RideLondon-Surrey 100 (2015) Anyone?

[sleaver]

Most crashes I saw were on the flat and I was told an old lady needed medical help as she got "blow over" by the draft from a rider going past

Some people do need to learn to hold their line though and not just around corners. Or realise that popping you heard up and turning around to see where you mate is has a slightly different effect with thousands of people than on a weekend jaunt!

Oh, and who said it would be a tail wind on the way back

Anyway, still a damn good ride and day

 

[Simontm]

Oh, and who said it would be a tail wind on the way back

Anyway, still a damn good ride and day

hah, was thinking that as the wind hit...but then again I did warn that the winds have it in for me

 

[rb58]

Oh, and who said it would be a tail wind on the way back

Indeed. It turned into a full on headwind for my ride home (eastwards).

 

[carling]

Enjoyed my first ride London today, official time of 4.47 which i was surprised and happy about

 

[srw]

Why are your handlebars behind your saddle?

It's a tandem. The clue is in (a) all the posts I've made on this thread, (b) the link in my sig to our tandem exploits, and (c) and most convincingly:

The T in the number!

 

[srw]

I'm sitting outside Wimbledon station a few hundred metres from the start of Wimbledon Hill and 4 ambulances with lights and sirens have gone by.

Other people than cyclists do need ambulances....

We saw a couple of ambulances doing "ordinary" stuff.

Most of the bike crashes we saw appeared to be single-rider stuff - people overcooking it on corners, and the like.

Clearly from the report in this thread not all of them were.

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

Bonus of the day, my wife met me at the end of our road with the neighbours and home made sausage rolls.

Neighbours are great but I don't think I could eat more than one of them.

 

[themosquitoking]

It's a tandem. The clue is in (a) all the posts I've made on this thread, (b) the link in my sig to our tandem exploits, and (c) and most convincingly:

The T in the number!

A what now? I have never heard of such a thing.

 

[DaveReading]

I had a great time, can't wait to do it again !

My misgivings about being in one of the last waves proved to be unfounded, made Hampton Court with 20 minutes to spare from my 08:51 start and was comfortably inside the other cutoff times for a final time of 7:48 (6:53 rolling - we stopped for a picnic!), which I'm very pleased with.

Being a late starter did have the advantage that we missed the Leith Hill delays as the diversion had been put in place by the time we reached it, although it took about 4 miles off the total distance.

Sadly, I witnessed the aftermath of several of those crashes, including two after Box Hill which looked serious with victims being stretchered away. Hope they are OK.

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

I write this from hospital bed as one of the crashees. I am awaiting some knee surgery tomorrow courtesy of a bloke who took me out in Dorking on the big left hander. Despite my steady line he came from behind, wacked my bars out of my hands and rode off without stopping. Bike damaged, hopefully locked up bt the marshals as ambulance crew couldn't take it. Knee split wide open, plus the usual elbow, back and jersey damage. Battery on smartphone running out on phone so hope I can blag a charger to keep up with who else pranged. At least I'll recover, I feel for the guy who died on the hill, plus his poor family.

My sympathies. It sounds like the other bloke had open road fever.

 

[srw]

That was fun. The ride out to about Ripley is essentially flat, then there's a long drag up to Horsley before the A246 launches you into the horror that is the Newlands Corner hill. From then until the Leatherhead hub it's a tandem nightmare (or maybe that should be an unprepared overweight tandem nightmare...) The drag up to Holmbury St Mary is a big big drag, and I was just looking forward to my downhill to the bottom of Leith Hill when we were sent left and up and up - a narrow and steep road which resulted in quite a lot of walking. The ramp up to the A25 caught us out too.

Boxhill just goes on for ever, and although there's a lovely downhill off it there's more than one horrible uphill too. We were pelting down at 30+mph, our momentum kept us going for quite a long time until all of a sudden we stopped, and a crashing of gears meant we stopped good and proper. Still, we made up for it by hitting over 35mph on the long swooping wide main road downhill to the Leatherhead roundabout.

Leatherhead to Esher - the less said the better. My right foot was beginning to get hotfoot, and the terrain (long undulations) was very unfriendly to us. But at last we got to the mountain of Wimbledon and the ski jump of Putney - although there were some numpty pedestrians who didn't seem to understand that a tandem going over 30mph would hurt if it hit them.

Our final splits were:
Number Name Club Distance EST MILE 17 EST MILE 26 EST MILE 47 EST MILE 55 EST MILE 75 EST MILE 85 FINISH
540 » srw The Fridays 100 Miles 00:56:58 01:35:25 03:18:49
05:51:54 06:48:17 07:54:26

They see to have given us 100 miles, which is generous. I think we did the first 26 miles quicker than last year, but then slowed down a lot.

 

[sleaver]

The ramp up to the A25 caught us out too.

Bet you thought we were all taking the piss when we were talking about that a few weeks back

 

[sleaver]

If I've got the Strava segment right, I PB'd on Wimbledon Hill

 

[PK99]

I thought the ride discipline today was appalling - I was nearly taken out at least half a dozen times and saw multiple bad crashes with ambulance in attendance.

I mentioned this in conversation to a guy in the pub as we were waiting for a massage, Turned out he is Ride Coordinator for on of the big South London clubs. His comment was that i was wearing a Charity shirt and many club cyclists would show no respect or consideration for that reason. That fits the evidence as the problems i saw were in the main the result of very aggressive riding from club cyclists.

 

[DaveReading]

I thought the ride discipline today was appalling - I was nearly taken out at least half a dozen times and saw multiple bad crashes with ambulance in attendance.

I'm not used to riding in big groups, but I was pleasantly surprised at how well almost all riders kept a good line, maybe I was just lucky. Sure, there were one or two d*ckheads, but that's all I saw and I didn't feel in danger at any point.

The one thing that did annoy me was on the Leith Hill diversion, which was both narrow and steep, but that didn't stop some of those who got off to push from walking their bikes up two abreast.