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Bike_Oxford_2016_2.jpgIconic Cycling Events offer team road.cc members a 10% discount off of Bike Bath, Oxford & Chester sportives
The team at Iconic Cycling Events spend their time designing, developing and delivering high quality cycling events around the UK and overseas working with a range of event partners, sponsors and stakeholders at each event including British Cycling.
Bike Bath is the cycling sportive event that set it all of. Starting in the city centre that takes in routes of varying lengths in the countryside surrounding the spa city with routes changing each year. The event is now well-established in the South West of England’s cycling calendar and following its success in 2012 and 2013, Iconic Cycling Events was launched in 2014 with the introduction of Bike Oxford with Bike Chester launching in 2016.
Iconic Cycling Events are giving our members the chance to get 10% discount off of the entry fee for each of these events which you can access from here in the member's section.
Not a member? Well just click on the links below to enter each event and hopefully some of us will see you there.
Bike Oxford
Starting at Oxford University Rugby Club, near to the historic city centre, Bike Oxford takes a short route around the colleges before heading into the Cotswold countryside, providing spectacular scenery for riders. The sportive which will be celebrating its 5th anniversary in 2018 champions local produce and includes rides of 25, 50 and 80 miles.
Entry Price:
- 80 & 50 mile routes - £36
- 25 mile route - £26
- Under 16’s - £15
Bike Chester
Starting at The King’s School, Bike Chester features routes of 25, 50 and 80 miles, all of which will take in the spectacular local countryside. The sportive will be celebrating its 3rd year in 2018 and has feedstations championing local produce.
Entry Price:
- 80 & 50 mile routes - £36
- 25 mile route - £26
- Under 16’s - £15
Bike Bath
Bike Bath is one of the largest single day city cycling events in the South West, attracting over 1000 riders to the spa city. Routes change each year but have previously included the Cotswolds and Mendips including the iconic Cheddar Gorge climb and on the shorter routes the famous Two Tunnels, Europe’s longest cycling tunnel, ensuring all rides are extremely enjoyable yet challenging.
Entry Price:
- 80 & 50 mile routes - £36
- 25 mile route - £26
- Under 16’s - £15
As part of the Tech Hub here at F-At Digital, our senior product reviewer Stu uses the knowledge gained from putting well over a 1,000 products through their paces (including hundreds of bikes) to write in-depth reviews of a huge range of kit. After first throwing his leg over a race bike back in 2000, Stu's ridden more than 160,000 miles on road, time-trial, track, and gravel bikes, and while he's put his racing days behind him he still likes to smash the pedals rather than take things easy. Although, as he spends a fair bit of his time reviewing ebikes these days he's becoming an expert in letting the motor take the strain. He's also waiting for 23mm race tyres to make a comeback!
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91 comments
Ah...don't you just love internicsene arguments.
Actually, no, not really as they tend to dissolve into petty name calling and insultsm, and nobody EVER changes their views or comes round to the argument of others. So pointless really. See above.
Tiresome (tyresome
)
This is still going?
"I do not recall." - Jeff Sessions/Burtthebike
"Wow" - Jon Baptiste
*Sits back and unpacks picnic..
It took three pages but we've made it! Yeee haaaaw!
What we do know so far:
There are policies/insurers that mandate the use of cycle helmets in cycling events and there are also those who don't
What we don't know so far:
Why event organisers decide to choose those insurers/policies that mandate the use of cycle helmets
There are lots of (logical?) assumptions as to why but we are yet to have an actual answer from someone who has been involved with the insurance from either side (event organisor or insurer).
I have to say though, I can't imagine a scenario where an event organiser would choose to take out insurance with extra restrictions without some other incentive.
Well - personally, I thank the organisers of such events for bothering to do so in the first place.
Even if I'm not allowed to wear a mankini...
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWN.
So you have nothing but a dull retort YAAAAAWN, yet again proving you can't enter into a debate about something that has a massive negative effect on cycling as a whole and its safety without dullards like you turning up and making a fool of themselves because they don't have the capacity to make a point without turning to insults and childish remarks.
Gotcha.
A negative effect on cyclng?! What fucking planet do you live on?! Go outside once in a while and see what's occurring. Better still, ride your bike with other people instead of by yourself and see how "negative" the impact is of wearing a helmet.
Sportives are regularly over subscribed but that's negative, right? Cycling in the UK is at an all time high but that's negative, right?
