They cant expect to have there cake and eat it any more, ie live in extremely nice countryside but still be within 30 mins train journey of central london.

But they still do, it’s just busier than it was. That’s not really any different wherever in the country, or even the world, you live.

Wow…

Note what time he started!

How do I do that? Is it a premium only thing?

How do I do that? Is it a premium only thing?

Dunno – it’s just above the activity title for me:

3:36 AM on Friday, March 27, 2015
Swains Lane x 30 (15 Solo/15 with Lucinda)

You have premium then? Because it’s not there for me.

edit: I seem to get that info for my rides and the rides of people I follow, but not others

How do I do that? Is it a premium only thing?

I think you have to be following them.

You have premium then? Because it’s not there for me.

edit: I seem to get that info for my rides and the rides of people I follow, but not others

Well I am Premium, but I also follow Will, so I think that’s probably what it is. Either way, I was bloody impressed at that motivation!

Naaa not Surrey, well South East. Swains Lane in North London.

That’s bonkers – even allowing hill reps I’m struggling to beat that. Laps on Causey Hill in Hexham would work. Hmmmmm…

Naaa not Surrey, well South East. Swains Lane in North London.
https://www.strava.com/activities/274706780

An impressive amount of climbing for London, but that must be a seriously boring ride!

geetee1972 – Member
Like the sound of that (assuming you mean it’s in the Surrey Hills. Can you share a link on Strava or something?
Naaa not Surrey, well South East. Swains Lane in North London.
https://www.strava.com/activities/274706780

This reminds me of a story I read this week about a contemporary of Merckx who thought if he couldn’t out class Merckx he would at least out train him. So he set off at 5am one time to do a 300km ride only to find Merckx (who lived close to him) already on his way back!

I thought I was doing pretty well with my 6am rides into the office. But that 3.36M start makes me want to go to the toilet and check my manhood is still intact.

Chapeau Will.

They cant expect to have there cake and eat it any more, ie live in extremely nice countryside but still be within 30 mins train journey of central london.

One of the big challenges remains combating that, and maintaining a healthy rural economy so people can live and work locally, one of the strengths here is home working and online businesses, which need things like super fast broadband and networking opportunities (business suite cafes for example) to support micro businesses, the other aspect is forestry and countryside jobs (surrey is the most wooded county in England, a horrific percentage of that is unmanaged and under-utilised) the future involves lots of biomass and wood heat, but they need people to do it and places for them to live, so that goes into affordable housing again, I suspect there will be a push towards planning caveats, eg agricultural/forestry dwellings

To be honest people living just outside london (me included) are lucky that the vast majority of people in London are either unaware or uninterested in the country side that isnt that far from their homes.

They are equally blighted by the fact that too many if the ones that are interested are of the chocolate box/pickled in aspic mentality

At the moment its generally white middle class professionals who attend these events is the rest of Lonond decided to turn up you wouldnt be even able to contemplate driving around the surrey hills.

True, but the ability to monetise their visits is very limited, I suspect many of the other visitor profiles would be easier to turn into local spend and thereby support the rural economy – one of the unsurprising things is that people are less bothered when they see local benefits – that doesn’t mean they are willing to put up with people taking the piss though (or a piss on the village green for that matter)

I don’t do 30 reps every day…

Glen, you’d be surprised, if you get into a rhythm, and break the ride up it’s not that boring. It’s a tough climb which peaks at around 18% – 20%.

Oh, for **** sake

I just try and make some sensible points amount monetising recreational use to assure the benefit to the community

And what does British Cycling do?

Start charging £5 per ticket to watch a sportive

http://www.ticketweb.co.uk/event/164771?brand=britishcyclingchamps

🙄

I don’t do 30 reps every day…

LOL no but you are averaging 455km a week! FFS! I really wish I hadn’t looked at your profile.

Please Will, for the love of god, tell me you don’t have children. I could live with myself and my efforts if you don’t have children.

Start charging £5 per ticket to watch a sportive

Wow, that’s something.

