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The Surrey Hills from Newlands Corner (CC BY-ND 2.0 licence by DavidGeen:Flickr)Saboteurs "put lives at risk" at Surrey sportive
Tacks were thrown on the road and route signs removed from a Surrey sportive last weekend, in an act of sabotage denounced by organisers for placing lives at risk.
Organisers of the Kelly’s Summer Cycle sportive, which started in Effingham last Sunday and headed out into the Surrey Hills, were forced to shorten the 75 mile route to 55 miles after some anti-cycling protesters took some of the event signs down overnight.
Although no-one was injured the event, all of the proceeds from which went to a local children’s charity, Cherry Trees, the sabotage was a disappointment for riders, and local people, who questioned such “extreme” behaviour.
Surrey Police say they are taking cycling event sabotage seriously
Moira Martin, director of Kelly’s Storage Charity Events, which organised the event, and has raised more than £7,000 for charity so far, told Get Surrey: “People put lives at risk by doing such things.
"Kelly’s Storage Charity Events are completely non-profit making.
"Every penny donated, including entries, goes directly to charity.
“We all get annoyed if we are held up by cyclists while driving, but we are privileged to live in an area of outstanding natural beauty and should be prepared to share it with others, especially if they are raising money for our own local charities.”
Jamie Chisholm, of local cycling café and club, Bike Beans in Ashtead, told road.cc relations with cyclists and drivers on local roads had improved in recent years and the sabotage was an act of a minority of individuals.
He said: “It was really disappointing; I just can’t believe that people don’t have better things to do on their Saturday nights. At the end of the day it was really nicely-organised family run event. It’s not a commercially run sportive… all the money goes to charity.”
He said although thankfully no-one was injured, and relations between drivers and cyclists has improved in recent years, sabotage has become more common on the local mountain bike trails.
“I think certainly there has been a big improvement in Surrey, we get far less aggression and witness far less dangerous driving and people just generally seem to be more patient.”
“There seems to be a better understanding between cyclists and cars and we work hard to make sure our rides aren’t too big and there are riding in an appropriate way to make life for car drivers as easy as possible.
“There’s sabotage on our local trails, either putting big branches across the trail at head or neck height or wire, or just laying branches across the trail to try to ruin the mountain bike experience
“There is a body of people a small minority that just can’t stand cyclists and they will go out of their way to disrupt what they are doing as much as possible.”
“Otherwise why would you go around in the middle of the night taking signs down? It’s pretty extreme.”
Helen Naisby, events and community manager at Cherry Trees, told Get Surrey: “It was fantastic to see so many smiling faces as the cyclists returned from enjoying the scenic countryside of the Surrey Hills.
“We are delighted to have been chosen by Kelly’s to receive all of the proceeds from this event, including entry donations, and are very grateful to them for paying for and organising such a fun event."
Laura Laker is a freelance journalist with more than a decade’s experience covering cycling, walking and wheeling (and other means of transport). Beginning her career with road.cc, Laura has also written for national and specialist titles of all stripes. One part of the popular Streets Ahead podcast, she sometimes appears as a talking head on TV and radio, and in real life at conferences and festivals. She is also the author of Potholes and Pavements: a Bumpy Ride on Britain’s National Cycle Network.
Latest Comments
- Pub bike 4 sec ago
The owners of the private car park made reasonable attempts to contact Lime and ask them to remove the bikes that were fly-tipped on their property...
- Pub bike 5 min 21 sec ago
Could be for cyclists with congenitally long arms.
- mark1a 5 hours 47 min ago
I'll put you down as a no then.
- Boopop 7 hours 59 min ago
I find it deeply jarring and disappointing that Sir David agrees with these people not wanting a cycle lane. Whenever I watch one of his excellent...
- chrisonabike 8 hours 8 min ago
May need insurance, tax and a licence. No problem with the lights though.
- Hirsute 10 hours 55 min ago
If you can't see a %^$&ing large tractor what ^%$£"!*ing hope is there that you will see a cyclist ?...
- chrisonabike 11 hours 13 min ago
Well if you *can* interview the original riders at all surely they worked, at least?...
- David9694 11 hours 42 min ago
Live: Car plunges over wall and lands on beach rocks...
- brooksby 16 hours 55 min ago
And finally: I wonder how many of the "more than 3,000" signatures on that petition are actually locals, who live or work there (and are not just...
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19 comments
“We all get annoyed if we are held up by cyclists while driving"
You are not getting held up, you are travelling along a road that was designed for use by multiple forms of transport, in fact many routes on which you encounter cyclists were originally designed for pedestrians, horses and cyclists, not 3 tonnes of steroid enhanced metal boxes!
