It should first be noted that this event was not only my first Ridelondon, but also my first sportive, so my view is based with no comparator.

The whole event was a great experience, how often do you get to ride through closed roads, let alone through London. The organisation and logistics for this event must have been hard work. They were done well on the whole.

An issue with this sort of event is getting there. With such an early start public transport was not possible, so I parked in a recommended car park. The start line seemed much further than advertised, and I was a little stressed trying not to miss the start. Once I got there the organisation was fantastic. I was really impressed with the penned starts and how smoothly they worked out.

There were mixed abilities in each start, but guess they were roughly spread out about right. The event started a little slow, but once we got going I had no congestion concerns at all for the first 80 miles. This may have got worse the later you started but it was good for me.

I think the whole 100 was well planned with super aid stations. I only stopped once and wasn't expecting to have to pull over to go there, but this is more about my inexperience. Obviously the handing out of bottles as I expected just would have been a nightmare with so many riders, so they managed this well.

The route didn't have a lot of support on the most part, but what do you expect over 100 miles. There were plenty of people out there though, and in many places it was full of awesome support, this can't be faulted at all.

I witnessed a few crashes and to be honest I think a lot of this could be avoided. It was fine until they merged the 46 with the 100, I think at about 80. All of a sudden we were no longer riding with people of same ability and the road got packed with slower riders. I saw someone come out for no reason and clip another rider. This could be organised better and needs to be.

When we got to about 85 (Kingston) the roads got so congested, and riders were stopped completely so pedestrians could cross, this happened to me 6 times in last 15. Towards the end there was split crossing so the roads were halved but you weren't stopped, this is a good system. Stopping riders completely at the point of biggest congestion was just ridiculous and adds to my safety concerns.

I also witnessed some great marshals. But also some asleep, and others not caring when told riders had crashed. This mixed support is not the organisers fault, but something they should be aware of.

overall this is an event I would recommend everyone experience, but I would urge people to take it with caution, as it's too busy and not safe after the merge. If the two events did not merge, or were coordinating to prevent the mixed abilities meeting or creating congestion, the event would be much better.

here more of my personal journey in my blog

https://pickupthepacepaul.com/2017/07/30/ride-london-2017