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Literally made a joke about that yesterday. Not the shit state of the roads but whether people still actually raced here. I guess I'm jaded. I don't go out any more, I do most of my training on a turbo trainer now. London and surrounds and the drivers and roads within it have basically killed my enjoyment of cycling and racing.
hippy-
Literally made a joke about that yesterday. Not the shit state of the roads but whether people still actually raced here. I guess I'm jaded.
It looks like this is the spirit of the times we live in - you're certainly not alone. There's not much racing left, but there is the question of how many people want to race.
I find it dispiriting that the busiest thread in the Rides and Races forum is the Pro Cycling column. Perhaps we have a lot of pro riders on this forum, but I suspect we have a large number of armchair cyclists.
Is this the result of monetising sport? You and I (plus many others here) have been lucky enough to get our racing careers in while it was still possible, but the future does not look hopeful.
clubman
The Hounslow Midsummer Cup 25, due to take place yesterday (20th) was cancelled because there were three sets of temporary traffic lights on the course.
Is this another example of a depressing trend which is beginning to make it virtually impossible to promote events?
The condition of the roads west of London (and probably everwhere else) is worse than ever, and this inevitably leads to roadworks popping up all over the place; it only takes one set to ruin hours of an organiser's hard work. There are not many people still prepared to take on event organisation and this sort of problem is likely to thin the ranks even further.
For example, in 2014 and 15 I was my club's road race organiser - a tougher proposition than a TT . In 2014 the race was lost (after a lot of work had been done) because of roadworks. The next year we came within an ace of the same thing, but just managed to save the situation at the last minute by getting someone to postpone their job (I think it was Thames Water, but my memory may be imperfect).
It seems to me things have got a lot worse in the past six years - I wouldn't dream of attempting a road race under present circumstances, and even a club TT would be a big ask owing to the expectation of failure.
Perhaps it could be possible to have more flexibility with courses, at least for club events. This would probably come into conflict with the risk assessment bogey and police permission to hold events....