A crack team of HTRC riders travelled to the Big Smoke to tackle the legendary closed roads sportive – Graeme Lawton’s report is here…

 

Celebrating the legacy for cycling created by the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Prudential RideLondon-Surrey 100 starts in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, then follows a 100-mile route on closed roads through the capital and into the Surrey countryside.

 

Prudential RideLondon-Surrey 100 finishes on The Mall in central London, shortly before 150 professional cyclists race in the Prudential RideLondon-Surrey Classic on a similar route.

 

Neil Prendergast, Les Barratt, Jon Barratt and Graeme Lawton, managed to get a Hull Thursday team entry into the event for BC affiliated clubs.

 

It’s Saturday 9th August and Les is due to pick me up at 7am and then on to pick up Neil in Hull before starting our ‘Thursday Road Trip’ down to Broxbourne where we will be staying with Jon, his wife Claire and daughter Emma for our ‘Sportive Weekend’. Jon moved to London quite a few years ago where he was firstly at medical college and is now at St. Mary’s Hospital, London, whilst also serving in the Army as a doctor.

 

We eventually arrive at Jon’s, which did prove a little difficult to find as Les usually uses his SatNav when visiting, but due to us yapping on we missed a vital junction, and not having the SatNav this time it threw us right off a well-trodden path that Les’s SatNav knew well! We saw the same bridge at least three times, and two trips through a sleepy village looking for a way out.

 

Fortunately Jon had ‘The Knowledge’ for our trip into London and after a cuppa we got the train from Broxbourne to The ExCel Exhibition Centre in Docklands in no time to pick up our event numbers and have a quick look round the Bike Show that was on. We decided to head back in the city centre and headed for Borough Market.

 

Borough Market is a wholesale and retail food market in Southwark. It is one of the largest and oldest food markets in London,and sells a large variety of foods from all over the world – tres trendy! Pulled Pork sandwich (why has all pork got to be pulled now?) and a ‘flat white’ for lunch we then head off to Leadenhall Market where there were lots of specialist bike stalls set up for the weekend plus loads cycling-based events. You really start to think how cycling has taken off. We think about getting back to the Mall to watch the women’s event, but decide to head back to Jon’s and watch it on TV instead, remembering that we had to save our legs for Sunday.

 

The weather forecast for Sunday wasn’t very good with the UK feeling the tail end of Hurricane Bertha, and waking up at 2 in the morning with the rain lashing on the windows didn’t fair well. We needed to be on our way by 5am as we were driving into London, to find a car park, set up the bikes then ride to the start at The Olympic Park. We went straight to a covered car park by The London Museum, £3 all day! Set up our bikes and got going plus IT WASN’T RAINING! I even saw a patch of Blue Sky and it wasn’t Wiggo.

 

Getting to the Olympic Park was easy with great signage that took you straight there with even the matrix signs over the roads directing you to your specific colour-coded start area. We had to be at our Green start zone by 7.15 with a start time of 7.45. However, riding through start gantry the patch of blue had gone and been replaced with a dark grey colour and it had started to drizzle quite heavily.

 

We were straight out on to completely closed roads, which with hundreds of riders of mixed ability in front of you, wet roads littered with metal covers, I found it quite difficult to start with after breaking my wrist in October when someone crashed in front of me in exactly these conditions. There were lots of riders fixing punctures and unfortunately a few crashes in the first few miles already!

 

The climbs of Box and Leith Hill had been taken out due to safety concerns which we thought was the right decision on the day given the conditions. Heading into Surrey the rain turned torrential at times, but it wasn’t, cold and as long as you kept going it was OK. The roads at times were completely flooded, (knew I should have ordered that Rapha snorkel and merino flippers bundle from their website).

 

The route without the climbs was down to 86 miles and the route wasn’t that challenging really with just a couple drags to have a blast at. We rode through Richmond Park and past Hampton Court, but with the conditions I personally was oblivious to much of it until we got back into the outskirts of London in sunshine where I could now start to appreciate the event, crowds cheering you on through the towns and riding up Whitehall and down the Mall was quite something else.

 

We re-grouped at the finish, got our goody bags and ride gong then headed for a post ride pint at The Silver Cross pub at the top of Whitehall where we could watch the rest of the riders come through. We noticed a dark cloud moving in over Trafalgar Square and just as we said ” i bet it’s going to rain again” the heavens opened, everyone dove for cover, we ended up inside the pub with our bikes hanging on the barriers outside, but the streets were deserted except for the unfortunate riders who were still out in it.

 

Downpour over we followed Jon ‘The Knowledge’ Barratt back to the car park. The only difference now being we weren’t on closed roads anymore!!!
Jon led us straight back and with a quick wash and brush up at the brilliant car park facilities we were soon back in Broxbourne to watch Adam Blythe win the pro race followed by a memorable Sunday roast dinner prepared by Claire and Elaine plus 3 helpings of crumble and custard for someone!

 

An unbelievably we’ll organised event and riding on completely closed roads through London and Surrey is fantastic and is worth riding for just that. Hopefully next year the weather is a lot better and everyone can enjoy the full route.

 

Massive thanks to Les for all the driving, Jon and Claire for putting us all up, and to Neil for making it a memorable weekend.

 

 

 

 

 

Graeme Lawton