At the weekend I was one of the 28000 people who took part in, what they dub to be, the “Marathon” in cycling. The mean from a charity “anyone can do it”, rather than the difficulty.
Right now I wont go into boring details about the ride stats, but I will cover more the atmosphere…
I have completed a few charity bike rides including the London to Southend, going around the Isle Of Wight (on two seperate occassions) and this London To Brighton is the forth I have completed.
Firstly, the thing I noticed was the shere volume of people. Second, in fairness to the #BHF, the organisation of the event was pretty good.
This year there was two major accidents, with at least one of them requiring a helicopter to take the injured man to hospital. The ride, in my view, isnt that dangerous, the route is fine, a bit hilly, but if you dont like going fast, then apply your brakes! The problem is more the volume of people. Very slow to very VERY fast people all on the same road at the same time. Not a great mix…
The atmosphere was good, and at the start you had a lot of people trying to find a space on the Sunday morning high streets of Tooting and Mitcham. Once clear of that it improved and people got a bit more freedom. The problem was the accidents.
The organisers had to, rightly, block, divert, slow and generally control the crouds due to the accidents – thus allowing the hospital staff to do their job. Had the informed the vast crouds there had been an accident then I think there would have been more sympathy, but as it stood, there was a lot of people moaning that this was a “charity bike ride, not a charity walk!”. I suspect, and hope, they regret their comments after finding out the injuries to the man and woman respectively.
Because of the accidents, and the very slow nature of the ride, it did put a dent in some of the fun and carnival atmosphere you come to expect to get on these rides. A lot of people just wanted to get it done in the end, as some were delayed by over two hours, with little or no information…
Along the routes the Churches, pubs, etc, did a good job of keeping us refueled. There was one church poster saying something about Jesus and free water. Can't remember exactly what it said but it made me smile at the time.
Also, along the route there was a few challenges set by people in their houses… I always took on the challenge which either involved trying to give a hi five, trying to grab a sweet, which was either a haribo or jelly baby (thanks to the lady who gave me the orange haribo, very nice and much needed!) and finally trying to grab strawberrys. I managed the haribo and three hi fives, missed the strawberry though.
I should point a specific thank you to the lad to who soaked me whilst just outside (or just before) ditchling. He was an exceptionall shot with the water pistol, given i was travelling at about 20mph at the time…
When we got to within about 15 miles of Brighton we started to see some people cheering, but it wasn't that many. When we got closer to Brighton, Ditchling area it imporved, and as we came into Brighton the atmostphere got better, but it wasn't until the final home stretch was there any real crouds cheering.
Over the line we headed as we saw family and friends cheering… Great to finish, great to complete it, and really good to see all the family at the end
I will post more on my adventure during the day. The London To Brighton 2014 story continues… #LondonToBrighton #LondonToBrighton2014 #L2B #L2B2014 #BritishHeartFoundation #BHF