The BBC will broadcast extensive coverage of the first Prudential RideLondon featuring a number of races across a busy weekend in the capital.
Described as the cycling equivilent of the London Marathon, RideLondon will be the largest mass participation cycling festival ever held in the UK, with over 70,000 cyclists, including some of the world’s top professionals, taking part across four separate events.
Held over the weekend of August 3-4 and just one year on from Team GB’s gold rush on the road and in the velodrome, the festival is expected to attract hundreds of thousands of visitors to London and Surrey and raise considerable amounts of money for charity.
Celebrating the legacy for cycling created by the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, 20,000 amateur cyclists will set off on the 100-mile challenge of the RideLondon-Surrey 100 on Sunday morning, out into Surrey and back into London to finish on The Mall.
As well as the personal challenge of completing the route, participants’ involvement will also benefit good causes.
Riding for charity is a key element of the event, with the organisers aiming over time to become the largest charity fundraising cycle event in the world.
Thousands of cyclists will be supporting hundreds of charities and will ensure the event becomes the charity fundraising equivalent of the London Marathon, the world’s largest annual one day fundraising event, but this time on two wheels.
At 12.45pm on Sunday, a selection of the world’s best riders will gather at the start of the RideLondon-Surrey Classic race at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
Around 150 of the world’s top male pro riders will take on the London 2012 Olympic road race course once again, in a 140-mile race that takes them from the Olympic Park out to Surrey and its beautiful but testing hills before returning to a triumphant finish on The Mall.
Eight of the 25 teams are fresh from the Tour de France and the field includes sprint king Peter Sagan, winner of the green jersey for the past two years.
Ranked at the 1.1 level by the UCI, the sport’s governing body, the 140-mile Prudential RideLondon-Surrey Classic brings the ‘classic’ one-day style of racing back to Britain, echoing memories of the UK’s World Cup rounds of the 1990s and bringing the excitement and drama of a major international one-day race to a new generation.
Not since the 1997 Rochester Classic has Britain hosted such a prestigious single-day event, with the Prudential RideLondon-Surrey Classic set to inspire the next generation of cycling talent to take up their wheels and get out on their bikes.
Defending Tour de France champions Team Sky are joined by Cannondale Pro Cycling, GarminSharp, FDJ, Orica GreenEDGE, Vacansoleil, Sojasun and the new Belkin Pro Cycling Team on the start line.
For British cycling fans, RideLondon will be the first chance to see the new Belkin jerseycompeting on UK roads while the UCI ProTeam line-ups are likely to include many riders fresh from success in the Tour de France.
There will also be a healthy home interest in the biggest one-day classic to be held in the UK, with six British UCI Continental squads competing, plus the strongly home-flavoured NetApp Endura ProContinental squad and a Great Britain national team, showcasing the next generation of homegrown stars.
Team Sky, winners of the last two editions of the Tour de France, heads the team list, joined by the Garmin-Sharp team of British favourite David Millar and Australian squad Orica GreenEDGE, who won a stage of The Tour of Britain on its first visit to British shores in 2012.
The Italian Cannondale Pro Cycling team of Tour de France Green Jersey winner Peter Sagan, the French FDJ squad, Vacansoleil DCM and the Belkin team, who won The Tour of Britain on its last appearance in the UK when riding as Rabobank, will all also be on the start line in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
Five UCI Pro Continental teams are also scheduled to appear, including the South African MTN Qhubeka squad, which won Milan San Remo with Gerald Ciolek earlier this year, and the Asian-registered Champion System squad of Irish National Champion Matt Brammeier.
Further to the six British UCI Continental squads, who include riders like double Olympic champion Ed Clancy and the Tour of Britain’s SKODA King of the Mountains winner Kristian House among their number, are the Irish AN Post Chain Reaction and the new-for-2013 Synergy Baku Cycling Project from Azerbaijan, who both boast several riders familiar to British cycling fans.
Festival activities involving local schools and communities will be planned along the route in keeping with the scenes witnessed at the 2007 Tour de France Grand Depart and the London 2012 Olympic Road Cycling Races.
BBC Sport will be broadcasting extensive coverage of Prudential RideLondon, the Mayor of London’s new world-class weekend festival of cycling.
Jonathan Edwards presents two live programmes covering the event on Sunday, August 4, on BBC One and in high-definition on BBC One HD.
The first show – starting at 11.30am on BBC One – features 20,000 cyclists head out on the Olympic Road Race route, closely followed by the World’s elite men in the London-Surrey classic.
There’s also highlights of Saturday’s Women’s Grand Prix, which featured Olympic gold medallists Laura Trott, Dani King and Jo Rowsell competing on a special street circuit around Buckingham Palace and St James’s Park, as well as the hand-cycling events.
BBC One’s second live programme at 4.30pm features the must-see climax to a weekend of top class cycling in the capital.
The world’s best elite riders head back on the Olympic Road Race course as the London-Surrey Classic builds to a potentially thrilling sprint finish on the Mall.
There is also news of the 20,000 riders who cycled the course at a more pedestrian pace earlier in the day, including celebrities such as Boris Becker, Matt Dawson, James Cracknell and Sally Gunnell.
In addition, full live coverage of the RideLondon-Surrey Classic will be available on via the BBC Red Button.
Simon Brotherton will lead the BBC TV commentary team alongside Rob Hayles, while roadside reports come from Jill Douglas and Ore Oduba.
“To have four-and-a-half hours of coverage on the BBC in the first year of Prudential RideLondon is fantastic,” said Event Director Hugh Brasher.
“The BBC is a huge supporter of the event and the programmes will include highlights from all events and live coverage of the Prudential RideLondon-Surrey Classic.”
Internationally, coverage will be shown in 111 countries worldwide – including Brazil, Canada, New Zealand and the USA – and on Eurosport in Europe and across the Asia/Pacific region.
“The news that Prudential RideLondon will be seen in 111 countries across the world is very impressive for the first year of a new international event,” added Iain Edmondson, Head of Major Events at London & Partners.
“I’m confident that people from around the world will be inspired to one day make the trip to London and experience the post-Olympic atmosphere in the city for themselves.”
British Eurosport will also screen live coverage of the RideLondon-Surrey Classic race, starting at 2.30pm on Sunday afternoon.
Sunday 4th August
RideLondon – London to Surrey 100 (charity ride)
LIVE: 9.00am-3.00pm BBC Red Button
LIVE: 11.30am-2.00pm BBC One
RideLondon – London to Surrey Classic (elite men’s race)
LIVE: 12.30pm-5.00pm BBC Red Button
LIVE: 4.30pm-6.30pm BBC One
Is the red button coverage of the charity part on 4th Aug really through till 3am on the 5th ?
Apologies, should say 3pm. Now changed, many thanks!