"There seems to be a better understanding between cyclists and cars and we work hard to make sure our rides aren’t too big and there are riding in an appropriate way to make life for car drivers as easy as possible"
You mean cyclists understand that those in cars do not give a flying fuck about them and they should move or die? What are the car drivers understanding, that they should actually obey the rules that dictated the giving of the license? Life is easy for drivers, they sit in air conditioned, gas guzzling metal boxes, playing on their phones with a sense of entitlement to make largely pointless journeys.
What worries me are these statements are from people actively seeking to promote cycling!
I'm not sure how we stop this sort of dangerous behaviour...
There seems to be a small minority who cannot be reasoned with, cannot be educated by facts, figures and statistics and ignore the small section of the media that try to educate drivers.
I think we need to get every driver to pass a cycling section in their driving test and force people to take a re-test every 5 or 10 years. It might be the only way to get people to learn!
This stood out for me too...
“We all get annoyed if we are held up by cyclists while driving"
you don't speak for me, idiot
More evidence of the work of the Kar Klux Klan. These motor supremacists who deliberately endanger cyclists are even more dangerous in an aggressively-driven motor vehicle. It is no good police claiming to take this seriously when they routinely refuse to take any action against them despite cycle cam evidence.
No, prime evidence of people being fucking idiots - and violently intentioned ones at that - but nothing more concrete. There is nothing to prove it was purely 'motor supremacists' - some / all of them may be car drivers or nimbys, bored kids / adults trying to prove something, sociopaths with a grudge - you and I don't know. Don't fall into the trap of becoming like those you despise.
I stand by my comment and since I do not deliberately endanger or sabotage others I am nothing like them.
I didn't say you did want to put anyone in danger but you've unilaterally decided a particular generalisation of a group of people are to blame based on zero evidence. Sound familiar ?
Mmmm, perhaps they are Islamic terrorists, or is that another politically incorrect suggestion to be lectured about?
I get fucked off being lumped in to some imaginary, hostile, law-breaking, amorphous 'cycling' tribe by some idiots in cars - and vilified as such for supposed behaviour of this group. Turning it around and grand-standing, doing exactly the same, pretending you know all about exactly who did fucking dangerous act this and why fucks me off too. "Kar Klux Klan" - fucking grow up.
There's always one moron waiting for a comment with which to play the politically-correct card and claim some spurious moral superiority. You exemplify that tiresome habit with your trite responses which I see have now degenerated into abuse, so perhaps you aren't quite as politically correct or as clever as you think you are.
No, absolutely no political correctness intended, I just got fucked off with the habit of a bunch of people bemoaning the car driving tribe making dumb ass generalisations against the cyclists, and then the reverse somehow being seen as 'right on' - especially embellished with nonsense like Kar Klux Klan, micro$haft, Crapple and the rest. You attributed blame on mass according to your own prejudice based on nothing, yet can't see the irony. Which particular group of people did this is really not the important matter, what they did is - don't make it about finger pointing when you have nothing to go on.This is shitting on the story now - why don't you have your retort now and we'll leave it - you just don't see it, so hardly any point in me going on.
WHAT DOES THIS PROVE, It just makes us hate all the car drivers out there more. It won't get me off the road. Plus by LAW we all have the right to share the road. In Australia heaps of new laws have come in to protect cyclists. Drivers can get hefty fines for driving within a metre of a cyclist under 60km/h and 1.5 metres if they are doing over 100km/h. Plus i think if you get a video you can report it.
That's a joke right? $106 fine for not carrying ID, and a $319 fine for not wearing a helmet.
Whereas speeding in a car will land you around $109. How is that protecting cyclists and not profiting from them?
not content with being twats, they have to prove how callous and uncaring they
really are by targeting a charity ride .... shit heads all of them who don't deserve
the privilege of a driving license.
So, if people laid bricks or caltrops or something along the route of the TT on the Isle of Man then it would just be protestors meaning no real harm...? Somehow I doubt it.
I wish the police would take incidents like this more seriously, but I get the feeling that it is waaaay down their list of priorities.
Lets get this straight , whoever did this, they aren't 'protesters' or 'saboteurs' they are criminals.
This is culpable and reckless conduct and deserves a prison sentence. They should be worried.
Conspiracy to commit GBH? Murder?
Hope it being taken seriously by the authorities. These are some serious psychopaths going unchecked.
“We all get annoyed if we are held up by cyclists while driving”
No we don't.
Personally I get annoyed by dickheads who can't drive cars and sit in the wrong lanes of motorways/dual carriageways a lot more than I do by cyclists, horse riders, walkers etc.
Personally I get annoyed if I'm held up by queues of 4x4's while cycling...