From start to finish the event was impeccable. Super friendly welcome, perfect briefing, GPX files well in advance with clear arrival arrangements. The course was extremely well signposted. The feed station was off the scale of brilliant, with sandwiches, pork pies, sausage rolls, crisps, cakes and sweet treats as well as fruit and catering for dietary requirements. The weather made the event a real challenge (rain and strong gusting winds) I wasn’t sure I could do it, but the organisation and welcome instilled complete confidence and I’m chuffed as punch I came, I saw and I conquered!! Will definitely do another event with this organiser!! OUTSTANDING

I took part in the Tadcaster sportive today having undertaken this in previous years (which I’ve always really enjoyed), and unfortunately following today’s management of the event in hig wind, which was forecasted, I would be highly reluctant to undertake it again. In hindsight, perhaps the organisers should have undertaken a risk assessment first thing this morning, before the event commenced and taken a decision to move some of the food from the second feed station to the first feed station as when my husband and I arrived, almost all of the food had gone and there were no cups available to have a drink! The feed station was being rapidly dismantled when we arrived, we weren’t the last riders out there, and the man that we spoke with informed use, due to the high wind, many cyclists decided to change from the longer ride to the shorter ride. The first feed station was much further into the ride that in previous years (a big mistake from my perspective) and I was totally ‘flat’ by the time I got there. We also had to ask villagers where exactly the feed station was as in the bend just before approaching it, it was not clearly signposted. Two of our friends missed the feed station sign altogether on the bridge. Everyone was in need of refreshment and with the wind rather challenging, we were very much doing our best to stay on the bikes with fast moving cars passing us totally unaware of just how difficult controlling the bikes were is such high wind. I’m a petite woman so was frequently being blown by the wind towards the centre of the road in open areas. It was not a pleasant ride let alone a safe one at times today! Our friends got temporarily lost. They went straight on where they should have turned left to head in the direction of the food station so by the time they got back to us, the feed station was closed! All of the signage had been removed by then! When they eventually tracked us down on the bridge, we cycled directly back to Tadcaster. I had to get off the bike and walk at times as the wind was taking me into the centre of the road in the path of oncoming cars. I respect other more experienced cyclist of greater strength and weight than I may not have had to do this, and they may have had deep section wheels which may have also helped, however for me , it just wasn’t safe. And when we crossed over the finish line, one of our friends went to use the toilet facilities, he didn’t get to use the previous one in the food station as he never got there, he found the toilets to be locked! We asked one of the people manning the alcohol table if they could open the toilet, which the gentleman did, but why were the toilets locked when there were still so many riders out on the course? There were a lot of cars in the car park still at this point and also out of the road where we were parked. Having really enjoyed this event and the fantastic feed station which was visited twice on previous years, I cannot help but wonder had what worked so well in the past been left unchanged again this year, everything would have been much better managed today. Why change something that was already proven to have worked very well in the past?