Great Dublin Bike Ride 2022

I did it in 2016 or 2017 and it was a joke, it was expensive at the time compared to other sportives (40 i think?), the first food stop was a disaster with massive queues, then they inexplicably had a second in blanchardstown about 10k from the finish that everyone was coralled through. Haven't done it since, that route seems even worse, most of it appears to be in Meath? While it avoids the city centre, the time I did it the roads were closed and there was a garda escort as far as baldoyle, so was cool to just ride through the city without the lights. That's all gone now starting from DCU

Its a no from me. You effectively get nothing for the entry fee other than the closed route at the start. Initially you got a jersey and they've whittled away at the value over the years. Lets face it, ye could ride the route any day of the week!

Don't get me wrong, its well organised, but there's no value in it any more.

I considered doing it when I saw the date as I actually wasn't working on that date, but when I saw the route and the cost, I decided against going. I've done it once before anyway

I've signed up to do this for the first time and I'm already pretty unimpressed with the organisation and lack of communication. It appears that you have to collect your number on Friday or Saturday before the event on Sunday. Absolutely insane in my opinion with people travelling from all of the country to do this. There was no mention of this at all when registering and purchasing the ticket and no mention at all on their website still that you have to actually do this. Only a post on facebook which I'm not actually on. Luckily someone I'm doing it with is and mentioned it to me. Otherwise I would have been turning up Sunday without a number and no option to collect it. But I've a feeling there are going to be quite a lot of people turning up without a number.

Having to collect your numbers from Tallaght for an event that starts over the other side of the city in DCU is absolutely daft.

There were certainly parts on the return part that were tough enough but I think the wind had a bit to do with that.

Overall I think it was very well marshalled on the day apart from one of the steep downhills with a sharp turn at the end of it. Could definitely done with a bit more advanced warning of it. Saw someone on the ground that got caught out who seemed to be in a bad way, luckily being attended to. Hope he was ok afterwards.

The last point I will make is about the number collection again, it was pretty much pointless given that there was no checking of them whatsoever. A complete wasted effort to go get them which is frustrating. I did enjoy it but this was just annoying.

in some events your number is used to connect you to pictures taken throughout the route. a possible reason (but not a great one!)

A clubmate on Strava mentioned "carnage on the descent off Snowtown" so I presume it was that bend where straight on leads to the Happy Valley. Very easy to overcook it there if you're not used to it.

Ha. Just looked at the route. Walterstown to Finglas is a pretty straight, boring road for a return leg on a windy day.

Way out looked good. Few nice hills and bit of scenery. Much better ways back to Dublin from Duleek.......

Wont participate again ! Did the 100k route

1)Wrong route in website(gpx link was old one)

2)Poorly planned stops

3)Food was not good enough

Only good thing was the marshals!

This was my third time doing GDBR 100Km, having done 2017 & 2018 on different routes. I've always enjoyed it as getting to cycle through some of the areas with marshal/garda assistance to get through junctions makes it a fun experience. Yesterday was no different.

The first few hundred metres out of DCU was a little tight so it was slow going until we hit Collins Avenue and made our way towards the coast. The pace picked up immediately and groups settled in to their own pace. I found myself in the 2nd group from the front which was about 40-50 riders deep. We got out to the coast and paced continue to be high. We got to the turn off for Baldoyle and every single person in the group, except myself, went straight on for Howth. It was a combination of Garda/Marshall not paying attention, directional signage being poor and people not knowing the route. I trudged on for about 1-2Km until the group scooped me back up. The group I was on caught up with the front group which had Nico Roche and Eve McCrystal in it. The surface through ballyboughal was shocking compared to the rest of the route. This group stuck together until the first hill at about 37Km.

With the hilly section under way, I dropped off the back straight away and didn't push through the hills over the next few Kms. I've not done a lot of hills on the bike recently so I didn't want to burn any matches too early. The hills lasted about 10Km with the last descent being where the rider went down. There was a sign at the top of the descent to say "descent ahead" which was fine but there nothing throughout the descent to say there's a sharp turn at the very bottom. This needs to be improved. Throughout the hills, I caught up with others who had got spewed out the back of the lead group and a few of us started to work together to make the miles tick over a bit easier. This lasted up until the feed station at about 60Km, were I opted to continue going solo. Had a few riders catch up with me and we worked together for a few Km, when those that had stopped caught up and that was the group that stayed together until the finish. The headwind between 50-70Km was a pain so taking turns out front on this stretch made it easier until we turned for home.

From 70Km until the finish, time flew by. There was a solid group who mostly worked together. I took very very brief stints on the front. At one point I went to the back and almost got dropped but made the effort to get back on. About halfway through this section, a few got spit out the back. We met the 60Km riders during this stretch and admittedly, they were much better on the road than prior years when some would be weaving or pulling out without checking what is coming behind. With about 15Km to go, traffic started to get a little bit heavy. There were also a few junctions were we had to full on stop as they were just too busy for the marshal/garda to let us go on. One small roundabout towards the end had no marshall/garda on it and there was almost a crash. Thankfully not though. Got to the finish. The start/finish area was easier to navigate this time around. Got around comfortably in under 3hr30. Needed a few moments at the end to gather myself. Got my medal and "goodie" bag and started to make my way to the food.

The bike storage area was well put together but too far away from the food. There was plenty of space along the promenade or further up past the food area for it to be put there. It is a minor quibble (of many) but last thing I wanted to do was walk a few hundred metres in sweaty cycling gear in the chilly air. Food at the end was tasty and plentiful. Tea/Coffee on offer too. The sitting area was well put together and I got speaking with a few people as I was munching on the pasta. Went back to get my bike and whilst there was a number sticker on my bike and helmet, security never checked that they matched on the way out. This had the potential for disaster so hopefully no bikes went missing.

It was mentioned for a few years running on this event that the detour in by the sports campus was a waste of time so near the end. Delighted that they got rid of it as it was chaos in there with people weaving around trying to get fuel/water. The directional signage was piss poor. They were too small and not enough of them. This needs to be improved upon significantly. Mentioned in this thread already that the goodie bag has been deteriorating at every iteration. It went from a jersey to a cap to what we got this year which was a Cycling Ireland bottle and a CSS voucher. Piss poor though with costs rising for everything, I guess it was hard to see anything else going in there. I also didn't frequent the food stop but when you stop on a ride when it is chilly/windy, the last thing you want is water and a banana. Tea/Coffee with a sandwich/cake would have gone a long way.

A few people have mentioned the cost and I think for what you get in the capital, there's not much they're going to be able to squeeze out for what it is. There would need to be a significant increase in entry fee and entrants to get something along the lines of the Prudential Ride London with fully closed roads etc. I'm also not sure the ambition is there from CI. The Dublin marathon gets around 20k entries so they're on a different scale to GDBR which I think had around 1,500 entries. There should have been a P&P option for the number collection as there is with most large scale running events. I've no idea why this wasn't available, other than to get people in to CSS premises.

In prior years, they had used the rider number was used for the event photos. Does anyone know how we can get hold of these? There were plenty of photographers out but I haven't seen anything on their social media feeds with details on the photos.

Has anyone heard about the rider who went down? I'd passed shortly after the incident and the marshals were looking after him. Get well soon.