Ride London 100

48x13 may God have mercy on your cadence

just out watching the riders pass by nr the greenman roundabout
had the opportunity to ride the wrong way down the a102 / a12 blackwall tunnel link road from bow flyover up to leytonstone. 3 lane highway all to myself with the ride 100 people riding in the correct direction on the other side
nice experience, just had that nagging doubt that some boy racer might have snuck on and be canning it through the tunnel nr wick woods

saw just one single speed / fixed

It hurts

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Ride stopped just after great dunmow, air ambulance in attendance

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Was that after your knees exploded? 61rpm, ouch

Sadly, I heard a rider was being given CPR. Hope he/she is ok.

Crap, that explains the weird detour I ended up taking after coming across an entire peleton coming back the wrong way up the route. Hope they are ok.

Hi to whoever DAS’d me on the A12 towards the end!

Hi!

Well done on your ride good time .hope the person that had cpr is well.

Hi to whoever it was in navy who DASed me too. I was unable.

Think my time was sub-5h30 but haven't checked yet

News reports say the rider at mile 49 was taken to hospital by road. Looking at GPS they were dealing with them for about an hour

Hi! I was having fun at that point - the last 15 miles were surprisingly enjoyable - but that gave me a big smile. How was your ride?

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CPR guy survived btw. Heart attack rather than crash injuries AFAICT.

I don't think I can put my legs in that position right now

lol no. I am working sitting in bed with my webcam turned off for all my meetings. “Oh sorry I am having webcam issues” being the excuse rather than “it hurts to bend my knees”.

Good work going fixed. My legs would have exploded.

Good news.

Did pass a few unpleasant looking crashes along the way, the worst being somewhere before mile 10 on the way through Plaistow where it looked like a couple of people had slammed into a traffic island / pedestrian railings. Ambulance was already on the scene.

I saw a guy opening a flapjack with his forearms on the tops in puppy paws, so I made sure to move up and steer clear. Moments later there was a big pile-up behind. Make of that what you will.

However, in the groups I was in, everyone was very courteous. I was impressed by how few crashes there were considering the speeds and proximity.

Somewhere about 1/3 of the way out I saw someone do a full front somersault off their bike. No idea what happened as they were only in a group of 3 or so. I guess touched wheels or something. They didn't seem that bothered by it.

I'd give them a 9 for it.

There was a section in the first 20 miles or so that had speed humps and lots of people were changing position to go through the gaps between them without looking. Felt quite sketchy and there was an ambulance with a stretcher out seeing to someone. Other than that I thought the riding was pretty good. There were a few fast groups who passed a bit too close and cut in a bit too quickly for my liking, especially since it always seemed to be as I was approaching a slower rider which meant I had to slow and got boxed in.

Unnecessary when you have a whole 2-lane road to play with. Whenever I wanted to play with flapjacks I'd just pull completely across to the right hand side and pootle along out of everyone's way.

CPR guy survived btw. Heart attack rather than crash injuries AFAICT.

I was thinking it must have been a heart attack, it seemed to be a Thing in RideLondon.

Figured I may as well add the obligatory finish line pic

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There was a section in the first 20 miles or so that had speed humps and lots of people were changing position to go through the gaps between them without looking. Felt quite sketchy.

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Shouted at a rider bombing along on the fast A12 section, cracking along at 30kmph, surrounded by other riders weaving in and out, with a mobile to his ear, taking a phonecall...

It was scenes like this last time that made me take my old winter steel bike yesterday rather than summer best. Ridelondon is full of mad people and is crashy AF

My big takeaway was the correlation between chopping about without checking and wearing those bibs with MECHANISM on the back

There were a few times where I managed to hang on to the back of a fast road train coming back into East London where I thought “hang on this is just a Sunday ride in the country, why on earth am I trying to keep up?” Overall nice day, I enjoyed it.