Doing ride London on Sunday as a team of four, my load time is earlier than the other three who conveniently have the same loading/start time. Is it usually any issue to load/start later than the time allocated?

Are you doing 25 miles each? If so, you’ll be the furthest away and need to work through all the traffic?

I’m lead to believe that it will be rigorously enforced……. but nothing to stop you pulling over a mile up the road and waiting (how different is your start time?)

loading into the pens is enforced, but once you start merging into the start lanes, nothing to stop you from staying to one side and waiting. from memory there was a bank of portaloos in the central bit about 100yds before the start line

The two times I’ve done it, the loading has definitely not been rigorously enforced, especially if you want to go into a later pool with your mates.

As others have said though, there’s plenty of opportunity to pull to the side in the start lane shuffle and just wait for the other three.

Thanks, I’ll either load at my time and dawdle, or load with them, IIRC there is only 15 minutes between start times I think? There will be a lot of people loading/starting in the 15 minutes so I’d rather not be trying to find them on the road.

Thinking about it, lots of people start, go about half a mile and then pull to the side and wait. The road is plenty wide enough, it’s a closed dual carriageway. If you’re looking for them and they’re looking for you, there’s no reason you should miss each other.