However, there are several similar events that are longer. Bordeaux-Paris was a professional race until 1988 and returned in 2014 as a cyclosportive with a route of about . Styrkeproven Trondheim-Oslo is a long race and cyclosportive in Norway. The Tour du Mont Blanc is a long cyclosportive over mountainous terrain through France, Switzerland, and Italy.
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The Dave Lloyd Mega Challenge was a cyclosportive challenge based in North East Wales. Held for the first time in June 2008. The Independent Association of Cyclosportive Organisers placed it in the top three of UK sportives. The challenge featured three routes: the Mini-MEGA, Midi-MEGA and MEGA, varying in distance and climbing.
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La Marmotte is an annual, one-day cyclosportive event in France for amateur cyclists. It is named after the large ground squirrel that is known to inhabit the slopes of the final climb to the finish in Alpe d'Huez. The first event held in 1982 makes it one of the oldest cyclosportive events of its kind and in France it is often called La Doyenne ("the old lady"), borrowing the nickname given to the professional road race Liège–Bastogne–Liège. The Marmotte remains one of the most popular cyclosportive events today in Europe, with interest in participation exceeding the 7000 places available.
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Slightly longer still is the Wysam 333 in Switzerland at . There is also the Mallorca 312, which is a long ride around the island of Mallorca, the Dragon Devil version of the Dragon Ride Wales cyclosportive in the UK is long, and the Vätternrundan cyclosportive that does a tour of the Swedish lake is long. In New Zealand, there is the Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge. The standard cyclosportive option involves a single lap of the lake, which is long, but there are also options to do two laps in one day for , with no support on the first lap, or start one day earlier and do four laps, , which is more of a randonneuring-format event.
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In recent years a pair of cyclosportive cycling events has been staged in the surrounding region, and over the pass. The 70 km Bealach Beag event is in May, and the 144 km Bealach Mór is each September.
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The official logo of The Tour of Crete cyclosportive The Tour of Crete is a multi-stage cyclosportive for amateur cyclists, held in the island of Crete, Greece, which took place for the first time in 2016 and will take place annually thereafter. It spans across 6 stages starting from and ending in the capital of the region of Crete, in the city of Heraklion. Similarly to other cyclosportives, it is a non-competitive event, the routes of which are well sign-posted and marshalled. Riders are able to use feeding stations positioned at intervals along the route to replenish their food and drink supplies and mechanical and medical support is also provided.
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Following disillusionment with professional cycling, Laidlaw moved to New York in 1964 to continue working as a carpenter and later spent many years living in Savannah, Georgia after his cycling career. The Ken Laidlaw Sportive is a Cyclosportive named after the rider, held in his native Hawick in the Scottish Borders.
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In the US, organized century rides of are common, with the format falling between a cyclosportive and a randonnee. There are also many organized double centuries of , one of the more popular ones being the Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic, and at least one event even offers and options, the Los Angeles Wheelmen Grand Tour.
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Nils Axel Pontus Forsström Schultz (22 August 1972 – 25 August 2012) was a Swedish journalist, columnist, debater and entrepreneur. He was chief editor and publisher of Veckans Affärer from 2006 until his death. Schultz participated in the French cyclosportive Haute Route on 25 August 2012. He crashed into a ravine and died during the last stage.
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The Tour de Helsinki is an annual cyclosportive in the metropolitan area of Helsinki, the capital of Finland. It takes place on the first Sunday in September. Start and finish are at the Helsinki Velodrome, originally built for the 1952 Summer Olympics. The distance of the race, leading through the southern parts of the Uusimaa region, is 140 km.
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Numerous bugs were also apparent as some users were only able to enter by registering as new users. A limited number places are available to groups, organised sporting holiday companies and individuals who enter the Trophee de l'Oisans, a series of cyclosportive events held in the Oisans region over the previous week, starting with the Vaujany Master ride.
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RideLondon-Surrey 100 logo Water and food break at Hampton Court Palace on the 2013 ride. The RideLondon-Surrey 100 is a 100-mile closed-road cyclosportive closely following the 2012 Olympic road race course (with a minor diversion, avoiding Richmond Hill) starting at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and heading through central London and Surrey via Richmond Park, passing numerous iconic landmarks, including the Tower of London, Trafalgar Square, St. James's Palace, Harrods the Victoria & Albert Museum, and Hampton Court Palace, and climbing Leith Hill and Box Hill before returning through Wimbledon to London to finish on The Mall. This cyclosportive was first held during the 2013 Prudential RideLondon two-day festival of cycling, during which nearly 16,000 cyclists including London mayor Boris Johnson completed the course.
