Vélo Birmingham & Midlands crash: Cyclist's death leads to witness appeal

For used gel wrappers we now have this, 

https://www.closethegap.cc/product/hidemywaste/

it's a little top tube mounted bin.  Singletrack featured it yesterday in their Fresh Goods.  Environmentally, a bit negative, it is after all made of plastic, but if it stops some littering for people who must have tech and if it's used enough.  Me I wrap my brownies and flapjacks in greaseproof and foil, scrunched up and back in the bag, and put my banana skins back in their bananaguards for the journey home.  

1. Please stop swearing. It's a public forum.

2. These events do encourage poor riding, be it deliberate or as part of limiited riding experience.  Some take the opportunity to speed with no concern for others (nothing rare nowadays, me, me, me is the current fashion) and some just cannot cope as they don't know how to ride in groups. A factor in this is the demise of the club system whereby a novice rode with experienced riders who showed them skills and manners. Now the internet is the guide and people think that they are all racers. Not the only thing but part of it.

To suggest that a closed road is a good place for new comers is valid but doesn't take into account the situation.

Sadly these events need give and take and there are elements on both sides that are selfish( as proved above) I can see why people object. Several events runs around me. Route signs are still left over from last year, the verges are full of gel wrappers and inner tubes dimwits ride 3and 4 abreast on country lanes.

These events are essentially de facto races, attended by those with nearly no experience of Cycle races as far as I can tell. You need years of experience to be able to cope with the environment you find yourself in, and the majority of the riders in this type of event don’t have anything like the experience required in my opinion. 

Commiserations to the family and friends of the rider who died.

As someone who rode this event, the previous Birmingham Velo, Ride London twice and Tour of Cambridge twice, I am not sure it was that well organised.

1. I think the start times should have been staggered over a longer period so that the riders were more strung out. I suspect pressures to reopen roads as soon as possible put paid to this. There was also no checking of colours/waves when I started, so perhaps this contributed to everyone starting almost together and therefore bunching of riders?

2. We were soon onto fairly narrow roads and given the above there was bunching/slowing down at the slightest issue. There are double the number of riders in Ride London, but bunching is not such an issue and Ride London is on bigger/wider roads for longer before hitting the Surrey lanes.

3. The feed stops seemed under-sized with riders spillinmg out onto the roads for fear of being sucked into the frenzy at the stops and getting stuck. Of course, those riders stopping on the road slowed those who didn't want to stop... 

4. Too many riders didn't understand the idea of keeping left, leaving the right clear for those wishing to go faster. 

4. Agree on the litter - way too many gel wrappers littering the roads.

Agreed it was very well organised,the volunteers/marshalls were fantastic, the crowds cheering us along were unexpected & totally appreciated. But yeah the standard of some of the riding was very questionable,clearly people going for a time who refused to slow down even at the scene of the accidents when asked, or when it was obvious they were just going to crash,there were two crashes going up a hill at walking pace,destroyed a guys rear mech with 10miles to go. Had few near misses myself with people diving through gaps that werent there or not holding their line properly through corners.

Plus the litter,there must have been a near continuous line of discarded gels some used,some clearly bounced out of pockets for the whole 100 miles,plus water bottles,arm warmers,gps computers,apparently someone even lost their car keys and someone lost their timing chip/number en route

Thoughts are very much with the family/friends of the guy who died though.

It was a superbly arranged event and the route was great.

Of course we wish there were no problems  but it was a major event so expect a few, surprised at the lady and her horse, wonder why she could not arrange for the horse not to be stuck inside the closed roads, if you live near the course it would have been hard not to know you needed to make arrangements as the organsiers had publicised the event widely and leafleted  widely too.  Very sorry to hear that the horse and foal were not saved.

A minor wrinkle in a superbly organised event was that we were not told that the car park we had paid Velo for had been cancelled.

Truly sorry to hear about the horrible crash - thoughts & prayers with the family. 

Birmingham traffic at a standstill, poor dears, it's never happened before!

Some people on twitter stating there was an escort for the vet (unconfirmed officially) But I suspect it was the wait for the bike and then it had to go at a safe speed which is the main cause for press release from the owners.

In terms of the horse incident, it was probably a job's worth marshal.  Had CSM been contacted by the marshal then one can assume that the vet would have been escorted to the stables.   I feel sorry for horse owner and this incident does not put the event in a good light.   If the event is repeated then marshal's may require better briefings on what to do. 

Why is the event accused of poor organisation? The horse thing is going to be the main news by the MSM and anti cycling, yet the owner did not have any plans in place herself being as she knew there was road closures on a day very close to birth. It isn’t like she didn’t have months of notice of both the pregnancy and road closures. Lots of contingencies could have been made including alerting the organisers of a potential emergency and plans in case it was one of the 2% of births that might need assistance.

And as for the parking, organisers did warn of parking in the literature. But I did see lots of traffic issues mainly because cyclists who attended decided to mostly park less then 100 yards away from the start even though they had means of transport which meant they could easily have parked a lot further out. Some popular youtuber visited a few months which caused more traffic chaos in Birmingham with people stuck for several hours yet they aren’t being blamed for poor organisation.