Boris Johnson has confirmed details of the two day “festival of cycling” he first announced in January.
RideLondon will take place over the weekend of 3rd August 2013 and will be managed by the organisers of the London Marathon and The Tour of Britain through their London & Surrey Cycling Partnership.
City Hall says it hopes the event will become “the largest charity fund-raising cycle ride in the world”.
The festival will be promoted internationally and “provide a long term source of income for investment into improving conditions for cycling in London”.
As previously reported, up to 70,000 cyclists will take part in an eight mile family fun ride past London’s iconic landmarks.
The weekend will also include a 100 mile course beginning in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park for 20,000 amateur, club and world class elite cyclists. The event was originally to include “up to 35,000” cyclists.
There will also be a “city centre grand prix” which will focus on Women’s Elite, hand-cycles and youth groups.
Cyclists who wish to take part in the weekend can now register at www.RideLondon.co.uk.
Mayor Johnson said: “I urge every Londoner and cycle fanatics from all over the country, if not the world, to mark the weekend of 3 August 2013 in their diaries for what I believe will become one of the world’s number one cycling events.”
Nick Bitel of London & Surrey Cycling Partnership, added: “With our combined expertise and technical knowledge of organising elite cycling and mass participation events, LSCP expect to deliver a world class festival weekend of cycling open to amateurs, club and the world’s best cyclists.
“We already know from our charity partners that this event will be a great opportunity to help raise funds for British charities and we will aim to make this the world’s largest charity fund-raising cycle event.”
Commenting on today’s announcement, Liberal Democrat London Assembly leader Caroline Pidgeon said: “A two day world class festival of cycling next year is clearly welcome and will be a great addition to Skyride.
“However the Mayor has merely re-announced existing plans. Incredibly the proposed event will now also be smaller than what was first proposed back in January.
“At the centre of any cycling legacy must be bold measures to make cycling in London far safer and attractive for 365 days a year. If the Mayor wants London to truly become a cycling city he needs to put serious money where his mouth is.”
Julia says
So Sky have dropped their sponsorship of Freewheel and the mayor is rebadging an already long existing event (put on by Ken Livingstone) as a new legacy to the Olympics? Whilst tying it onto Tour of Britain to save on logistics costs? What about sorting out our cycle lanes and dangerous junctions? This is not legacy worthy and using that as a term under the banner of the olympics is absolutely shameful.
Dave H says
So 20,000 cyclists and bikes converge on Stratford, just spoke to aTOC contact who was taken completely by surprise – bad enough sorting out spectators for the Road Race and now they’ll all want to bring bikes! A far smaller number of cyclists do London Triathalon at Excel and that takes every other DLR train for a shuttle service from Tower Gateway. An event on this scale which can only seriously work with proper rail & road public transport co-ordination needs more than a 11 month lead-time. The First london Skyride had a similar problem of leaving engagement with Train operators too late – many had lines closed for engineering work planned (generally) with a rolling time bar 12 months in advance. Under 1 year of notice is often too late to ask for a move of even 1 week without upsetting the sequance of planned deliveries, track closures and equipment scheduling.
Has Boris checked out other mass ‘races’ – as clearly this is not in same category as a charity / fun ride, and is 2.5 times the number that takes part in l’Etape du Tour. Anyone who’s do that care to comment on the idea of a mass race, or will they be set off in stages – even 500 at a time with 15 minute intervals doesn’t bear thinking about.
Slightly less of a problem with 70,000 riding round London, as at least it will be distributed over several rail routes and road access.
ASLEF shrugged says
Odd. When a bunch of cyclists who’ve been meeting up for rides on the last Friday of every month since 1994 tried to cycle near to the Olympic Park last month 182 were arrested including several cyclists who weren’t part of the “procession”, one of whom was a Malaysian who’d cycled 9320 miles to raise money for charity and support his country at the Olympics. Only three have been charged.
I guess it all depends on who’s running the show.
Stephen Thomas says
It’s a good idea just a shame it’s only being considered in London.
I’m sure other cities throughout the country would benefit from this type of event.
Just think on how it would aid those who are inspired in other parts of GB to have a goal to work to.
Dave H says
Just done another sum – London-Brighton is limited to under 30,000 (officially) and probably hits 35,000 with hangers-on. so 70,000 is a ride about twice the size of the London to Brighton. A big City can take it on but you might want to see how Tour du l’Ile dun Montreal looks when it hits the town.
Far better but obviously embarassing would be for London to finally catch up with cities like Bogota, and New York for weekends (plural – up to 52 per year) when the city is closed to cars. the Queen has shown the way by getting cars out of her front garden every Sunday, but London has yet to spread this out more widely. Bogota has been doing it for around 2 decades every weekend, New Yourk has had 2 years of Summer Streets, with the Transport Commissioner, Mayor, and Parks Commissioner riding around anonymously on their bikes – no big show for the media at every turn.