RideLondon “hiatus” for 2025 due to opening of “car use-encouraging” tunnel, suggests FOI request, after London’s walking and cycling commissioner objected to closure of new tunnel for cycling event as “absolute no”

The planned opening of the controversial Silvertown Tunnel in London early next year, which cycling campaigners have said will increase car use and pollution in the capital, was a key factor behind the decision to cancel the popular RideLondon cycle sportive for 2025, newly published correspondence between the event’s organisers and Transport for London has revealed.

According to options laid out by organisers London Marathon Events during discussions with Transport for London (TfL) earlier this year, the central London route used by RideLondon-Essex between 2022 and 2024 would have required the closure of Silvertown Tunnel between 4am and 7pm on the day of the event – a situation London’s cycling and walking commissioner Will Norman described as an “absolute no”.

Meanwhile, three of the event organisers’ five proposed alterations to the annual mass participation rides would have required either full or partial closure of the tunnel, which will link the Royal Docks and Canary Wharf with north Greenwich when it opens in March.

The other revised or alternative routes were also dismissed as having a “much higher” traffic impact on other parts of London and Essex, leading to the event’s ultimate cancellation for 2025.

However, according to both cycling and walking commissioner Norman and London Marathon Events, the need to upend RideLondon’s route due to the opening of the Silvertown Tunnel was just one of a “multitude” of factors behind the “complex” decision to pause the event for 2025.

> RideLondon to take "hiatus" in 2025 for organisers to work on "new concept", with all entrants receiving full refunds

Last month, London Marathon Events announced that next year’s edition of RideLondon had been cancelled, with the event organisers adding that the “hiatus” would allow them to return with “new concept” to involve “more riders of all ages and abilities”.

This year’s edition of RideLondon, the tenth edition of the cycling festival staged in the capital to celebrate the legacy of the 2012 Olympics, included the three-day Women’s UCI World Tour RideLondon Classique race (also cancelled for 2025), mass participation rides over 100 miles, 60 miles, and 30 miles incorporating a loop of Essex, and FreeCycle, a seven-mile traffic-free route through central London for cyclists of all abilities.

However, putting a halt to the festivities for 2025, and announcing that all entrants who had registered early for next year’s event will receive a full refund, the event’s organisers said in September that change is needed for the “world’s greatest festival of cycling” in the future.

(Ben Queenborough for London Marathon Events)

“We feel the time is right to take a pause this year and bring all stakeholders together to work on a new concept for the world’s greatest festival of cycling,” Hugh Brasher, the CEO of London Marathon Events, said at the time.

“We have now staged 10 hugely successful editions of the event which has inspired more than 300,000 people to get back on a bike or cycle more and also raised more than £85 million for charity. 

“No event in 2025 means that we can focus on a full strategic review of RideLondon, which was first held as a London 2012 Olympic legacy event back in 2013, and design a new concept which will engage more riders of all ages and abilities and inspire hundreds of thousands more people to cycle more often.”

> Stars in their cars – Criticising RideLondon road closures reflects wider view that car is king

It’s not currently known what this full strategic review will mean for the future of RideLondon, but in recent years, in London, Essex, and its former home of Surrey, there have been various reports of ill-feeling about the road closures necessary to safely run the event, with Tony Blackburn calling for it last year to be replaced by an “event for car owners” (before later claiming this was a joke).

A cyclist was also seriously injured in a collision with a driver who left the scene during the 2024 running of the event.

And, according to emails published as the result of a Freedom of Information request from London cyclist Alex Baxevanis, the issue of road closures – particularly those potentially impacting the soon-to-be-opened Silvertown Tunnel – was a key factor behind the decision to pause RideLondon, an event reliant on its access to the capital’s roads, for 2025.

“Any impact on Silvertown is an absolute no”

The Silvertown Tunnel, which is currently being built under the Thames and will link Silvertown to the Greenwich Peninsula in east London, is set to open in the early months of 2025.

While Transport for London says the 1.4km road tunnel will “improve air quality” and “enable more cycle journeys”, the project has been the subject of constant criticism from cycling campaigners and other local activists, who claim it will encourage car use, result in more lorries entering London, and increase pollution.

> “You can’t polish a climate turd, but you can sprinkle it with active travel glitter”: Cyclists slam proposals for ‘bike bus’ through controversial tunnel as “bikewashing”

In 2019, TfL said that it would also be “unsafe” to allow cyclists to ride through Silvertown Tunnel, and that it could not afford to build an alternative walking and cycling bridge between Rotherhithe and Canary Wharf. Instead, TfL proposed the idea, confirmed this week, of converting three single-decker buses into “bike buses”, which will transport cyclists and their bikes through the new tunnel “at least” five times an hour.

In correspondence between London Marathon Events and Transport for London earlier this year, published in redacted form as part of the FOI request, the Silvertown Tunnel posed a similar headache for RideLondon’s organisers.

In June, London’s walking and cycling commissioner Will Norman was described in one email exchange as asserting that “unsurprisingly any impact on Silvertown is an absolute no”.

According to London Marathon Events, however, the existing RideLondon-Essex route would have required the closure of the tunnel from 4am to 7pm on the day of the event, while “avoiding [the tunnel’s] closure requires a complete revision of the event route to and from central London due to the impact” on the A13, A501, and A10, which the organisers noted has no underpasses or bridges inside the M25 before London Bridge.

