No Ride London 2025

[Dogtrousers]

my suggestion would be to have a new route EVERY year so it doesn't get stale. Ill-feelings in any geographical area would be massively diluted, we'd see different counties getting involved, a slightly different audience each year, and the revenue would go to different councils each time.

Could get a tie in with the Tour of Britain. I know, we could call it the Étape du ToB

 

[lazybloke]

Could get a tie in with the Tour of Britain. I know, we could call it the Étape du ToB

That would go hand in hand with my other thought, which was break the bond with London except for maybe... anniversary years

 

[mjr]

That would go hand in hand with my other thought, which was break the bond with London except for maybe... anniversary years

Nowhere has London's tourism budget, so I doubt it would be as big, if even viable. Before covid, there was a sportive linked to the ToB. I know people who rode it but it seems you've not heard of it! The ToB uses rolling road closures for most of the route so the sportive wasn't on closed roads except the start/finish zone.

The London stages of ToB tended to be circuits of fully-closed roads so not a great sportive opportunity but I did get to ride the closed course for an hour before the ride once, invited by BC. 2013 maybe.

 

[Dogtrousers]

I think London's the only place that has the cachet to run a really big event like RL with the freecycle, races and sportive and so on. If London can't do it - it can't be done.

As a location for a 100 mile ride London's pretty poor. It has Big Ben* and the landmarks but to get to anywhere green there's miles and miles of boring burbs. There are much nicer audaxes and sportives and so on around the country.

But London has the pull of being the capital. Look at the London Marathon - It's massively oversubscribed while there are lots of nicer marathons around the country that are easy peasy to enter. (Back in the day I did the New Forest) People may not like that, but it's the way it is.

I was half joking about "l'Étape du ToB" by the way. Just as the UK can't do big bike races, it can't do big closed road sportives. If it's a big event with pizzazz that you want then you need to go to the continent both for real and pretend racing.

But looking on the bright side, the UK can do, and does do, lots of lower key smaller events. And most of them are very good.

*Feck off pedants. Everyone calls it Big Ben.

 

[lazybloke]

Nowhere has London's tourism budget, so I doubt it would be as big, if even viable.

I don't know if it needs London's tourism budget; sportives elsewhere have been successful and viable too. Although like the LondonEssex they might suffer a drop in interest over time, hence my suggestion of moving it from year to year to keep it fresh.


The size of a future event would be down to ambition, how it's marketed, and the level of support from local or even national government. Plus flogging the nearly-dead horse that is the 2012 legacy, the right celebrity (shudder) endorsement, charity involvement, and linking with international events; eg the TdF (2007?).

Not sure why you're so pessimistic; I'd hope you'd be a cycling proponent.

Before covid, there was a sportive linked to the ToB. I know people who rode it but it seems you've not heard of it! The ToB uses rolling road closures for most of the route so the sportive wasn't on closed roads except the start/finish zone.

Nope, not aware. I rode out to spectate ToB stages as a spectator in the decade before the pandemic, but I wasn't aware of any associated sportives; I wasn't into road cycling at the time - but it was events like ToB that ultimately got me back onto road bikes after a long absence.
IT could work for others; the organisers could work the "active travel" angle and seek some funding from Keir.

The London stages of ToB tended to be circuits of fully-closed roads so not a great sportive opportunity but I did get to ride the closed course for an hour before the ride once, invited by BC. 2013 maybe.

The opportunity is there to fully-close roads when necessary (as with some large sportives). As you say, the race stages can usually get away with rolling closures; that's all about managing and reducing negative impacts.

Anyway, you're putting up barriers again ; The RideLondon organisers weren't so defeatist ; they took the existing Brompton World Championship, added the pro Classic and Classique races, the main 100 sportive plus two shorter routes. And added a scattering of other sportives (the 100 plus up to two shorter routes) plus the freecycle, BMX and youth events.
Pretty sure Danny MacAskill was invovled one year, and I certainly remember seeing a whole load of stunt riders doing his style of jumps and hops over various obstacles and a bus in a the middle of Kingston-upon-Thames marketplace.

