Rupert Rivett's blog

The end of season Cyclosportive Party was sometime ago but I thought I would put some photos up of the day. It was a great day for being out on the bike. Lovely weather and equally lovely company as cyclist form the Cyclosportive industry got together for this ride. I was there to enjoy myself so the photos won't win any pulitzer prize for photo-journalism just snaps of my day.

An excellent day organised by Cyclosport.org but for me it was tinged with slight sadness as Wales lost the Rugby match on the same day.

I started off in the fast group I have to say I felt sure that I was going to keep up with the Legend that is Stephen Roche ex Tour de France winner and one of only two cyclist to win the Triple Crown of victories in the Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia stage races, plus the World road race championship.

But Stephen was looking fit and after only a few miles before we even reached Box Hill the fast group spat me out the back. It was maybe a bit ambitious of me to try and keep up with the fast group when I don't really ride much these days and never really at any high speed.

There is always next year though :-) and maybe next time I will get a few more miles in before this party and hope to keep up with the fast guys who probably think they were going slow when they dropped me...... but had these guys been organising cycling events all year ?

 

Damon Hill above An early start in Brighton meant that the 2011 Future car challenge started with very few spectators.

The Furture car Challenge is a motoring challenge for Electric, Hybrid and Low-Emission ICE vehicles to use the lowest energy on a 60 mile route from Madeira Drive, Brighton to Pall Mall & Regent Street, London.

It is a real shame that we aren't all driving around in electric cars now. We all know profit comes before development of new ideas but the technology for all these cars has been around for some years now and yet we're still a long way from ceasing using petroleum vehicles.

There is a long list of culprits that are guilty for stopping the rise of the electric car, with petroleum companies and governments being part of the mix that did there best to slow the rise of the electric car in the past ...........and probably still are. 

A very good documentary called "Who Killed the Electric Car" by Chris Paine documents the development of the electric  in the mid 1990's. The rise of the electric car in these early days which was a great success until the powers that be made sure these new electric cars were destroyed and buried in the Nevada Desert.  Probably one of the biggest blunders in the history of the automotor industry, let alone the environment.

Who Killed the Electric Car click here

The RAC future car challenge is a great idea and I hope that support and interest from the general public grows for this event.  Next year get yourself down to Brighton Seafront to see these cars.

At this point I would suggest to electric car makers to fit something to electric cars that creates noise at least at low speeds as the risk of being run over by an electic car is much greater as they are just so quiet, which has its advantages but not in the centre of town where pedestrians aren't aware of the sleath like motion of an electric car.

NEXT STEP MAKE FORMULA ONE  ELECTRIC !  Well one can hope, it would probably be more exciting judging by the rapid speed some of the electric cars moved away from the start of the Future Car Challenge in Brighton.