Velo Birmingham

[S10GTA]

fking obscene price.

[loudlashadjuster]

S10GTA said:

fking obscene price.

For the 'fast track'? Totally agree.

The normal price is expensive, but looking around it's only a £5-10 more than other closed road century sportives so not too gougey.

Considering they don't seem to have a marquee sponsor like RideLondon but still have to close off a fair chunk of a large city (unlike Etape Caledonia etc.) it's perhaps understandable.

[Marcellus]

Despite thinking the cost is extreme, if their email is to be believed then 14,250 people would be inclined to disagree!

[aberdeeneuan]

I've just signed up for this. Agree on the cost, but I'm local so no hotels etc, group of us have all joined up.

I've not done nearly enough cycling this year so need to get out and this gives me a good target to make sure I do!

[gazza285]

Same day as the Three Peaks Cyclocross, not that it matters, far too much for a pretend race that will ps off the locals.

[FiF]

And pissing off the locals it is indeed. Lot of noise about road closures especially through one particular village and across one of the major Severn crossings. The other Severn crossing where a 7 hour closure is requested has a reasonable work around, the one in dispute hasn't and the organisers have not covered themselves in glory over this.

[theboyfold]

FiF said:

And pissing off the locals it is indeed. Lot of noise about road closures especially through one particular village and across one of the major Severn crossings. The other Severn crossing where a 7 hour closure is requested has a reasonable work around, the one in dispute hasn't and the organisers have not covered themselves in glory over this.

I signed up for this, and was told that they had made new and exciting changes to the route. From what I understand they released the route, and then checked to see they could get the road closures.

This doesn't bode well for a smoothly run day...

[FiF]

theboyfold said:

I signed up for this, and was told that they had made new and exciting changes to the route. From what I understand they released the route, and then checked to see they could get the road closures.

This doesn't bode well for a smoothly run day...

Yep, there's been no consultation, despite the organisers claiming they have PRed the route, like you have to do for car rallies,for example, even though in that case no road closures involved. Just on one stretch there are several businesses that will have to close for the day on one of their busiest days of the week.

After they released the route Hereford raised so many issues that they eventually had to accept that the county had to be avoided altogether and also 20 miles lost from route in Worcestershire. We have iirc seven road crossings of the Severn in the entire county, they want to close two of them for 7 hours. Bewdley we can work around, but not Holt Fleet at the same time. It will also effectively close and gridlock a 3rd crossing due to the route down the western side of the river also closing the roads near that 3rd crossing.

It's also the weekend that all the students start arriving at the university to take up tgeir accommodation, so Worcester crossings will be a tad rammed from that and the Malvern show.

And there's another charity ride a month later expecting to use the same road, not even started on road closures for that. Can understand why they want to use it, it's picturesque and a stonking climb.

Organiser been on radio, seems entrenched in his attitudes, hope you have a nice day, but it doesn't bode well tbh. Obviously as it's for charity don't want it cancelled but very badly planned.

[theboyfold]

FiF said:

Organiser been on radio, seems entrenched in his attitudes, hope you have a nice day, but it doesn't bode well tbh. Obviously as it's for charity don't want it cancelled but very badly planned.

Which radio station was it? Would be interested in listening if it's possible

[CoolC]

A colleague of mine lives locally and telling me that there seems to have been cock-ups between the organisers, the police and the council meaning road closures, or at least full road closures are now unlikely.

He seems to think the organisers were telling the police one thing and the council(s) another which came to a head when they were all together.

Looks like it will be more like rolling road blocks now.

I've got all this third hand though, so will be very happy to be wrong.

[simonpieman]

I signed up knowing that it is likely to be chaotic. The attraction is the promised road closures. If that gets canned, I expect many will want their money back.

[loudlashadjuster]

simonpieman said:

I signed up knowing that it is likely to be chaotic. The attraction is the promised road closures. If that gets canned, I expect many will want their money back.

Indeed, I certainly will.

[theboyfold]

theboyfold said:

FiF said:

Organiser been on radio, seems entrenched in his attitudes, hope you have a nice day, but it doesn't bode well tbh. Obviously as it's for charity don't want it cancelled but very badly planned.