It was a proper cycling festival - see what can be done with a bit of ambition and enthusiasm?

 

[T4tomo]

Before covid, there was a sportive linked to the ToB. I know people who rode it but it seems you've not heard of it! The ToB uses rolling road closures for most of the route so the sportive wasn't on closed roads except the start/finish zone.

Nope, not aware. I rode out to spectate ToB stages as a spectator in the decade before the pandemic, but I wasn't aware of any associated sportives; I wasn't into road cycling at the time - but it was events like ToB that ultimately got me back onto road bikes after a long absence.
IT could work for others; the organisers could work the "active travel" angle and seek some funding from Keir.

Is @mjr confusing ToB with Tour de Yorkshire. That always had a morning sportive over a good chunk of the course the Pro's road in the afternoon> I did it one year. It wasn't cheap and it wasn't closed roads (although a lot was on deserted country roads the locals were avoiding, but it was superbly organised, interesting routes (vs a tour of Essex's trunk roads) a tremendous atmosphere, especially finishing down same route as pro's whee crowds had already gathered to cheer people on.

 

[lazybloke]

Is @mjr confusing ToB with Tour de Yorkshire. That always had a morning sportive over a good chunk of the course the Pro's road in the afternoon> I did it one year. It wasn't cheap and it wasn't closed roads (although a lot was on deserted country roads the locals were avoiding, but it was superbly organised, interesting routes (vs a tour of Essex's trunk roads) a tremendous atmosphere, especially finishing down same route as pro's whee crowds had already gathered to cheer people on.

And it had a spotty pub

 

[mjr]

Is @mjr confusing ToB with Tour de Yorkshire.

Not unless it visited Suffolk one year!

 

[mjr]

I don't know if it needs London's tourism budget; sportives elsewhere have been successful and viable too.

How many have made it to ten years like RL? The Tour de Broads over in the national park is the only one near me that seems to be viable by that measure, now in its 11th year. Even that tried to expand, but few of its siblings seem to survive more than a few years.

How many on closed roads? Etape Caledonia? I don't know much about that one, nor Etape Loch Ness which just did its 10th. Tour o the Borders and RideLondon have skipped their current editions.

Didn't British Cycling try a "British Cycling Festival" around the national championships a few years ago? That seems to have stopped too. I just don't think you can build a RideLondon-style festival around only one or two races out in Nobottle, Northamptonshire and get the same sort of coverage and funding. I think it would be difficult even in the BBC's new co-home of Manchester. The UCI's week of cycling in Glasgow didn't get enough buzz to be repeated, did it?

Not sure why you're so pessimistic; I'd hope you'd be a cycling proponent.

I am a cycling proponent, but I have conflicting feelings about UK sportives. I think they can be great events and good for tourism, but I don't think they do much to get people cycling (and thereby healthier) long term, because they're seen as a one-off extreme sports challenge by most people, and I resent the government/lottery-funded ableist daffodils at British Cycling having farked spotives up in at least two major ways so I'm no longer allowed to ride most of them in this country.

Anyway, you're putting up barriers again ; The RideLondon organisers weren't so defeatist

I'm not putting up barriers. These obstacles exist whether I point them out or not.

RideLondon's organisers did do brilliantly, combining so many events for so many years to make a cycling festival that was not only viable but great. It got television coverage on BBC1 and 2 which was more than just the usual race coverage and did get inspiring and occasionally political with some of the Active Travel Commissioners getting national airtime, including Chris Boardman more than a few times. RL even pushed back bans on things like recumbents that BC were encouraging most sportives to adopt (brainlessly applying rules from mass-start racing to non-competitive fun rides). Sadly, the inconsiderate leaders of a sports body (UCI this time, rather than BC) have thrown another spanner in the works.

I really hope RideLondon comes back. There's been nothing quite like it for a long time. I think it'll have to be RideLondon though, to have the critical mass of events and funding.

 

[Dogtrousers]

RL even pushed back bans on things like recumbents that BC were encouraging most sportives to adopt (brainlessly applying rules from mass-start racing to non-competitive fun rides).

