M25 Cycle Race

CYCLATHON M25

The question of who was first to cycle completely round the M25 is controversial. The late Forster Quinn claimed to have pedalled the 118 miles in 6 hours 35 minutes and 11 seconds (but 2 minutes 14 seconds could be subtracted for a pee into a newly-pebbled French Drain near the Sevenoaks junction). He began his (anti-clockwise) ride just before midnight on Saturday June 15th 1986, wearing a “Motorway Maintenance” fluorescent jacket and carrying bogus electronic equipment and transmitting aerial, which seem to have worked because, though several police cars slowed for a chat, none became suspicious. The Dartford Tunnel (the bridge not yet having been built) was, as he put it, ”The scariest thing since the Mont St. Bernard!” Memorably, pedalling east just before the M11 junction Quinn reported passing another cyclist travelling west on the opposite hard shoulder. With the exception of a “cheery wave” the two ignored each other, so the identity and itinerary of this other pioneer remains a mystery.

Has this pioneering achievement ever been repeated? Quinn, alas, died last year, with his achievement almost forgotten. Despite extensive private enquiries, reading of cycling journals and “Googling” I have drawn a blank. In the twenty three years that have ensued, the M25 has become some three times busier, CCTV coverage is now continuous and specialist policing highly organised. It is extremely doubtful that any attempt would last for more than five or ten miles. We all seem to have internalised the ban on pedestrians and cyclists from motorways so meekly and completely that trespassing in Buckingham Palace Grounds is more frequent, while railway lines are relatively over-run with explorers. However, all this is due to change for just one day next Summer in a unique spectacular organised by the British Olympic Society to give the world a foretaste of the spectacles to be expected at the London Games of 2012!

After prolonged consultations with industry, tourist, motoring and cycling organisations, the Department of Transport has sanctioned the COMPLETE CLOSING of the M25 for a period over the Spring bank Holiday Weekend. Just think:

M25 CLOSED!


Starting at 9p.m. on Saturday 29th. May, all entrance sliproads will be closed, preventing traffic from joining the motorway. Comprehensive diversions will be in place, though it is to be hoped that many people and businesses will re-schedule their travel arrangements. All normal traffic is expected to have left the Orbital Motorway by 11p.m., though the police do expect to have to escort a few eccentric drivers from the highway. Work will go on through the early hours of Sunday 30th to convert the clockwise carriageway into parking lots and through-access for logistical and emergency traffic, the anticlockwise carriageway being reserved for cylists attempting the full or part circuit. Curiously, intuition suggests that the “inner”, anticlockwise carriageway should constitute a considerably shorter circuit than the outer, but a quick revisiting of Pythagoras may convice you that the dffrerence is only of the order of a hundred metres.

Ticket-holding and cycle-carrying vehicles will be allowed onto the parking areas from 3a.m.on the morning of Sunday 30th May with the OFF being broadcast from loudspeakers and flashed from overhead gantries at 8a.m. It is expected that most participants, particularly families with children, will cycle only for a few “pedules” of 10 miles or so each, and will then be transported back to their starting-points by a fleet of Bikebuses, more familiar on continental roads than in the U.K., which are simply coaches towing cycle trailers. In order to allow time for those who wish to make the attempt to cycle the full 118 miles, the Motorway will remain closed to normal traffic until midnight on the Sunday, so that normal congested traffic conditions will doubtless return on the morning of Bank Holiday Monday, 31st May

How many will participate? The organisers are hoping that CYCLATHON M25 will dwarf even the London Marathon. Could this be the first single athletic event to attract more than a million participants – the World’s Largest Sporting Event Ever? No limit to entries is envisaged, but the sooner would-be particpants apply for tickets, the better the organising joint working party will be able to scale up its preparations. Please register your interest ASAP with The Department of Transport, who, as usual, will probably need a nudge to get them moving. Good luck on THE DAY!

DJM Scarthin Cycling Group updated 10/09