The only way is Essex

For 2022, Essex stepped into the breach left by Surrey’s exit from RideLondon, Britain’s largest sportive. Anna Gardiner, in her first 100-mile ride, joins in the fun…

- Anna Gardiner

A century sportive is one of those events within the cycling community where you don't feel you're a proper cyclist until you've completed one. So what better way to get my first under my belt than to ride May's Ride London-Essex 100, not the toughest 100 in the country but without question the biggest?

The 100, along with other events across the weekend, including a three-day women's pro race and FreeCycle family ride in the city centre, was resurrected this year. It followed an uncertain period, brought on by both the Covid-19 pandemic, which forced the event's cancellation in 2020 and 2021, and the withdrawal of both Surrey County Council as the host of the sportive and Prudential as a deep-pocketed title sponsor. It was originally established in 2013 as a legacy event of the 2012 London Olympics, and that version of the 100mile sportive traced the tracks of the road race through Surrey, up the likes of Box Hill and Leith Hill. For 2022, the sportive, in its longest configuration, remains 100 miles on roads closed to traffic, but now heads from central London and Victoria Embankment into the leafy lanes of Essex, on a course that might lack the iconic climbs of Ride London mark 1 but is by no means flat, with 1,100m of climbing. Across the three distances - 100, 60 and 30 miles - over 20,000 people were set to take part, with 23% of starters in the longest event women - up 40% from last time.

23% - The proportion of female cyclists who entered the 100-mile event

Triple whammy