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Under ASO license, the inaugural L'Etape Brasil was held in 2015. Starting in 2017, Gran Fondo New York grants a license to a race organizer in Brasil to host GFNY Brasil. Canada As in the US, Canadians struggle with what a Gran Fondo is. Owing to its French heritage, Quebec embraces the cyclosportive culture which is identical to Italian Gran Fondos.
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Since 2009, a cyclosportive is organized on the day before the professional event. There are four distances, ranging from 60 km to 215 km. All courses start and finish in Wevelgem, at the finishing location of the professional event. Most routes pass through the Menin Gate in Ypres, flirt with the French border, tackle the Kemmelberg before turning back towards Wevelgem.
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Vätternrundan is a non-competitive event, and only measures the rider's own time using RF transponders on the helmet (mandatory equipment). An unsorted list of starting times, checkpoints passed and finishing times is published on the website after the event. This type of event is called a motionslopp (cyclosportive) in Sweden. Vätternrundan has approximately nine stops offering food and beverages, and also first aid and free massage.
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The cycling track is 400 meters in length and is used for most national events. The banking in the bends is 37.5˚ and 16˚ on the straights. The length of the track and the lack of built safety measures make the track unsuitable for international cycling competitions. Helsinki Velodrome also acts as a starting and ending point for the annual cyclosportive Tour de Helsinki.
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He was a member of the Norwegian Olympic Committee from 1959 to 1973 and a deputy board member of the Norwegian Confederation of Sports from 1965 to 1967. He was an official for Norway at the Summer Olympics in 1960 and 1972, and in 1993 he sat on the committee that organized the 1993 UCI Road World Championships. In 1967 he initiated Styrkeprøven, a yearly cyclosportive from Trondheim to Oslo.
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The reintroduction will see trade teams compete, similar to the Eindhoven Team Time Trial held between 2005 and 2007. The Junior championships will also be on the programme. With the extra events, the championships will be held over two weekends (nine days) and will also include an opening ceremony and a cyclosportive event. The start and finish for the events was in Vilt, a commune of Valkenburg aan de Geul on top of the Cauberg.
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Participants in 2007, somewhere in Gudbrandsdalen. Participants in 2008, at Hundorp. Cyclist after 540 km Diploma A participant at the start in Trondheim in 1989 Styrkeprøven, also called Den Store Styrkeprøven (The Great Trial of Strength), is a long bicycle cyclosportive which starts in Trondheim and finishes in Oslo, Norway. It was first held in 1967, initiated by Erik Gjems- Onstad and has taken place since then in late June every year.
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Cyclists on the Mancunian Way, during the 2012 event The Great Manchester Cycle is a closed-road cyclosportive held in Manchester, Trafford and Salford, England, during summer. Participants are invited to ride one, two or four laps of a 13-mile course which starts at the City of Manchester Stadium in east Manchester, heads along the Mancunian Way and into Old Trafford, before returning to the start line. Around 8,000 cyclists took part in the 2013 event.
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Challenge riding is a form of cycling where the riders challenge themselves rather than each other. Some challenge rides are charity events or pledge rides. Some are organised as pre- or early-season training events (sometimes in the UK called reliability trials). Others, often referred to as Randonnées, brevets or Audax events occur simply for the sake of the challenge; cyclosportive events allow cyclists to test themselves over challenging race routes used, for example L'Étape du Tour in the Tour de France.
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Since 1999, there is a Tour of Flanders Cyclosportive for non-professionals, called We Ride Flanders, organized on the day before the professional event. The longest route is 230 km, starting in Antwerp, but there are three shorter routes, of 174 km, 140 km or 74 km, which all start and finish in Oudenaarde. Because of its growing success, the number of participants has been restricted to 16,000 in order to secure riders' safety on the roads. Tickets are usually sold out months before the race.
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Based in Bridgend, the first "Dragon" had 280 entrants. Recent editions had over 5,000 entrants. In 2005 the Dragon Ride became the first UK cyclosportive to be included into the UCI calendar. The popularity of the inaugural event and the demand for this type of cycling challenge saw the Dragon Ride more than double in size each year between 2004 and 2006; a continual growth over the following years saw the 2010 event with 3700 entrants, the largest for any UK open road sportive.
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Luxembourg The Charly Gaul Cyclosportive is the oldest gran fondo format race in Luxembourg. In 2019, it celebrated its 30th edition. It is typically held on a hilly course through the northeastern part of Luxembourg known as the Mullerthal, towards the Ardennes low mountain range in the north of the country. Since 2008, the race has a start and finish in Echternach and takes place in early September. The 2018 edition gathered about 1200 riders for one of the two parcours lengths, 153 km and 89 km.
