Ride London 100

How was the route?

Personally I enjoyed the London bits - blasting along the A12 was jokes, especially on the way back when it was mostly downhill with a tailwind - but I found Essex pretty boring in the main, both in terms of the topography of the route (at one point a bystander shouted an encouraging “you’re almost at the top of the hill!” to which I thought “I’m on a hill?!”) and the scenery (couple of nice chocolate box villages with thatched roofs but otherwise mostly nondescript fields). Top gear of 46x11 was definitely not enough oomph, but 46x30 was plenty for the few bumps, never had trouble the front derailleur.

Route was dull, not a fan

I think it's tough to do a big event on closed roads and have it be an interesting route too. If it was all narrow twisty lanes it's difficult to keep it safe and deal with any incidents. Having the start in central London is pretty constraining too.
I think there are more interesting options North West of London - some of Hertfordshire or the Chilterns

Some sort of route rotation every year would be a good option to keep things interesting, rotating a set 3-4 routes around London. Would keep the country drivers happier as well if they only had to tolerate people enjoying themselves on their patch once every 4 years.

I was quite battered by then! And joining the noisy A12 with cars heading the other way didn't help, so nice to see a lfgss jersey.

Overall I really enjoyed it. I started in Chelmsford - to save having to stay in London the night before - but still got to do 80 miles of the route. I even held on to the lead group for a little bit between Chelmsford and Ongar, which was fun.

It's hard to plan a route around here that is more boring than the one we did: there are lovely lanes everywhere. But understandable that they needed it to be suitable for the numbers, which in my eyes is the priority and the best thing about the ride. If you want country lanes, go with mates / a club / yourself.

Just watched a tape of the womens race, this came up at the end, anyone on here?

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pretty boring route but was fun to blast through on closed roads. Fun to do once but not sure i'd do it again at 89quid a pop.

That said, the spectators were great and the rest stations at 80km and 140km were well organized and decently stocked. saw a few sleeping road side attendants and some with the flags were less useful than pylons though. i dropped a few waves to ride with a friend and we had to walk from westminster square to the start point because there were too many people. that part and the walk off the bridge was pretty rubbish but with 25k riders it is what it is.

Hope everyone made it safely back, fun day managed a decent time so happy with that. Was fun riding on my local roads without traffic and through London was a blast. Didnt spot any LFGSS kits though!

Looks like entries for next year are open now.

I'm in for next year. Done a few 60-70 mile rides now so it's a nice way to push myself a bit further.

Essex again? Is the route interesting

My mate did it this year ,without training and found it well easy due to it being mostly flat route. Anyway me and 2 mates have signed up for 2023.

It will be in Essex for the next 4 years, last year's route was fast but I found it boring, often stayed on big ish roads

£99 is spendy but just need to do it once to tick it off and get the London Classics medal.

Lyme Disease Action has charity places now available for 2023. Would you care to take part in this event and fundraise for a fantastic small charity, run entirely by volunteers, that punches way above its weight!
Lyme disease is caused by the bite of an infected tick and if not treated early by a common antibiotic can cause very severe and life changing illness.
https://www.lymediseaseaction.org.uk/
Contact us for a place
fundraising@lymediseaseaction.org.uk
if you would like to help raise funds to aid research and also help with funding LDA to spread awareness with leaflet printing.
Thank you.

https://www.ridelondon.co.uk/news-and-media/latest-news/ford-announced-as-title-partner-of-ridelondon

I worked for Ford couple of years ago, its all bullshit  🥲

London’s Walking and Cycling Commissioner, Will Norman, said…“With Ford’s support we can now continue to deliver this world-class event and encourage even more people to cycle around our city.”

This is good to me

Ford? Fuck me.

London’s Walking and Cycling Commissioner, Will Norman, said…“With Ford’s support we can now continue to deliver this world-class event and encourage even more people to drive large vehicles around our city.”

Would be interested in the benefit to ford other than more car sales?

Maybe we can reverse hex them by getting the anti-cyclist petrol heads to boycott Ford because they support cycling related activities that block the roads, slow down real traffic, don't have insurance and dOnT pAy RoAd TaX!

Found
On
Rubbish
Dump

Just over a month to go.

Total on-road cycling distance in 2023: 84km (12.5km longest ride!)

Have been smashing two or three x 30-45m Zwift/spinning sessions a week for the last couple of months though.

Strava tells me I've done nearly 300km turbo trainer distance so far this year. I've got the IOW Randonnee on Sunday, so that should be a pretty good gauge of my readiness for London.

IOW Randonnee

Always wanted to do that. (Including riding down to there from London and riding back.)