Ride London 100

This was the best organised event ive ever seen.. but it couldn't have taken another 5000 riders. Obviously the organisers like most prebooked services (hotels, airlines) calculated in a 25% dropout rate.

So 15050 finishers (including those diverted) out of 19207 starters.

amazingly, if there were 20000 registered, only a 4% no show. I assume that actually they had predicted a no-show rate, and got it very close.

22% of starters did not finish. not bad considering those struggling early on, and a few on full-sus cheap MTBs etc. saw some of the faster ones giving advice (in a nice way) to those slower as they went past - mainly that maybe they should gear down...

that article says they will increase numbers next year, particularly of those less likely to finish:

The event organiser, Hugh Brasher, also race director of the London Marathon, said the aim was to have more cycling newcomers take part next year, when the entry intake will be increased by about 6,000.

For the inaugural year, Brasher said, it was seen as useful from an organisational point of view to make sure most of the field would finish the 100 miles within the nine-hour time limit.

"We will absolutely broaden the appeal," he said. "But we had to be quite selective in the first year in terms of the number of riders we could take who had never done this type of event before."