Confess to not knowing anything about road racing or sportives but was interested to hear from my son that for him to race in a league, he is required to undertake some formal sessions on an outside track. In his case he went to Hillingdon and learnt how to ride in a bunch, cornering in a bunch etc etc.

As much as I hate bureaucracy, has the time not come for every rider to have undertaken a recognised competency test before they are allowed to participate in a race, sportive etc. In fact why not make it compulsory for any rides with a certain number or entrants.

They are equally blighted by the fact that too many if the ones that are interested are of the chocolate box/pickled in aspic mentality

True, but the ability to monetise their visits is very limited, I suspect many of the other visitor profiles would be easier to turn into local spend and thereby support the rural economy – one of the unsurprising things is that people are less bothered when they see local benefits

I think your kinda missing my point. My point is tough.

I come from a vaguely rural midland location, I’ve moved down south for work as thats where all the jobs are, my wife is from ashtead in Surrey originally.

As London is now the main point of jobs growth in the country, part of the role (not all) of the country side around london is as a chocolate box/play ground for londoners.

You cant expect to keep people pended up in that sh*thole (although it is much better than it was) all working week and not allow them to enjoy a bit a of the countryside at the weekends ?

The fact they dont understand the countryside or view it as pickled in aspic or do actual damage due to their numbers is frankly unavoidable, when u have a city of 8million people.

No kids Geetee, I admit that would probably make it hard. Early mornings are the key.

Apparently Bikerbouy is doing on average 340 miles (547km) a week, so whilst yes I do bit, nowhere near the most.

£5 to watch a sportive though, that’s a bit much.

No hill is hard if the gradient is less than about 15%

I see. Why don’t you enter La Marmotte and tell us how you get on with Glandon, Telegraph, Galibier and Alpe d’Huez?

I see. Why don’t you enter La Marmotte and tell us how you get on with Glandon, Telegraph, Galibier and Alpe d’Huez?

OK clearly I didn’t mean that literally and in every sense. I simply meant that when the gradient was shallow(er) you always have the option of just using a very low gear and keeping it easy but that when things were very steep, you don’t even have that option.

Clearly those H’ors Category climbs are not easy. I wasn’t being quite that literal.

As it happens my brother is doing the Marmotte this year. I’d love to to do it also.

No kids Geetee, I admit that would probably make it hard. Early mornings are the key.

Early mornings are key. They are a lot easier in the summer. Very hard to get up at 5am and be riding by 5.30am in the winter (which I find manageable in the summer).

Bikerbouy doing 500+km a week is insane. I get up to about 350km a week in the summer but am currently struggling to even make 300km at the moment.

was interested to hear from my son that for him to race in a league, he is required to undertake some formal sessions on an outside track

That’s unusual, generally anyone can just rock up to a road race and have a go. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about barriers to entry such as having had to ‘qualify’ first just to have a go. Flip side of that is that 4th cat road races are a scary place.

@Ninfan.
19 events sounds like quite a large number to me.

How do those events spread across the year, are the majority between March and October?

19 weekend events in a period of 30 odd weeks can quickly feel like a LOT of events in a popular area.

Fairplay for being properly involved in the process though 8)

A lot of the points made above about too many people visiting Surrey hills are very similar to the new forest locals…

The bottom line is it is a free country and as cycling becomes more popular, people will look for a place to do it. If you live in one of these places, then you will have to share “your” roads with them. Much the same way as people in Twickenham cant drive anywhere on rugby match days and people in the heathrow flight path will hear noise.

Above is more about weekend road cyclists than sportives as these need licences etc.

That’s unusual, generally anyone can just rock up to a road race and have a go. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about barriers to entry such as having had to ‘qualify’ first just to have a go. Flip side of that is that 4th cat road races are a scary place.

njee – he belongs to a club (not saying which one though!) so organised through them. He has a second session to attend, not sure when that is. He’s been on a couple of their chaingang rides so is learning how to ride with others.

I’ve certainly read on here (oldgit’s posts) re road riding etiquette, definitely enlightening. In fact I’ll see if I can dig it out and send to my son.

