RideLondon: it’s all change as cycling festival on closed roads returns | Cycling | The Guardian
There were notable differences from the last time the event was held in 2019. Here are five thoughts
Peter Walker
RideLondon is back. After a Covid-enforced hiatus, the closed-roads cycling festival held its first incarnation since 2019 on Sunday, with both the family-based Freecycle and the 30-, 60- and 100-mile rides held on the same day. There have been some changes – so what was it like? As has become traditional, here are five thoughts about the event.
Goodbye Surrey, hello Essex
The first seven editions of the RideLondon 100 (and its shorter cousins) took riders on the same route into the Surrey Hills and back. Now it is Essex, and the difference is notable. No especially steep inclines, like Surrey’s Leith Hill, and more in the way of wide roads – especially in London, where the route in and out, through Stratford and beyond, was something of a mini-tour of London’s urban motorways and underpasses.
