Anti-cycling feeling apparent as Velothon Wales draws near

gazza_d wrote:

Never see crap like this directed at events like the London marathon or Great North Run.

Both close huge urban areas down for a day. The disruption from the GNR closures and 50k runners in cars is huge, but people accept it,.

But hey cyclists.....

it's not that they host TOB, the national RR championships and so on.

But the route which uses main roads, and the length of the closures. information has been rather tardy as well, bare in mind this is a sportive with a race, it's not going to have a huge spectator attraction.

cities such as London other forms of public transport work, SE wales public transport is not in the same league.

Hi
Road closed for 12 hours outside mothers care home from 0630 to 1830, prisoner in her own home, how is carers to get there and how are we to pick her up for Sunday lunch in her wheel chair. Phoned velothon helpline 3 times each time promised call back. Ah well typical, organisers don't care about the disabled and infirm and how to help them

PeterW wrote:

Hi
Road closed for 12 hours outside mothers care home from 0630 to 1830, prisoner in her own home, how is carers to get there and how are we to pick her up for Sunday lunch in her wheel chair. Phoned velothon helpline 3 times each time promised call back. Ah well typical, organisers don't care about the disabled and infirm and how to help them

Tenner says that the emergency services will get through if there is an emergency.
You can rest assured that I was going to compete, but decided against it due to the anti cycling sentiment- I'm not giving my money to a bunch of selfish taffs.
You can thank me later.

PeterW wrote:

Hi
Road closed for 12 hours outside mothers care home from 0630 to 1830, prisoner in her own home, how is carers to get there and how are we to pick her up for Sunday lunch in her wheel chair. Phoned velothon helpline 3 times each time promised call back. Ah well typical, organisers don't care about the disabled and infirm and how to help them

You do this thing called planning ahead.
My Dad used to live in a road just off to one side of the route of the London Marathon and once a year, his house was completely inaccessible to traffic for the whole weekend.
A mate used to own a shop in Notting Hill and once a year, he had to lock the place up, put heavy duty boards over the windows and take a week of holiday because of the Notting Hill Carnival. He didn't want to take holiday then but he and his staff had no choice in the matter.
There's a big field opposite my house, lovely and quiet. Except for one weekend of the year when the town fair descends on it, music and fairground rides til 10pm Friday and Saturday plus all the disruption of it arriving and leaving.

In all those cases, we have to make alternative plans. Life happens around you and sometimes, other people's needs/wants trump yours - in this case your democratically elected council, in conjunction with various other groups, has decided that the benefits of a big cycling festival outweigh your needs/wants to move around on one day of the year.

London seems to cope quite well with massive scale road closures on a regular basis for parades, festivals, ceremonies, protests, roadworks etc so I'm sure Cardiff can come to terms with it.

Rather than moan on here, you might want to use the time more productively to work out how you're going to deal with it.

Dear selfish of Wales

It's called planning and organising.

I am cut off by the Great North Run, and I check the date, make sure I am not on the emergency on-call rota for that period. Roads are closed nearly all day, and then are jammed with 50000 runners all trying to get out of Tyneside on a Sunday evening.

Never known an issue with emergency access though the Great North Run which incidentally passes and closes the main access to the local hospital. I wonder who they cope?

We cannot get out in the car to the shops. I either take the bike, or we make sure we have food in the house to cook lunch. I'm sure your mother has a cooker?

The carers and their company should be able to cope and work around a road closure. The one's here do (we have lots of elderly needing care visits). Quite a number use bicycles themselves now. There's a thought.

MervO wrote:

Anyone complaining about Cardiff city centre road closures due to the one direction gig?

plenty in my office ! but they are used to that and celebrate the money coming in. I suspect most moaning are from the Tory countryside of Monmouthshire and basically Nimby's are per the New Forest, around Surrey etc. They all share the same kind of thing.

ianrobo wrote:

MervO wrote:

Anyone complaining about Cardiff city centre road closures due to the one direction gig?

plenty in my office ! but they are used to that and celebrate the money coming in. I suspect most moaning are from the Tory countryside of Monmouthshire and basically Nimby's are per the New Forest, around Surrey etc. They all share the same kind of thing.

around Surrey etc? Sort of a big area
There isn't much problem except with the Box Hill area and the fact that loads of sportives want to use that specific hill and don't talk to each other so the hill has had 3 sportives all meeting on it on occasions.

The rest of Surrey likes cycling. Huge crowds out cheering for the Ride London Sportive each year, the Olympics and Tour of Britain. The odd loon but the reception for cycling events is fantastic.

sithlord wrote:

Something stinks about this event, hardly any publicity or PR. Even the UCI 1.1 race has no pro conti teams at all. Just seems that the event organisers have overreached massively. Why upset locals for such a long period? Build support to an event over a few years Esther than imposing such a disruptive event.

Exactly, there is no need for full closures for that length of time, send cyclists off in waves and have rolling closures. Simple, even with the roads closed, I bet the majority will stick to the left hand side of the road anyway. As always happens.

They do have Pro Conti teams there though Cult Energy and CCC Sprandi Polkowice

Then Conti teams are
Bike Aid
Team Rietumu Delfin
AC Sparta Praha
Alpha Baltic
Team 3M
Start - Massi Cycling Team
Roth - Skoda
Team Marseille 13 KTM
Wallonie – Bruxelles

Plus all the British Teams are UCI Conti teams

Must be Mad wrote:

Quote:

the fact that 15,000 are paying £50 and nothing is going back into the community, it is being taken as profit by the organisers.

So the organizers are not paying any money to the local council for the road closures then???

I'm sure they are paying a lot of money to the council for road closures, but that doesn't help those communities stuck in the middle of the course who rely on customers....