To have come to loathe Ride London?

[MatildaTheCat]

For those lucky enough to not know about this event, it started with the London Olympics in 2012 (I think that was the first). It’s a massive event whereby some 30,000 cyclists get to ride from central London down through Surrey and back, covering 100km.

It’s now an annual event and happening again this weekend.

There are mass road closures for miles. I am effectively hemmed in for the day and many, many people can’t get out, park their cars, get to appointments etc. Our local hospital is on the route and has to make special arrangements that the staff, patients and relatives are aware of. Emergency vehicles can easily be delayed access.

It was great the first year, a spectacle and we all watched and cheered. Now it’s just a bloody nuisance and I hate it. No doubt all the cyclists will disagree with me and money is raised for charity but it inconveniences many more people than the number that participate.

I know I’m being grumpy but surely IANBU? ( I totally know I’m going to be told I am😊)

Actually I have ridden it. And I would class 12 hours as a few, yes. I regularly don't leave my house for a day, so I really can't see the hardship. It just seems like an excuse for people to have a moan about cyclists.

YANBU

I live in the route area and it is disruptive as fuck to our community. Not only on the day (and it IS the whole day not just a couple of hours) but in the lead up to the race because every wannabe Bradley Wiggins spends weekends practising the route.

The thing is you can’t say it’s a PITA because you will get shouted down, accused of hating the planet, local economy, healthy exercise, fun, and any number of other insults/accusations.

For context, on why MY community is so fed up, we have had MAJOR roadworks for months, some going on over a year and still not completed, to build this super bike highway, roads narrowed, pavements widened to include cycle lanes, cars stuck in traffic to accommodate these ongoing works etc. Yet the cycle lanes remain empty while the bikes cycle in the road and hold up cars .
And these aren’t kerbside, narrow cycle lanes they are huge and not used.

It’s hard to be sympathetic to cyclists under those circumstances.

You are being unreasonable I’m afraid. There was plenty of notice about the date, and it DOES raise a lot of money for charity. Furthermore, you should see the air pollution graphs on days like this in comparison to a normal day. I see it as a great event where cyclists are safe from cars (maybe not other cyclists!) and can cycle 100 miles through city and countryside. It is sad that we are so car centric that we resent anything different for a few days in a year.

We have a iron man marathon in our town
I live at the top end of a main road into town-work at the bottom
And it’s almost impossible to get there in the day
It must cost the nhs/police a fortune

YANBU. And I live near the start of the London marathon which is a massive event. Access to Greenwich is back up and running after a few hours; ride London paralyses great swathes of residential areas for 12 hours

Every person who cycles instead of driving is freeing up a parking space and road space for others. So one or two days a year for an event that encourages cycling and exercise is perfectly reasonable.

To the person fed up with lengthy roadworks to construct cycle lanes, blame those who let the contracts, not the cyclists.

Ride London is somehow incredibly disruptive. Miles and miles of road closures for all day. Not sure why it can't be more like the marathon which seems much less so.

They shut many of the bridges, bus routes that are miles from the route are changed. Any travel, in any direction, is essentially buggered. We didn't even live on the route itself.

My friend is a hospital consultant and is physically unable to get to work during the event.

Surely it can be planned better/more considerately?

We have a yearly event where we live. The main road is closed from 5am-9pm. Then the 3 off roads (I’m on an off road) are also closed by default as you cant get in or out of them.

It’s awesome. All the off roads have a street party and we all wonder up and down into each other’s roads and have a fun filled day. Our road usually has all the kids riding their bike, playing etc. Next road does the bbq and people bring other dishes. Several people bake cakes. One lady always makes a huge pot of curry. It’s amazing.

It’s so nice not having traffic on the road for a day. The kids are safe and it’s a great way to bring the community together. It’s obviously evolved over the years and now we all start planning months in advance!

We live in the middle of the closed off section. I bloody hate it.

Surely they could change the route and go north of London for a change?

Wes,

I get so sick of people being selfish and using charity as an excuse. Obsessive cyclists often spend thousands of pounds (sometimes tens of thousands) and hundreds of hours on their hobby. If they even have 10% of this to charity, it would make a significant difference to people’s lives.

Instead they pester other people to sponsor them (generally small amounts) so they can show off for the day, disrupting others’ lives and costing a small fortune (probably far more than they raise) to the public services to administer. This does not even include the amount of money lost to the exchequer in business tax, fuel duty etc.

