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Prudential RideLondon 2019 finish (credit RideLondon).JPGRideLondon returns next May, but no Box Hill as sportive heads into Essex – find out how to enter here
RideLondon will return next May with a new format including a three-day UCI Women’s WorldTour race – but Box Hill will be missing from the route of the hugely popular sportive ride, with Essex County Council replacing Surrey as partners for the event.
The event will shift from its traditional slot of late July/early August and will take place on Sunday 29 May rather than spanning the entire weekend, as happened in previous editions.
The new RideLondon-Essex 100 sportive will take riders on a 100-mile closed road route from the capital into Essex and back, and unlike in past years where entries were allocated purely by ballot, the first 10,000 entries will go on sale on a first-come, first served basis from Wednesday 10 November.
Places cost £89 and once the initial 10,000 have sold out, prospective entrants will be put in a ballot, which will close at 17:00 on Thursday 20 January 2022.
There will also be family-friendly rides on closed roads in the capital, while the three-day UCI Women’s WorldTour race will run from 27-29 May, with Essex hosting the opening two stages.
There will be no reboot, however, of the men’s elite race that appeared in previous editions as the RideLondon-Surrey Classic but which had already disappeared from the UCI calendar.
Will Norman, London’s Walking and Cycling Commissioner, said: “I’m delighted that, after two years away, RideLondon will return with an exciting new partnership with Essex County Council.
“RideLondon is the world’s greatest festival of cycling and one of the highlights of the year for Londoners.
“From building confidence in new cyclists to enabling more experienced riders to push themselves, as well as offering a chance to cheer on the professionals – there is something for everyone to enjoy.”
The new partnership with Essex County Council follows the announcement by Transport for London (TfL) in March this year that existing organisers London Marathon Events (LME) had been awarded the contract to arrange the event from 2022-31, following more than a year of uncertainty regarding its future direction.
Founding sponsor Prudential announced in January 2020 that it would be terminating its sponsorship after that year’s planned eighth edition, which in the end was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, with a virtual edition held instead.
October 2020 saw Surrey County Council, which had partnered with the event it was established in 2013 as a legacy of the previous year’s London Olympics, announce that it would be ending its participation and focus instead on smaller, “less disruptive events.”
> Surrey withdraws support for RideLondon in favour of "less disruptive events"
It had been the intention to hold a slimmed down, one-day event in central London this year, with no sportive or men’s elite race but again restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic made that impossible.
Commenting on the new partnership, Councillor Lee Scott, Essex County Council’s Cabinet Member for Highways Maintenance and Sustainable Transport, said: “This is absolutely fantastic news for Essex and a tremendous boost for a county which is committed to cycling for all ages and abilities and to supporting active lifestyles.
“Last week we launched Everyone’s Essex, which contains a commitment to get more people to live healthily.
“With RideLondon coming to our great county, we have the chance to inspire people of all ages to get pedalling, and at the same time benefit communities across Essex thanks to the charities and community organisations the event’s charitable trust supports,” he added.
Further information regarding next year’s event will be announced during the coming months, say organisers.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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21 comments
Closed road cycling events are absolutely brilliant and should not be confused with the usual sportives. Well worth £89.
Yes you can ride the route free (possibly, subject to route regulations) but it really is not the same.
I've ridden Ride London, and I've ridden Paris Brest Paris, I think the people of Brittany would rightfully take issue with that statement.
I assume when they say the festival, they don't just mean the 100 mile ride, but all the other stuff around it, including all the closed road riding in London on the Saturday.
London claims to be the greatest at most things, often conflating greatness with size. It's mostly talking to itself (albeit that is quite a lot of people).
(I say this as someone who has happily lived in London for many years but does find the constant Trump-eting of its own greatness a bit wearing).
£89. For a sportive. Say that out loud without laughing...
Seems better value than a typical sportive at £40 to ride on public roads and get a few energy bars.
Want to cycle events on the cheap try audax, want to cycle on closed roads, £89 is not outrageous, velothon Wales was £69
Remember even at £89 there is more demand than spaces, and many people applying to ride who have ridden before, so clearly they did not regret paying £89 for the event.
I do ride Audax for that very reason and have to often wonder why they're so cheap when I'm eating the lunch I've been provided as part of the entry fee!
Eighty nine English pounds is fucking outrageous.
Does Essex have anything comparable to the Surrey Hills within ~40 miles of London? Genuine question - have no clue about the East side of London.
Not just hills, but mountains, apparently...
https://www.essexlive.news/news/essex-news/essex-home-28-mountains-accor...
Details such as route, total number of participants... stuff that definitely has to be known and agreed with local authority .... seem a bit sparce.
But they do emphasise a guarantee in the case of cancellation.
Maybe the first 10,000 people are to test interest and pay for the project to be developed beyond a single webpage and some press releases!
I'm still interested though, closed roads are great!
In this post covid world, a new route and new date in the calendar, I wonder if the 10k (plus charity ones) will be the limit anyway. In August I did the much delayed Etape Loch Ness (67miles closed road) and there was a quarter of the participants who had booked. Now most had booked for April 2020 so 16 months later, lots would have changed, but I know some of the smaller events near me canned it because numbers weren't there due to worry about crowds and such.
I didn't really like the Surrey part of the previous route, mile upon mile of suburbia with the occassional narrow lane bottleneck.
A well chosen Essex route, coming up north to Great Dunmow and Saffron Walden would be potentially quite good.
Maybe I suffered too much in the 2 ridelondon's I did but I dont recognise that description. Besides barrelling though the bits of Urbia at the start and end was a big part of the attraction for me.
Sitting on the fence a bit, much that I loved RL the three times I did it, the old route did have a rather dull bit between Richmond Park and Newlands Corner. But the start, the three big(ish) hills and the finish made up for that.
I did RL in its last year, 2019, having previously ignored it due to difficult logistics. I thought it was fantastic. I was off early and for 3.5 hours tanked along the course at quite a pace with good groups although in the last hour the wheels were falling off somewhat. Public support along the course was excellent. Loved it.
Can't wait for the flood of encouragement sure to happen on all the local Essex FB groups as people realise on the day they can't get somewhere super important...
Yep with only 7 months to plan for that essential journey!
89 quid is too much for me. And the actual route won't be published until next year, how can you sign up for something you don't know where it's going? It'll give the Nimbies less time to put the mockers on it, although I sense another Velosouth debacle coming...
Im not sure you can compare LME to other lesser organisers like the folk behind Velosouth.
Does seem a bit odd that we're being asked to pay £89 with only the most basic details about the event. As does the fact that there is no sponsor yet.
"RideLondon is the world’s greatest festival of cycling" - oh, well in that case £89 seems a bargain...reality is there are quite a few UK events that are better festivals of cycling than RideLondon and none of them are the worlds greatest - I did etape UK the last year it was held and that was better, the Dragon ride is better, Lincoln GP is is better, London Nocturne was better (though it seems defunct) etc.etc. London is good for commuting and for group rides but not sure its the best place for cyclists to ingratiate themselves with the general population by congregating in their 10s of thousands on closed roads on a Sunday morning. It's quite a densely populated area. If it used more central roads, less used at weekends (a la London Marathon) a 100 mile "Crit" would be great.