I have been looking at the London Marathon to-day. It uses mile and metric splits. The BWMA and/or the UKIP were not active to-day, it seems. I have not seen any defaced or destroyed km markers. It is sponsored by Flora. There were signs:
FLORA Toilets 200 m. BWMA and UKIP, where are you? In Northern France is also the Paris-Roubaix cycle race of 261 km. Of course this race is a metric-only event as all cycle races are, even if some English speaking reporters who cover such races don't seem to understand this, and pretend that they are ifp fests. American cycle-racers (Hincapie, Armstrong) took part as well. The hallmark of this race is riding over numerous stretches of very bad cobblestone roads. These roads are now only used by agricultural traffic. The cobblestones cause punctures and crashes. Sometimes serious injuries result; a few years ago a Belgian racer crashed and was kneecapped on one of the worst stretches; his recovery was slow, but he made his come back. He *won* today 3 minutes before rthe competition. The race is called the Hell of the North because of these dangers. Han Historian of Dutch Metrication, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