I noticed that e-bikes were permitted last year. I only saw a couple

 

[Beebo]

Living very close to the old Surrey route, I'm very well aware of the negative feelings from the knuckle-dragging car-centric end of society; and that negativity can grow when the event repeats every year, so my suggestion would be to have a new route EVERY year so it doesn't get stale. Ill-feelings in any geographical area would be massively diluted, we'd see different counties getting involved, a slightly different audience each year, and the revenue would go to different councils each time.

I rode the Surrey one twice.
As much as I enjoyed my rides I don’t think mass participation cycling events will ever work as well as running ones. The staggered start is an issue for many which is impossible to overcome. Plus both my rides suffered from long stoppages and route changes which simply never affect running races.
The idea of a new route every year is attractive, but it would be a logistical nightmare.
Keeping the same route means you can just repeat everything year on year with a few slight tweaks because you know what works and what doesn’t without having to start from scratch every time.
Just simple things like knowing where to put WCs, which pit stops get used most and eliminating pinch points would all be unknowns.

 

[Dogtrousers]

As much as I enjoyed my rides I don’t think mass participation cycling events will ever work as well as running ones. The staggered start is an issue for many which is impossible to overcome. Plus both my rides suffered from long stoppages and route changes which simply never affect running races.

RL was trying to be the London Marathon on wheels. The marathon has two distinct populations: non-runners who build themselves up to a big once-in-a-lifetime challenge (and as a result may get the running bug and keep at it) and regular runners who bellyache endlessly on the web that they can't get a place because of all the newbies who are doing it all wrong.

But as you point out, the logistics of a cycling endurance event are much different to running. It's way longer for a start and it's much harder to do. For it to be sustainable it needs to be fuelled by public enthusiasm. Once that bubble burst it was game over.

It wasn't trying to be a UK version of some of the continental sportives like l'Etape du Tour or the Paris Roubaix Challenge which are not really at all newbie-friendly and assume a significant cycling background.

RL was also, in a small way, trying to be a bit like Vatternrundan in Sweden, which is part of the Swedish Classic (Swimming, Running, Skiing and Cycling events). RL was the cycling leg of the London Classics (London Marathon, RL, and a swimming thing somewhere). I don't know where its cancellation leaves London-Classics aspirants next year.

 

[mjr]

I don't know where its cancellation leaves London-Classics aspirants next year.

You don't have to do all three in one year, says https://www.thelondonclassics.co.uk/entry/
Warning: site has been defaced by a porn site!

 

[figbat]

RL was trying to be the London Marathon on wheels. The marathon has two distinct populations: non-runners who build themselves up to a big once-in-a-lifetime challenge (and as a result may get the running bug and keep at it) and regular runners who bellyache endlessly on the web that they can't get a place because of all the newbies who are doing it all wrong.

But as you point out, the logistics of a cycling endurance event are much different to running. It's way longer for a start and it's much harder to do. For it to be sustainable it needs to be fuelled by public enthusiasm. Once that bubble burst it was game over.

It wasn't trying to be a UK version of some of the continental sportives like l'Etape du Tour or the Paris Roubaix Challenge which are not really at all newbie-friendly and assume a significant cycling background.

RL was also, in a small way, trying to be a bit like Vatternrundan in Sweden, which is part of the Swedish Classic (Swimming, Running, Skiing and Cycling events). RL was the cycling leg of the London Classics (London Marathon, RL, and a swimming thing somewhere). I don't know where its cancellation leaves London-Classics aspirants next year.

The other factor in RL is that it was riding the wave of the successful and motivating London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics. This was 12 years ago now, and three Olympics have happened since. There's a whole generation of adults who barely remember it and the stars of 2012 are mostly gone.

 

[Dogtrousers]

You don't have to do all three in one year, says https://www.thelondonclassics.co.uk/entry/
Warning: site has been defaced by a porn site!

Just found out that " In 2025, riders can substitute RideLondon for the 2025 Etape Loch Ness "
Not exactly local.

https://www.thelondonclassics.co.uk/about/