Ride London Classique '22

[Bonus]

I'm in the UK at the moment and a couple of weeks ago I spent a Saturday working on the Ride London Womens race in Epping, Essex, north east of London.

The company my son works for was responsible for all the barriers and advertising, direction & distance signs, the start/finish line and the Sprint & Queen of the Mountains (in Essex??) lines.

We installed in the morning, watched the race and then de-rigged late afternoon. It was great fun with reasonable weather. We had a combination of lots of friendly, interested locals and a few peanuts. The biggest issue really was the intolerance of the majority of car drivers, but I won’t go into that. “Haters gonna hate” and all that.

Sadly we had to clear the road of drawing pins at one point, but regardless of that the race itself went well.

Start / Finish

Road Crew

I set up the QOM point

Another one for the collection :-)

Not everyone likes cycling :-(

 

[ianrauk]

Wtf is wrong with people to throw pins in the road?

 

[BurningLegs]

Looks like a great day out. I've heard and seen drawing pins myself. It's quite vindictive isn't it - there are lots of opportunities to stop the behaviour between choosing to go and purchase them, actually purchasing them, finding a spot to distribute them, and the finally distributing them.

 

[Bonus]

Wtf is wrong with people to throw pins in the road?

I know. We met some really nice locals, but there were one or two who were just very angry with the world.

The road was only "fully closed" for 2 hrs in the middle of a Saturday afternoon but I was informed by one man that "the village are up in arms about it". As far as I could tell, the village were no such thing - it was just him. Later a friendly lady told me to ignore him, and then took delight in telling me that the smart "barn conversion" he lived in was never actually a barn, it was a pig sty.

:-)

 

[Bonus]

Looks like a great day out. I've heard and seen drawing pins myself. It's quite vindictive isn't it - there are lots of opportunities to stop the behaviour between choosing to go and purchase them, actually purchasing them, finding a spot to distribute them, and the finally distributing them.

Yeah - ample opportunity to give yourself a good talking to. Pins in the road or wire between trees in the forest - some people are just bad.

 

[lazybloke]

Good job @Bonus. Am always impressed at the organisation of banners and barriers.

I can't see much objection to the Classique, it's such a short closure.
I participated in the public sportive - which caused a much longer closure of roads - and I did notice a few disgruntled locals.

I rode past a section that had been closed off to be swept - presuambly for drawing pins. Lucky it wasn't too busy yet, as cyclists got funnelled into a very narrow strip of tarmac on the other side of the road.

Elsewhere i saw locals arguing with stewards about how long they had to wait at managed vehicle-crossings. Some motorbikes just roared across, weaving between the bikes. One steward showed her nerves by stepping in front of a car that was revving to do the same!

No other issues, apart from a pedestrian who expected the traffic lights on closed roads to be obeyed by cyclists. Bless.

 

[T4tomo]

No other issues, apart from a pedestrian who expected the traffic lights on closed roads to be obeyed by cyclists. Bless.

Its normal a cyclist on a closed road stopping for a red light that causes the trouble

 

[lazybloke]

Its normal a cyclist on a closed road stopping for a red light that causes the trouble

The annoying this was I sat up, slowed and went wide to be considerate to him and to make eye-contact. And in return he singled me out for a moan!