Guess what I’m really trying to say is that as both a rider and a car driver, as well as recently encountering a sportive when driving and witnessing both bad riding as well as bad driving, we do need to take a fresh look at events for the safety of everyone.

Sorry, I’ve waffled. 😳

Surrey League now requires new riders to undergo a training and assessment before being eligible to enter races, I’m not surprised that Hillingdon is now doing something similar.

OCB, it’s about 32 weeks, so 19/64, with the events through box hill by midday, which is significant on the honeypot, but the question is more about ensuring variation on their route ‘in and out’ to avoid it always hitting the same communities/roads

The bottom line is it is a free country and as cycling becomes more popular, people will look for a place to do it. If you live in one of these places, then you will have to share “your” roads with them. Much the same way as people in Twickenham cant drive anywhere on rugby match days and people in the heathrow flight path will hear noise.

But both the examples you give are heavily managed to minimise the effect on local communities… Yes, they still have an effect, but the mitigation measures are huge, and the times and routes are heavily controlled.

I think there are similarities to the situation in the new forest, but I don’t think its particuarly similar in some of the wider aspects, eg. an entrenched long standing anti cycling agenda from a bunch of arses with inordinate power and little democratic accountability to the wider local population. I think it’s important to be proactive in preventing it turning into that level of hostility though.

As ninfan says – I live close to Twickenham so I get
planes overhead pretty much 24/7 – even though they’re not supposed to be
rugby traffic which means that I can’t drive anywhere on match days, concerts and religious gatherings
ridden at by sportivistas for 19 Sundays a year when I want to go out riding in the Surrey Hills on one of my days off
I know, got it all, eh?

I simply meant that when the gradient was shallow(er) you always have the option of just using a very low gear and keeping it easy but that when things were very steep, you don’t even have that option.

Steep hills are usually short, so you have the option of putting more power down.

This is true.

This is in Surrey :

Surrey is a honeypot, but there is sooo much more to the SE than Surrey. Down in my part of East Sussex, I rarely see another cyclist on my road rides. There aren’t any mountains, but there’s very little flat round my way, so lots of short but steep climbs soon add up.

I reckon I see more horses than roadbikes. After a conversation with a local horse rider, I now shout “cyclist behind” when I get to about 30m. It’s always acknowledged with a thanks and a wave. Apparently horses don’t hear the bike coming, so it spooks them more than cars, and this approach seems to work.

This is in Surrey :

Chobham/Lightwater way innit? Always chuckle at that.

Only thing worse than a steep hill is a hungry one

I now shout “cyclist behind” when I get to about 30m. It’s always acknowledged with a thanks and a wave. Apparently horses don’t hear the bike coming, so it spooks them more than cars, and this approach seems to work.

This x1000

Should really be common knowledge but appreciate some people don’t come into contact with horses all that often. Just slow down and call ahead, ideally waiting for both the horse and rider to notice you’re approaching before passing. Everyones happy 🙂

Only thing worse than a steep hill is a hungry one

That one’s round the back of Ripley isn’t it? Heading up to West Clandon? Clearly I’ve done too much riding in Surrey!

That one’s round the back of Ripley isn’t it?

Yup, that’s the one – not steep at all really, but a great pedally downhill for top speed bragging

And an unpleasant slog going the other way!

Horses: talk to the horse. The riders love that 🙂 (not a euphamism)

Apparently horses don’t hear the bike coming, so it spooks them more than cars, and this approach seems to work.

offroad the horses always hear my Hope hubs…

In my experience talking to animals is always a good move, horses and cows recognise you as human when you do that – the ‘hail a horse’ advice has been around for years.

With horses, their range of vision is quite limited

If you approach from the front, they can gauge your speed and distance, sneak up from the rear and into their periphial without making any noise and it can spook them badly. The Americans have played round with waymarked horse/walker trails heading in the opposite direction to bike ones, and it seems to reduce conflict.

Barbara Woodhouse used ot do a thing where she breathed on the horse nose/mouth to tame them, or something.

On a geophysics field trip one of the students did this to a horse in the field we were in, and it followed him around for the rest of the day !