Surrey County Council wants more control over sportives

Do lycra louts exist outside of the pages of the Daily Mail? Bar the odd overbearing club rider who sees it their business to bark orders at everyone, I can't say I've ever had issues with other riders.

Disclosure: I wear lycra, ride 6000+ miles a year, do the odd domestic and European sportive and have been riding road bikes for 30 years.  

Is this the latest thing to be pretentious about? For my sins like to ride the odd sportive, so that probably means I'm not a serious cyclist. For one, I don't even have a beard.

Why do we need sportives?... if you want to go on a ride and give money to charity, then go do it on your own, at your own pace, or even better arrange a ride with one or more friends. Save yourself a few quid in the process and ride any route you want without feeling that you are in a race.

Heading out of the city from my South London home, put crudely, I have two choices: turn left for Kent, right for Surrey.

Kent may be full of chavs and cabbies, but I always turn left. Way too much of everything else you want to avoid going on in Surrey.

And in the main, Sportives can fuck off. And then fuck off some more. 

Kind regards,

Miserable twat, getting old, craving space on the roads 

As a local resident (nr Leith Hill), cyclist, Surrey League racer and sportive participant I do have some sympathy. Sportives are open road recreational rides but a significant minority don't recognise this. I struggle at times to drive safely round groups when an event is on.

Surrey League races are very tightly controlled to minimise the impact of residents (at significant effort to Glyn and organising clubs).
So it would be a real setback to cycling as a whole to have further controls here as a result of people "racing" spotives and not real races.

Government should be encouraging recreational activity rather than penalizing them and ignoring the wider issue of a burgeoning recreationally inactive generation.

And why are all cyclists who magically appear from a corner described as "racing"?!

Take a big bunch of people, and a propotion of them will be twats.  Put them all on bikes, and a very similar proportion will be twats on bikes.

I live in the middle of all this - there is a lot of twatty and irresponsible riding these days, and it's getting worse.  A lot of people seem to thing that just because they have paid £25 and are following some brightly coloured arrows around the countryside, the roads are for their exclusive convienience, and it's fine to drift around bends 4 wide and ignore give ways etc.

Goes without saying that there is a lot of twatty driving too.

Modern Britian on wheels.

"Are they above the law when it comes to speeding..."

Oops.

Alison Dicks claims speeding - yet offers no documented evidence of "speeding" cyclists.

I assume she is claiming excessive speed in a residential area where the speed limit is presumably 30mph. 

I don't know any cyclists who can break and sustain that speed comfortably on a flat road ... that's 48KM/h. We're talking full on world-tour pro-peloton speeds.

She also claims of not being able to hear bicycles - yet makes no complaint about electric and hybrid vehicles - which are even quieter than a group of cyclists clattering and chatting down a road.

Chiddingfold being where it is (quiet, remote, country lanes) - there are few pavements. Just thinking it would have been speeding cars and poor street lighting the biggest issues to pedestrians in this area.

I might be wrong - but as far as I can see the biggest Sportive (might be the only one) going through Chiddingfold is the Wiggle Up and Downs. 

"...– adding that she and her dogs had been forced to take evasive action the following day when a group of seven cyclists “came round a dark blind bend at full pelt".

I presume Ms Dicks is suggesting that full pelt would be faster than a car would have come round the bend, so in excess of 30mph? I'm going to be bold and guess that this is a bit of an over-statement. Of course it does beg the question why anyone in their right mind would cross close to a dark blind bend?

I wonder what her statement would have been had it been a car that had hit her avoiding the pot hole. Both drivers would have looked mournfully into the hole, bemoaned the lack of money being spent on road upkeep and let their insurance companies sort it out. 

I like this... "Is it going to take a death before these events are properly managed?"

Ms Dicks, if you were a cyclist you would know that something as trivial as a death does not stir action when it comes to improving road safety.

As a Londoner, I'd like to complain about all the people from Surrey coming into our city every weekday, turning the place into a car park. Just the other day someone from Guildford nearly knocked me off my bike, and acted like the 50 metres between one bunch of  static traffic and the next was a racetrack as they hared up to 45 mph then screeched to a halt with no respect for other road users. Something must be done, I tell you!

How terribly Surrey.

This is where I live and ride incidentally. It's too bad for the nimbys I'm afraid. Cycling is a massive thing now and there is a whole local economy revolving around it. It might annoy Ms Dicks, but she's onto a loser. Local government know this too.

Dicks by name, dicks by nature.

So Ms. Dicks is the official spokesperson for "all' residents? Think not. 

Will some of those cyclists live locally and be residents themselves? More than likely.

Walking dogs in the road is a safe and responsible thing to do do? Probably not.

Why didn't she just moan about the pothole instead of the fully entitled road user avoiding it, as one is supposed to? The council could actually do something about that.

It was only a matter of time before something like this appeared. It is a very awkward situation whereby nobody wishes to stifle the enthusiasm and vast numers who ride sportives but the behaviour of some participants, who think they are in a race, needs getting under control.

If you are in a proper race, it will be an authorised event which has a police permit, has been fully risk assessed and will have a large safety structure surrounding it.  There will also be commissaires present to ensure safety, conduct  and to manage the third party impact (wrong word but you know what I mean) of the event. Also, it will be compliant to the racing on the Highways Act 1960.  

The problem arises when some people cannot decipher the difference between a race and a mass participation ride. The behaviour and conduct of some riders in sportives is shocking and it their actions that are causing the problems. If they wish to race then enter a race and play by the rules, if you wish to ride with others enter a sportive and ride appropriately.