h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

... about the London to Brighton cycle race.

Once again half the road into town is closed to all but cyclists.

Once again all the parking spaces are full of trucks and minibuses and SUVs and other support vehicles for the cyclists.

Once again there is total traffic gridlock.

But unlike in previous years, today is a really really hot day. Therefore the invading hoardes are suffering for once in the heat.

I tell you, you don't have to look out for the route, you can smell it at a distance!

I look forward to this (your whinge, not the event) each and every year, just the way I look forward to Wimbledon, the Tour de France, the test matches, summer pudding, long summer evenings...

and in this heat I just finished today reading a book about Brighton; Brighton rock hows the Mob doing there these days?

It would not have been the best day for a long bike ride today - still I am sure all those selling drinks did really well.

Is the bike ride always this close to Wimbledon? I must say I had not appreciated that is was today when I sent my email ...


So


Sorry - I did not mean my comments about Brighton being full of people to be tactless - it was more a comment on wanting to be by the sea when the sun shines. thinnking about it I should think those selling sun cream were doing well too

oh my, have i been here that long??? just over a year now, evidently; how time flies (whether you're having fun or not...)

Isn't this your 5th annual whinge?

Not so bad as the others

smelly athletes!

... athletes raising money for charity, keeping fit and (in some cases at any rate) contributing to the local economy (hotel + restaurant) and taking a train back rather than having an entourage of motor vehicles.

That would be true, were it not for the fact (as GD points out) that most of them seem incapable of cycling without a 4X4 to keep them company.

It is true though. I said "in some cases" and I know one (who knows another one etc). If GD's complaint is primarily about the 4x4s then it might be better to persuade a paper to do a negative write-up on that point - ie how hypocritical those particular ones are. There's a small chance it might make a few of them re-think their plans for another year. If the locals could take some steps to organise retrieval and redirection of the finishers themselves (and advertise this), then that might also make a difference by offering another choice.

Of course a further option is to relocate the (whinging) Brightonians for the day by organising some sort of big party/event - either along the coast somewhere or some green-space inland (big house with park etc). Have coaches there and back or make them take their own cars out of the town to make space for the cyclists.

The thing is that I was in Brighton the other week, and at the station there were signs saying 'we won't be able to take bikes on our trains at all on the day of the bike ride'.

It doesn't help that the nice old-fashioned trains with opening doors and a proper guard's van where you could put your bike have been replaced by modern plastic rubbish that has some sort of area where a couple of seats tip up - *if* you can find it, *if* there's no-one already sitting in the seats (or if someone is, *if* they're willing to move), and *if* the space isn't already occupied by someone in a wheelchair.

Although they are probably a lot more reliable...

The old v new trains argument is a bit of a red herring. With the best will in the world the old style trains wouldn't be able to ship 25,000+ cyclists with their bikes all at once.

The organizers spent more on dealing with the return transport issues. They ran a shuttle bus and accompanying lorry service back to London all the way through the day.


And anyway, this annual journal is always written with a certain element of tongue in cheek

True on all counts

Although now I think about it, I'm quite interested in the old v new trains debate - having been to Brighton twice by train in the last month, for the first time for about a year.

Leaving aside the fact that they were old and knackered, the old-style ones seem a million miles better to me.