If you choose not to wear a helmet and not ride in a group because you're socially retarded then fine, that's your choice, but to constantly bang on about it to a group who really couldn't give two fucks deserves a big old YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWN.
I went over the bonnet of a car a while back and face first into the kerb on the other side. You know what stopped my head being split open? A helmet. But you keep on about how they're useless.
Clearly on your planet it doesn't look at facts regarding the damage that cycle helmets have done worldwide, not just in the increased danger on an indiidual basis but also for groups and cycling as a whole. Nope you and your planet ignore all of that or just call it false news, maybe you're related or indeed are Donald Trump?
I mean you spout shite all the time like that orange faced turnip so the similarities are scarily similar. Wearing helmets and the forcing of wearing have removed freedoms, pushed unlawful acts, criminalised cycling, put people off from cycling, increased obesity, increased motor travel, pushed responsibility for safety onto people on bikes and so on.
But your planet doesn't recognise any of that.
As I thought you are a fuckwit of epic proportions
I'll assume that you know the meaning of irony...
Really, how has somebody as dense as you managed to live for so long yet alone pro-create?! It defies both science & logic in all it's forms. The repeated knocks to your head are clearly starting to have an effect. A helmet would definitley help you out and I'm surprised your carer doesn't make you wear one. Fuck off back to your cave you utter luddite.
I'm one of the team behind these sportives, so allow me to clear a few things up.
1. British Cycling (who we insure through) definitely mandate helmets for sportives. From the terms of their insurance: "The wearing of hard shell helmets conforming to CE standards EN1078 is mandatory for all riders participating in British Cycling registered events. It is the organisers’ responsibility to notify all participants, prior to event day, that the wearing of helmets is a requirement of the event." (I'd link to this if I could, but the link on the BC site is broken).
The example Burt quoted was for Let's Ride, which are a different category of events (They're what used to be known as Sky Rides).
2. While there are insurers and events out there which don't require riders to have helmets, most of the riders on them still choose to wear one. We get over a thousand riders on some of our events, which indicates that for most people, it isn't an issue.
3. Even in countries with high levels of everyday cycling, it's completely standard for sportive organisers to have a mandatory helmet rule. e.g. the Amstel Gold sportive: https://www.amstel.nl/amstelgoldrace/belangrijke-informatie Rule 2.10 translates as "Wearing a crash helmet is mandatory during the entire tour." So you'll have to forgive us if we look sceptically at claims that making helmets a mandatory requirement on a sportive suppresses everyday cycling.
While I'm here, the reason that Bike Bath isn't a 2-day event any more is that it wasn't financially viable to keep doing this. However it is something we'd like to reintroduce in the future. We got our highest ever number of riders last year and we're on track to break that this year; we also get a high proportion of novice and female riders. So we might be "incompetent", but we seem to be doing something right.
Burt, your dull retort please.
So you don't offer freedom of choice for clothing for your rides and can't back up your stance with any good reason to be so firm in that, again without any indication that insurers would refuse insurance (you only state that others do it so we do to) so are happy to exclude people who wish to ride without being forced to wear certain attire have I got that correct?
If you have so many riders interested as you state why do you have to go through British Cycling for insurance or even be mandated/aligned with them when in fact that would make zero difference to your uptake (according to your thinking) and indeed if pro choice would potentially increases the numbers that events are attracted to them, it certainly wouldn't diminish would it otherwise your argument fails.
That you and others force, that's right FORCE people to wear certain clothing to take part or the only other option is total exclusion can you not see why people still take part, do you think if there was freedom to choose it would not affect your profit margin in any way?
As I said, you are about EXCLUSION (And like BC and UCI indoctrinating people on bikes) not inclusion unless you abide by excessive, needless and further and importantly, rules that increase danger. Why would you want to increase danger for cycling by enforcing rules to be allowed to take part? Why would you not want to offer freedom of choice that is acceptable the whole world over and is proven not to affect risk, quite the opposite in fact?
We're now on to page three of the 'missing the point' thread and Burt appears to be drowning in 2 inches of water. (You totally missed the smily winky face meant for irony in my previous post btw, and that leads me to be just a little bit worried about you.)
Can't we just leave this thread alone now and move on to throwing poo at monkeys, I swear it'll be more fun, come on I'll meet you at Twycross in an hour, I'll be the one there with a tesco bag for life full of manure dressed in my best lycra and road.cc socks.
Anyway, switching back to the subject of article, is anyone signed up for any of these? I'll be doing Bike Bath and I'm tempted by the Oxford one.