It's lovely if you are free to have a fun-filled day. Not so lovely if there are important things that need doing. There are enough examples of those on this thread already.

A lot of resentment was built up when the first event happened. Communication was almost non existent and residents and businesses felt it had been imposed with very little thought about the logistics. It's better now, but the resentment lingers.

It's a very densely populated area and for the other 364 days of the year people are very reliant on cars for getting around. Everyone knows it would be great if that wasn't the case. But that isn't going to change overnight. In the meantime, life does need to go on for a lot of people on the day of the race and the road closures are really disruptive.

Totally blocks in where I live, and so the bus won't be running but have access to tube so technically isn't a big issue, just an annoyance.

It is such a huge area it affects and I do feel for those who are totally stuck.

I live near a big sporting venue which means that roads are closed around us for long periods of time, and even when they aren't the traffic is dreadful. Frankly, it's not a big deal, we organise our lives round it. Having that limited to one day a year would be an absolute luxury.

How are essential workers (doctors, nurses etc) who live in the area supposed to get to work? Sounds like a nightmare tbh.

The train service is running normally as far as I can see, the buses are on diversion obviously.
I didn’t realise people had hospital appointments with consultants on Sundays?

"My friend is a hospital consultant and is physically unable to get to work during the event. "

Are they physically disabled? Did their shift start at 2am? I wondered why they couldn't jump on a bike to ride to some point where a taxi could collect them if 2am shift start & no public transport option. Or walk to public transport.

"80% of my church's congregation can't physically get to the church"

This I understand better. Assume is due to very elderly profile of congregationalists and disability is rife among the elderly plus limited income so struggle to afford anything but the cheapest transport options. Right?

This going to be yet another moan about cyclist events.

I don't do these events. They sound dull to me. Funnily enough I manage just fine to accept that roads get closed for a range of events, some appeal to me, some I participate in, some have no relevance to me. I get over it because the world doesn't revolve around me and is full of people with different interests and it's perfectly fine for events to run that I have zero interest in.

The charity argument is a silly argument. As someone who does sport events I hate the fact that lots of big events have become endless chugging opportunities or to even get a place you have to agree to raise half a grand (by begging friends and family).

Big events have to put a full risk assessment in place so emergency access etc is covered.

Think the problem this year is with Hammersmith Bridge closed anyway, you're then closing 2 huge Thames crossings in Kingston Bridge and Hampton Court Bridge. So the disruption is likely to be massive.

We have marathons/half marathons etc here all the time and you barely notice. I'm also not sure why the road closures for this are so long and so widespread. It doesn't bother me like it does some on here but I really think they could organise it a lot better!

YANBU, was in London when this event was on a couple of years ago, everyone who actually lived in the area was moaning like crazy.

I would also say that the people participating seem to be massively different to the people actually affected by having all the roads closed.

YABU. Embrace it - volunteer or take a leaf out of Spaghettio's book and enjoy the absence of traffic

I wondered why they couldn't jump on a bike to ride to some point where a taxi could collect them

Easy to say when you're not the one having to do that! Would you really and truly be happy to do that before and after a 12 hour shift just because a load of strangers want to have a fun cycling ride? If so then you should apply to the Vatican to have yourself sainted

I have just checked the road closures as we are driving into London tomorrow and some roads are closed from Friday to Monday, which seems crazy. All the West London river crossings are closed for 12 hours on Sunday, and many many roads are closed both Saturday and Sunday. So it's not just a one day thing. My husband did the ride in 2014 and I am generally in favour of it but the road closures seem to have become more and more extensive.

If he/she works at Kingston hospital, I don't blame them. It is marooned by the race. You could get there by train but if you're not on that specific train line, it's actually not that easy to get to!

YADNBU.

I lived right in the middle of it for years and it was a complete pain. Why they can’t move the route each year I have no idea - consistently pissing off the same people every year is ridiculous.

It's a whole day here NOT just a few hours. Whole town centre affected. I'm not in the least bit interested in watching a bunch of MAMILS tearing round my area.

I'm not sure why the plenty of notice argument makes any difference. The roads are still closed and my day is completely disrupted.

It's my daughter's 16 birthday on Sunday. She wanted to go to her favourite restaurant in the town centre but we can't now, as will have to allow an extra hour each way to get to it, normally a 10 minute drive.

So that's a day ruined which can never be rearranged to another day.

So f*ck the ride and cyclists. This event only makes me hate the lot of them even more. Just reinforces my opinion that they are one of the most selfish entitled and inconsiderate group of people in society.