You are reading a single comment by @conker and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported almost exclusively by donations. Please consider donating a small amount regularly.
@conker
^ that!
My wife did this last year. They're really sniffy about when you turn up, ie. the people that have done it many times before get preferantial treatment and can get early start times. My wife however, only managed to get an 8.30 start, so she and her friends set off from Clapham Common and 1 and a half hours later they had managed to progress about 2 miles. There were so many people that you had to walk. There were several more of these bottlenecks, most well known ones are the finish where sometimes if you can't ride slow enough you have to walk, and also Ditchling - she couldn't even attempt to ride up, there were just too many people.
However, I would whole heartedly recommend going to Brighton & meeting someone else who's suffered this ride. I put my bike in the back of the car, got there about 10am, parked for free in the multi-story near the marina, and went for a terrific ride along the coast road to Worthing where I enjoyed a lovely pastie and a pint before riding back.
In short - it's a charity ride which raises fantastic amounts for brilliant causes, but it's just grown far too big! An alternative charity ride I've done is the 'Norwood Capital to Coast' which gets 2-3000 people and is better managed!
http://www.capitaltocoast.org.uk/