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The first Gran Fondo was the Nove Colli held on July 12, 1970, in Cesenatico, Italy.Nove Colli With chip timing becoming more popular in the 1990s, the number of Gran Fondo events grew rapidly in Italy. While many Gran Fondos came and went, a few have remained since the early years, such as Gran Fondo Cooperatori, Gran Fondo 10 Colli, Gran Fondo Felice Gimondi. The Italian cycling federation "Federciclismo" provides rules of what makes an Italian Gran Fondo. Similar events were soon held in other countries, most notably France, where they are called “Cyclosportive”.
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Since 2016, the Gran Fondo Boyaca Mundial is being held inside the department of Boyaca. An updated list can be found onGran Fondo Guide Denmark In Denmark, Gran Fondo Copenhagen was held in 2014 and 2015 until it got cancelled in 2016. Dubai The Dubai Gran Fondo was held for a few years but cancelled in 2016. The Dubai 92 cycle challenge is UCI Grand Fondo-approved for 2016. France Gran Fondos are called “Cyclosportive” in France and they are just as popular as the ones in Italy.
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In January 2015 Cavendish announced the creation of the Rise Above Sportive, a cyclosportive to be held in Chester and North Wales in August 2015. In November 2015, he was awarded an honorary doctorate in science by the University of Chester for his contribution to cycling. He was diagnosed with Epstein–Barr virus in April 2017 and spent months out of action before returning to race the 2017 Tour de France. In August 2018 he was diagnosed with the virus a second time and withdrew from training and racing to recuperate.
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Dragon Ride L'Etape Wales by Le Tour de France is a cyclosportive event based in South Wales, UK. The event is a non competitive cycling marathon run over the hills of South Wales and the Brecon Beacons National Park. The ride takes in the challenging climbs of the Bwlch and Rhigos mountain roads which are long with relatively constant gradients. The event has different courses to suit riders ability, these are the 'Dragon Devil' at , the Gran Fondo at , the Medio Fondo at and the Macmillan 100 at . The Dragon Ride is held annually in June.
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The Time-Megeve-Mont-Blanc is a cyclosportive that takes place early June in the northern part of the French Alps, 45 km from Geneva. This cycling event attracts 2,000 riders on a 140-km route that starts from the valley town of Sallanches and includes three passes: Col de la Colombiere, Col des Aravis, and Col des Saisies. The event finishes in the ski resort of Megève. There are three choices of circuit: 80 km (Colombiere, Aravis — climbing 2850 m); 110 km (Colombiere, Aravis, Saisies — climbing 3930 m); 140 km (Colombiere, Aravis, two different ascents of Saisies — climbing 4810 m).
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The pass is a popular access point for walkers venturing to Moel Famau, and as such there are two Natural Resources Wales car parks: one at the summit of the pass, and one a mile down the eastern side of the pass towards Tafarn-y-Gelyn. Access tracks climb through the forest from both car parks to Moel Famau's summit. The steep climb on its western approach from Llanbedr-Dyffryn-Clwy has made the pass very popular with cyclists. Cycling Weekly magazine has featured it as a 'Killer Climb', and also listed it in the Dave Lloyd Mega Challenge cyclosportive.
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A fingerpost at Betchworth, Surrey. The additional orange arrow shows the route of a cyclosportive. A fingerpost (sometimes referred to as a guide post) is a traditional type of sign post primarily used in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, consisting of a post with one or more arms, known as fingers, pointing in the direction of travel to places named on the fingers. The posts have traditionally been made from cast iron or wood, with poles painted in black, white or grey and fingers with black letters on a white background, often including distance information in miles.
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The Fred Whitton Challenge is a charity cyclosportive event held annually in the English Lake District, in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support, Cumbria's air ambulances, the mountain rescue service and various youth cycling projects. It is held in memory of Fred Whitton, racing secretary of the Lakes Road Club, who died of cancer at the age of 50 in 1998. The event started in 1999 and has been held every year since, except for 2001 and 2020 when it was cancelled due to the foot-and-mouth epidemic and the international COVID-19 pandemic respectively. The event has raised over one and a half million pounds and is Macmillan's biggest fundraiser in Cumbria.
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In 2008 Thunder returned to the British Basketball League, bringing top- flight basketball back to Worthing for the first time since 1999. Worthing's first major kitesurfing event, the Big Air Open Kitesurfing Classic will take place on 14 July 2012 as part of the 2012 Olympic Torch Relay weekend in the town. In August 2012, the new cyclosportive known as The Devil in the Downs will take place, forming part of Worthing Excelsior Cycling Club 125th anniversary celebrations. Made up of three events, there will be a ride of known as the Devil in the Downs, a ride of known as the Little Devil and a ride of , known as the Little Imp.
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