I wouldn't generally want to pay what sportives ask these days and not one for wanting to do mass participation riding in the format advertised. I would however like to have the option to do so.
It's the fact that events like this are not inclusive, quite the opposite of how they portray themselves, they exclude people who might want to participate by removing choice on clothing. The rules on clothing that exclude people are enforced despite the evidence being flaky at best that it enhances safety for ANY type of cycling.
What this type of clothing/rules are proven to do is make mass participation riding MORE dangerous and less safe for the participants.
These events attract riders that for the most part treat them as races in all but name, they like the pros and in other fast riding are proven to be less safe/more at risk of injury due to the rules that are forced upon them or choose voluntarily.
Sad state of affairs.
Enjoy if you're taking part.
To summarise:
Burt contacted some events (he can't remember which events they were).
He then contacted the insurers of said events (he can't remember which insurers they were).
He asked some questions (he can't remember exactly what those questions were).
Based on this incredibly detailed evidence Burt has decided he is definitely right.
To summarise:
lots of people make lots of assumptions about event insurance
none of them have actually checked anything
they can't prove what they say
unable to prove their case, they resort to rather tepid insults
I think you're the one who is unable to prove his case.
Your rather convenient amnesia has made it impossible to verify your claims.
As others have pointed out the fact that an insurance company will insure an event without helmets doesn't automatically mean that the policy for a specific event doesn't mandate helmets.
Without knowing exactly what the specific policy for an event requires and what the alternative polices cost you literally have no case to make.
Anyone can make an enquiry about event insurance and easily prove or disprove my case, but it's rather strange that none of the event organisers have come on here and provided the clause from their insurance mandating helmets.
So we have two competing scenarios; I have said that I have checked with insurance companies and they have denied having a helmet rule. Other people have speculated, assumed and guessed that they do. Take your pick.
You've made a claim and provided absolutely no evidence to back it up.
Why don't you rack your brain for at least a shred of corroborating information before demanding things of other people.
You made the original claim, the onus is on you to provide supporting evidence.
If you don't provide any then it might be reasonable to assume that you've just made the whole thing up...
Probably because they have got better things to do then pick over your posts. If you hadn't gone on a rant I would have asked some relevant people but now I can't be bothered.
Btw Some insurers regard sportives as bike "racing" simply because it's a mass participation event.
Anyone can make an enquiry about event insurance and easily prove or disprove my case, but it's rather strange that none of the event organisers have come on here and provided the clause from their insurance mandating helmets.
So we have two competing scenarios; I have said that I have checked with insurance companies and they have denied having a helmet rule. Other people have speculated, assumed and guessed that they do. Take your pick.
[/quote]
I did enquire, and as I posted earlier, the insurance company I enquired with did not mention that it required helmet use but it did require H&S signoff from British Triathlon or British Cycling and their H&S checks require helmets. So in that situation it is not specifically mandated by the insurers but you wouldn't have the insurance without it.
I have done further research and discovered that there are insurers that mandate helmet use specifically, and those that do not. The question remains as to why the event organisers choose to use those insurers that do require extra restrictions. I am taking a complete guess here but I am willing to bet that it is a cost related issue
Undoubtedly - that and the fact that most of us expect to wear a hat on a sportive and think nothing of it.
Some of us use SPDs on road bikes too (PS, it's hard to tell once you're clipped in...)
Burt? Are you there? You've gone awfully quite and there are so many questions being asked of you.
Oh, how kind! I didn't realise you were missing me. If it's ok with you, I'll occasionally take some time to live my life and earn a crust, not spend all my time answering irrelevant questions.
Mate, you rang multiple insurers to ask if they require helmets to be worn. That is some quality living, you fucking dullard.
These bastards who organise Sportives... who do they think they are, setting perfectly reasonable rules for participation in their events???
Apparently you are not allowed to sport only a mankini and giant foam stetson on some events due to "issues of good taste and decency". Well, excuse me! This country is like the bloody Third Reich.
Not really.
Mind you, they should definately exclude the use of SPDs on road bikes on the grounds above.
I am now very much more interested in this statement. As the majority of people who attend these event are club riders/experience commuters/weekend warriors who would generally use cleats why exclude them? I would be a lot less safe if forced to go back to straps as I can remove my foot from the cleat instinctively.
Sorry Burt, you are just a stuck record. I am glad you think you won this debate.
Aw bless. Someone thinks 'SPDs' = 'cleats'.
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