The apparent need to avoid any road closures near the tunnel, the exit of which will be located next to RideLondon’s usual route through Canning Town, became a constant theme of the correspondence over the summer, with staff from TfL pointing out that “anything is going to be difficult” concerning potential revised routes avoiding the new tunnel.

“Looking at avoiding Tidal Basin, Dock Road, Silvertown Way etc, and Silvertown Tunnel means we cannot use Embankment, Tower Hill, Highway, Limehouse Link, Aspen Way, and Lower Lea Crossing, as peeling off of the existing route means that we impact the A13 as there are no bridges or underpasses,” one of the event’s organisers told TfL in an email from 13 June.

In mid-July, three “broad options” were identified, based on proposed starts in either central, west, or east London, which involved either cutting, adding to, or reversing parts of the Essex route, limiting the time spent among London’s “iconic cityscape”, and moving the FreeCycle event from Sunday to Saturday to accommodate the sportive.

During a meeting between TfL and London Marathon Events in early August, however, the organisers argued that “reversing or changing the route in Essex also has a big impact”, while the impact of any probable revised route on local road closures and businesses “is much higher than existing 2022-24 route”.

In the meeting, LME proposed six possible route options, the first of which proposed that the current route since 2022, with its finish on Tower Bridge, would remain in place to “maximise access and minimise impact”, a proposal kiboshed by TfL’s request to keep Silvertown Tunnel open.

Option B, meanwhile, which would have exited London through the A10 and avoided Silvertown Tunnel entirely while taking in a clockwise route direction in Essex and moving the FreeCycle event to the Saturday, was dismissed as “not viable” because it would not permit enough east to west movement, as well as having “too much impact on Hackney”.

LME also said the plan would impact the bus network and, due to the presence of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, make “local access difficult in some areas”.

The impact of LTNs was also cited in the organisers’ appraisal of Option C, which would have seen the RideLondon participants avoid central London and exit the city through Camden Town.

However, the organisers raised concerns about the possibility of a clash with Tottenham Hotspur’s final home Premier League match of the season, while the Essex route would have to be reversed to retain the event’s 100-mile distance, which would also have reduced the entrants’ experience of “iconic London”.

Option D, on the other hand, would have moved the start to south-west London, incorporating much of the route used between 2013 and 2019, with a finish from the north. However, to allow the event to leave London, Silvertown Tunnel faced a morning closure, which the organisers said was “weighed against the impact of A13, A11, A501 closures”, a proposal also considered in Option F.

Option E, however, would have meant that, despite retaining the usual clockwise direction in Essex and plenty of iconic London, Silvertown Tunnel would have to close all day.

The impasse over alternative, revised routes for next year’s RideLondon eventually led to September’s announcement that RideLondon had been “paused for 2025”.

“There were other circumstances that led to the decision”

But while this internal correspondence seems to point to the opening of Silvertown Tunnel, and its impact on the current RideLondon-Essex route, as a key factor behind this decision, both LME and London’s walking and cycling commissioner Will Norman have told road.cc that the new tunnel was one of several issues that influenced the event’s “hiatus”.

“There were a multitude of reasons behind the decision to take a pause in 2025 to reimagine the future of the event and work on a new concept for RideLondon,” Hugh Brasher, CEO of London Marathon Events, told us on Thursday morning.

“We had staged ten hugely successful editions of the event which had inspired more than 300,000 people to get back on a bike or cycle more and also raised more than £85 million for charity. 

“We’re looking forward to the strategic review of the event and discussing exciting ideas for the future of RideLondon, the world’s greatest festival of cycling.”

(RideLondon)

When approached by road.cc for comment, Will Norman added: “This email exchange is referring to one aspect of a complex decision that had many factors and was the subject of extensive engagement with key stakeholders, including London Marathon Events.

“The issues around any route changes associated with the Silvertown Tunnel were just one aspect of planning RideLondon 2025, and there were other circumstances that led to the decision to take a pause.

“I remain in positive discussions with London Marathon Events about how to bring back this hugely popular event in 2026.”

> “A sad day for women’s cycling”: RideLondon Classique cancelled for 2025 as UCI “unilaterally” moves dates “without consultation or prior warning”

As noted above, the first RideLondon took place in 2013, as a legacy event following the 2012 Olympics. It took place annually until 2019 but was cancelled in 2020 and 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic. Since returning, the event has been held in partnership with Essex County Council for the last three editions.

Even before last month’s announcement, the future of the event had already begun to look uncertain, with organisers confirming in June that the popular RideLondon Classique women’s stage race, held at the same time as the mass participation events, had been cancelled for 2025.

(Simon MacMichael)

The race was first held in 2013 as a one-day race before being granted Women’s World Tour status in 2016, the same year that it became the richest women’s race in the world with a total prize fund of €100,000, equalling the now-defunct men’s RideLondon-Surrey Classic.

The cancellation came amidst a bizarre mix-up between the organisers and the UCI, as the pro cycling's governing body unveiled its 2025 calendar for both the men’s and women’s World Tours and with it the news that the RideLondon Classique had been shunted from its traditional slot in the last full weekend of May to the following weekend, in order to provide space for the trio of Spanish stage races – the Vuelta Femenina, Itzulia, and the Vuelta a Burgos – that take up most of the month.

That date change – which London Marathon Events claims was made “unilaterally” and without consultation by the UCI – forced the race into an unexpected hiatus due to the protracted and complicated nature of planning events in London, a process borne out by the email exchanges that precipitated RideLondon-Essex’s own demise for 2025, at least.