Cyclist
Taking over London: Behind the scenes at RideLondon
RideLondon is Britain’s biggest cycling event. Each year more than 75,000 cyclists descend on the capital to take part in either a 30, 60 or 100-mile closed road sportive that heads into the Essex countryside, or to just ride round the car-free roads of Central London in the RideLondon FreeCycle. On top of that, there is a three-day women’s WorldTour stage race, the Ford RideLondon Classique. That’s a lot of cycling.
‘RideLondon is a legacy event from the 2012 Olympics,’ says Kevin Nash, RideLondon route director for organiser London Marathon Events. ‘Legacy event planning began when we won the Olympic bid back in 2007, and that’s when this event was dreamt up.
‘The capacity and style of the event has evolved over the years, but the principles remain the same in terms of making sure it’s inclusive, it’s got good diverse representation and it’s for all ages and abilities, as well as inspiring activity and demonstrating the benefits of cycling not just as a sport but as a mode of transport.’
Going with the flow
Managing the different events and thousands of cyclists requires pinpoint precision and coordination.
‘Sunday is our busiest day,’ says Nash. ‘Early morning, we release the 25,000 riders for the Ford RideLondon-Essex, we then quickly reconfigure Central London for the FreeCycle events, which about 50,000 people take part in, and then we reconfigure the streets again for the Classique, which happens for two hours and is live on TV. While all that’s going on we’ve got the 25,000 cyclists making their way through London, out into Essex, and back to London.’
To regulate the riders out on the course, the organisers have devised a comprehensive way to predict the flow of the peloton: ‘We do a lot of work with crowd modelling and flow modelling scientists at Manchester Metropolitan University, so we can predict how the event will spread out across the road. The densities of the people finishing is modelled, reviewed and monitored in real time in the control room. We monitor the release rate from the start and at several points across the course, and we have a very clever gentleman who sits in the control room telling us how we’re operating against our predictions.
‘We release riders over three and a half hours at a set rate based on the width of the start gantry, which allows us to get the course density to a safe limit for the road width we’ve got. Then the finish takes eight and a half hours and we manage everything else in between that. It’s a full road closure from start to finish.
‘The race starts off with a few pelotons that become separated within the first 20 minutes, and after that we’re into constant flow. At the beginning the rate is 100 riders per minute, which is quite mind-boggling if you think you might watch the race for four hours and you’ll see 100 cyclists going past you every minute. At the tail of the event, the rate is about 75-80 riders per minute and the finish can accept about 60 riders per minute.
‘The model allows us to not only see what should happen in the ideal situation, but if an air ambulance needs to land, for instance, we can pause the event and reprogram the algorithm.’
Who pays the bill?
Unlike the Tour de France, whereby towns pay to host parts of the race, RideLondon uses a different approach to partner with local authorities and communities.
‘We don’t charge and don’t accept money from local authorities, so it’s zero cost to the taxpayer,’ says Nash. ‘This means we can reach out to local authorities and politicians and ask if they would like to promote cycling, wellbeing or an active travel region, without asking for money. We ask for officer time from local authorities to help us with planning and covering safety and security.’
Given this approach and the size of the event, there is, unsurprisingly, a rather large cost involved.
‘The overall cost for the three days is £7 million,’ says Nash. ‘It’s clearly one of the challenges we face in the current climate. Stewarding, road closures and traffic management all add up to the big numbers. Our primary costs are closing the roads. Across the three days, we close about 280 miles of road, which has to be done in a certain way.’
But with 25,000 participants paying the average RideLondon-Essex ticket price of £99, the organisation is still missing four and a half million pounds.
‘Our partners and sponsors plug the rest of that gap,’ says Nash. ‘It’s tight, and to generate a profit is challenging, but we’re in the right place. We also have a suite of other events, such as the London Marathon, that helps generate profits for the group. That’s how we can deliver RideLondon on a sustainable basis.’
Talking of sustainability…
According to Kate Chapman, head of sustainability at London Marathon Events, sustainability has been at the forefront of their planning since 2019.
‘It has become more important to our sponsors, suppliers, the charities that we work with, and to us as an organisation. This year we moved from in-house carbon data analysis to using a specialist platform, which has taken a huge amount of time so we’re a bit delayed on understanding our 2023 footprint, but my expectation is that big changes will come between 2024 and 2025.’
With the scale of the event, it’s easy to assume RideLondon has a considerable carbon footprint, but all may not be as it seems.
‘Out of all our events, the London Marathon has the biggest carbon footprint, and RideLondon comes in second,’ says Chapman. ‘There are fewer issues to tackle with RideLondon mostly because cyclists are more self-sufficient than runners. We don’t need to give out as much stuff, as cyclists carry a lot of their nutrition as well as any extra layers they have on, and they have their own water bottles. For RideLondon you turn up, you ride, and at the end we give you a medal. It’s as simple as that.’
To help organise 75,000 cyclists, RideLondon requires a fleet of 100 vehicles, but even here Chapman aims to reduce the carbon footprint as much as possible: ‘More than 50% of the vehicles were electric this year. The real limitation is that the short-term hire market doesn’t have enough electric vans to supply us. As that situation changes, we can make a wholesale switch over to electric.’
Car manufacturer Ford came on board as title sponsor of the event this year, prompting accusations of greenwashing. However, Chapman argues that Ford’s electric vehicles and its ‘Park the Car’ initiative – whereby it encourages people to cycle or walk for journeys of under three miles rather than use a car – are central to the sponsorship.
‘The partnership doesn’t feel counter-intuitive as it’s solely about promoting EVs and reducing the impact of shorter journeys,’ she says. ‘I think the idea of parking the car and getting on your bike is a strong message, and the partnership works in a way that is transparent – it’s a car company saying don’t use a car, use a bike.’
The big clean-up
RideLondon doesn’t have figures for the amount of waste generated across the three days. It says this is because it has so many waste collection partners, but compared to the London Marathon, the numbers are small.
‘Our energy gel and drink provider is High5, which collects the wrappers and uses the company TerraCycle to recycle them,’ says Chapman. ‘We ask riders to deal with their rubbish responsibly, and we do route cleaning afterwards – the agreement is that we leave the roads cleaner than we found them.
‘The biggest issue is how people travel to and from the event. We’re looking into having a tailored travel planning section on the app, so that we can show participants the lowest carbon options to get to the event.’
The amount of organisation, cost and coordination that goes into RideLondon is astronomical, and the event is constantly evolving, but most importantly, as Nash says, ‘It’s a space for everybody who celebrates cycling’.
Ford RideLondon takes place from 24th to 26th May 2024. To enter, visit ridelondon.co.uk
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