RideLondon: tacks strewn on route and angry petition gains traction ahead of sportive's Essex debut

Awavey wrote:

the London Marathon isnt a good comparitor, because its literally only just over a quarter of the distance of a 100mile sportive, plus it loops around parts of London where car ownership is probably lower than the national average, and residents impacted still have a wealth of public transport options tube,dlr,overground,thames clippers,tfl rail to fall back on, and parts of central London seem to permanently close to traffic every weekend in Summer for some kind of event.

Im sure if they did 4 laps of the Marathon course you wouldnt hear a murmur at all about it, it would be boring as hell to ride, but the impact of the 100 mile sportives is to get the distance you end up going through communities, towns,villages,  where a car has become the only means of getting around,so closing the road has a much bigger impact on them.

so the question becomes how do you minimise that impact ?

By encouraging people to think that just for one day out of 365, not being able to get into cars for various pointless journeys is actually not so bad, and reassuring people that genuine or emergency needs for transport will be unaffected.  It just takes a bit of forward planning, just the same as when the local authority closes a road for maintenance or something.

What do these people do when it snows, or if their car breaks down?

PRSboy wrote:

By encouraging people to think that just for one day out of 365, not being able to get into cars for various pointless journeys is actually not so bad, and reassuring people that genuine or emergency needs for transport will be unaffected. 

I saw one person complaining on Facebook about not being able to use their motor, someone asked, "Do you have mobility problems? If not could you park your car somewhere round the corner for this one day so you could still access it?" The response was: "No I don't but the nearest place I could park the car and still get out is over half a mile away, WTF should I have to spend my time walking about just so a load of lycra wankers can have a jolly?" No amount of accommodation, explanation or compromise will mollify some people, I fear.

Presumably the response was "lycra wanker here - WTF should I endanger myself dodging around your property every other day of the year just so you can travel a mile to town slower than me?"

In previous times, he'd have been attacking gays, coloureds and women, but it's against the law to do that now, so the next out group is...........cyclists.

It's pathetic really, that such prominent people have to attack someone to justify their bloated salaries.  The real problem is that there seems to be no way to stop them; complaints certainly don't work.  Probably the best way to try and stop them would be through their advertisers.

eburtthebike wrote:

In previous times, he'd have been attacking gays, coloureds and women

I'm sure in private he still does.

This is the answer.

We need to complain to the brand media depts that advertise on his shitshow.

Any brands condoning his BS should be boycotted, named and shamed (on here)

My Dad's friend moaned about it loudly. He lives in Walton. It made my blood boil because when challenged, he had no answer to the fact that he wasn't "locked in". What time do you get out and about on a Sunday usually? Oh 10/11. Ok, so the roads in Walton reopen not long after. Then there's a short rolling closure for the pro race so how does that impact you? Oh right, well I might need to go out then. 
 

And we might find that the moaners are the same half a dozen people who object to anything that benefits cyclists and takes space from drivers.

Probably the same people who moan at pretty much everything that doesn't fit with their selfish view and the same people who take responsibility for nothing. There's a word for them but I will refrain from using it. 

its hard to tell if its the event organiser or just the general indifference to womens cycling that led to the lack of promotion of the race, certainly theres lots of confusion when Ive discussed it with people from that part of Essex between the race and the sportive, so its probably mixture of both, and whilst running a stage race along similar route to the sportive might have seemed a good idea, it does extend the impact across multiple days.

and whilst we can always say there are habitual nimbys with these things who ought to be ignored, there are genuine problems these road closures will cause, like community care provision in places the route goes through, where a car is an essential tool & the only way that job can be done for the care providers to get around

Im certainly increasingly uncomfortable with the idea that something I would be doing purely for my own self satisfaction to ride a bike along way on a closed road is given precedence over medical care that improves quality of life for people who are housebound, that cant simply be delayed 24-72hrs in lots of cases, some can,but some cant, and its not good enough to just say well its only a day and cars have roads all the other days.

I dont get the impression alot of work is put into devising routes that cause the least impact, Im not really sure how they come up with some of these routes or what the criteria is for them, at least with the Surrey route the idea was following the Olympic road course route, the Essex one just looks to be we need 100miles and want to avoid the A12, lets go this way.

and its worth highlighting the anger these people feel about this event wont evaporate come 30th May and it will all be forgotten, people riding bikes around that part of Essex are going to be feeling the impacts for a long while.

I've worked on RideLondon. Your comments don't ring true to me. 

At least as far as essential care provision is concerned, there appear to be procedures in place:

https://www.ridelondon.co.uk/help/what-is-the-provision-in-place-for-car...

well thanks for the input, Im glad youve been able to share your valuable insight on my comments and helped move the discussion forward here by your insightful contribution, I really appreciate it.

I think it's been said on here before, but I really can't understand why people get so angry at someone simply riding their bike.

biker phil wrote:

I think it's been said on here before, but I really can't understand why people get so angry at someone simply riding their bike.

Well I'd be pretty pissed if they were riding mine!