Which radio station was it? Would be interested in listening if it's possible

Found it, 42 minutes in: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p056fwx6 and 1 hour 24 minutes for the interview. It does sound like a right screw up, Jon Ridgeon really doesn't come across all that well, just keeps banging on about the 'Charity'

[FiF]

Yes that's the one. Further to the above it seems that the routing, as it stands, is likely to close or very effectively disrupt 4 of the 7 river crossings. Thought that Bewdley bypass would be clear, but only really access to it would be from Stourport, which itself will be disrupted. From Kidderminster which will itself suffer some disruption.

Observation I heard was the route seems to have been planned by someone who doesn't live anywhere near a major river and has to cross it every day. Some of the routes you have to take look quite bizarre, but when combined with traffic hot spots they are necessary.

A question, are rolling closures any more labour intensive? Perhaps they don't want to pay for police presence? I recall being pulled over for a Tour of Britain closure, which wasn't that long, maybe a couple of hours. We were in the campervan, so just went up a side road, had lunch and a sleep. But that's elite athletes who pass in a relatively compact peleton etc. No disrespect to participants here but varying levels will mean a long drawn out closure.

[Marcellus]

I for one will be looking for a refund if it's not a full road closure event.

For this sort of event a rolling road is unworkable, take Velothon Cardiff last weekend which very broadly similar (140km 4500ft climb) but slightly easier than Birmingham; fastest time 03:40:43 slowest 08:54:32, 5796 finishers and 123 did not finish either mechanical accident or broom wagon.

For it to work all of the Authorities (Councils (County, District & Parrish), police, organisers) need to buy in to the event otherwise it'll be a nightmare.

I didn't enter for there to be chaos, road closed cycling events of this nature are not new and there are opportunties for the organisers to learn/copy other events (Tour of Cambridgeshire, Velothon, Ride London to name a few.

[The_Jackal]

Are these recent posts on here about the new route or the original one?
The new route avoids Worcester completely, heads north after going out to the west from Brum and then comes back down as far as Droitwich Spa before heading back into town.

[theboyfold]

The_Jackal said:

Are these recent posts on here about the new route or the original one?
The new route avoids Worcester completely, heads north after going out to the west from Brum and then comes back down as far as Droitwich Spa before heading back into town.

My understanding is that this is all based on the revised route.

[FiF]

theboyfold said:

The_Jackal said:

Are these recent posts on here about the new route or the original one?
The new route avoids Worcester completely, heads north after going out to the west from Brum and then comes back down as far as Droitwich Spa before heading back into town.

My understanding is that this is all based on the revised route.

Correct, the only reason for mentioning Worcester is that as Severn crossings up in North Worcestershire will be screwed then traffic will be driven further down river, increasing congestion in an area that already has other events ongoing.

Bearing in mind there are, as yet no detailed road closures in place, it seems that the organisers want to close a road and prevent all traffic for a period of many hours, that will prevent access to my gym , tennis courts and swimming pool. Prevent all access to/from the hotel to which those facilities are attached. Personally if I miss a Sunday morning workout and swim it's no big deal, but guess any hotel guests are going to be unimpressed. That's just one half mile stretch of road outside of Bewdley.

[FiF]

Seems a bit of a stand off underway. Authorities understood this would be a rolling closure, they were not advised otherwise by the organisers.

Now they realise that due to the diverse abilities of the participants it will not be a rolling road closure according to their understanding, but extended closing hours at most points.

About two months away and still no road closures published for open discussion.

Many directly affected residents and businesses still completely unaware it seems.

They only have a few days more aiui to get specific notices out. Guess this is either not going to be a fully closed road event or cancelled.

Feel sorry for you guys who have signed up, paid your money and been looking forward to it.

[SixPotBelly]

It all sounds rather odd. I always thought the process for these things was you sat down with the local authorities and agreed a route and closure times, and they told you how many (hundreds of) thousands of pounds that would cost you. You then tried to sell enough entries to make sure you could meet that and all your other costs. It's so hard to imagine that anyone would think of doing it the other way around..