll do it again and re-post on the velowales thread.

I'm very familiar with that bit of road as my parents used to live in the area, but I've never cycled it, because, to be brutally honest, I never wanted to go to Blaenavon (apologies to all you Blaenavon natives out there) It's long, and has a *very* steep bit at the start and then settles down to an almost constant gradient, slashed up the side of the hill. At the top is the grave of a famous horse called Foxhunter, ridden by Harry Llewellyn (father of Roddy) and the area is rich in industrial archeology (old tramways, furnaces, etc). Nice views over to the Black Mountains. None of which will be of much interest to you if you're trying to ride up the bugger.

Despite my normal aversion to anything that resembles racing, deliberately riding fast, or generally showing off, I'm quite excited by the prospect.

 

[jifdave]

bigger field next year http://road.cc/content/news/127172-bigger-field-2015-ridelondon-100-make-it-europes-biggest-sportive

 

[w00hoo_kent]

Does seem an unlikely number. Judging by just Newlands this year, they would have to stretch out the starting times to accommodate that many or suffer bottlenecks on the route if it's not changed.

 

[sleaver]

As one of the comments says in that article, the debrief hasn't finished yet so it may not increase.

They would surely have to think about congestion through some of the Surrey sections though wouldn't they? When I was going up Newlands this year, it was hard trying to go around the walkers and slower riders while trying not to take out people going faster than me. Add in more people and it will be worse and Newlands was wider compared to Leith Hill or Box Hill. People slowing down due to congestion would then have an impact on the cut off times.

 

[w00hoo_kent]

Theoretically it could just get to a point where everyone is walking the hills because of congestion which would put a lot of people off returning. I hope they don't think it's too similar to the Marathon with what they can get away with capacity wise.

 

[Longshot]

Leith Hill would be a problem - it was heavily congested last year with the lower number of riders.

 

[MichaelO]

Leith Hill would be a problem - it was heavily congested last year with the lower number of riders.

Could end up turning into the walk-a-thon that the BHF L2B has become.

50,000 in the ballot after 72 hours! http://www.prudentialridelondon.co....ideLondon-Surrey_100_s1_p19894.htm?featured=1

 

[Nomadski]

Wow, so we've got one of the real pros on here then have we?

I like closed road events....not sure of your point?

 

[Nomadski]

The word race, at a guess.

I race against my own set time, Im sure most people who are doing a closed road event with a timing chip are. Almost everyone not riding a Boris bike or BMX is racing to some degree. And even probably they were trying to beat some set personal target.

I live in London and have to stop every twenty metres for a traffic light, or wait at junctions. Get me on a closed road and you bet I'm racing. (Not very fast in the great scheme of things, but that's not important).

 

[vickster]

I'd be surprised if they increased the number much beyond 24000, certainly the head of ops who presented at the training I went to indicated that they were confident with 24k, not more from a safety and logistics point of view

 

[ianrauk]

I'd be surprised if they increased the number much beyond 24000, certainly the head of ops who presented at the training I went to indicated that they were confident with 24k, not more from a safety and logistics point of view

 

[Dogtrousers]

I think you're just projecting your fantasies onto other people. Riders who are racing spoil events like this for other people who just want to do the distance and have a nice day. This is not a race, it's just an organised bike ride and a neat way of parting people from lots of their money.

Odd, because everyone I know who did this, either this year or last, (and that's only a handful, I grant you) was very interested in their finish time.

It's not really my kind of thing, I'm more interested in riding alone and riding for distance, but from what I hear most people who do these are competing against themselves - not just to do the distance. A bit like when I used to run: I did regular half marathons, and although I was a mid-to-back of the pack runner I was always interested in my time at the end, as well as having a good day out.

Just sayin' ... Not making a big thing of it.

 

[EltonFrog]

Fair enough, you race away then. And pay through the nose for the privilege.

In the grand scheme of bike ownership costs, its hardly a fortune.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Hmmm do I get the impression that you don't approve?

 

[marcusjb]

Are you kidding? Leaving aside the hundreds of pounds for charity stuff, and the expense for some of travelling to London and staying there overnight, how does this compare with an £8 audax or a £2 pa night ride? If people want to race it would be cheaper to do it properly, if they could keep up.

Totally different league to any £8 Audax. As an experience, it rates pretty high on my favourite cycling adventures. Riding along the big 3 lane carriageway at the start amongst 1000s of cyclists was awesome - and then you look across to the other side and there's another 3 lanes full of cyclists.

Sure, there's idiots on the ride - we saw plenty of crashes and general nonsense. But on the whole, everyone was just out having fun and enjoying what really is a unique experience.

No, it wasn't cheap - even as a Londoner, we chose to stay over near the start so we didn't have to get out of bed at 3 am to ride across town, but a couple of hundred quid is worth every penny to create the memories we will have from the event.

I'll keep on riding £8 Audaxes of course - but they will give me a very different experience to this ride.