We are pleased to announce that road.cc is getting together with the 2009 Gore Bike Wear Road Sportive Series as their official media partner.
What this means is we'll be bringing you all the latest news about what's happening at the various rounds of the series, plus we'll be doing recce rides and passing on pre-ride training tips and bike fettling advice.
Here's some insirational pics from last year to get your juices flowing
The really great thing from our point of view is that it means we'll have to leave the office and recce some big rides, then a few weeks later leave the office and do it all again on a summer's day in some of the most beautiful parts of Britain when hopefully we'll get to meet lots of road.cc users too.
We'll be at the three rounds of the series too: at Lllanwyrtyd Wells on 4 July (keeping everybody posted with Tour de France updates); then it's up to Selkirk on 1 August for the second round; followed by Ruthin in Wales on 19 September for round 3.
Entry is now open. To enter online or download an entry form head over to www.gorebikewearsportives.com. The site has all the event and location details, lots of tips and advice, course distributions and course maps as well as downloadable entry forms and online entry.
All three rounds of the series offer the choice of 80-100 mile Classic routes, or 40-50 mile Standard ones. The Scottish ride also has a 120 mile Extreme route option.
Each round is a one loop ride with the start and finish at the event village. As it's the weekend the organisers are making the start as hassle free as possible. The start will open at 8am on Saturday and will stay open for approximately 1 hour to give everybody the chance to have a relaxing getaway at the time of their choosing.
All three rounds rounds also take place on the same weekend and from the same venue as the Merida Marathon Mountain Bike series so you can combine some serious road action on the Saturday with a bit of dirt on Sunday.
Each ride costs £25 to enter and that covers:
-
Ride entry – 40/ 50 mile ‘Standard’, 80 / 100 mile ‘Classic’ sportive or 120 mile ‘Extreme’ Sportive
- After-ride food
- Feed and service stations
- All the camping – Friday to Monday
- Parking facilities
Finishing prize
- Spot prizes
- Option to do Mountain Bike skills and riding tuition (check the marathon website for suitable times).

I see illegally cars in central London daily freely speeding and racing.1 in 20 drivers respect the 20mph.cycles are the problem.
Except, the earth isn't flat. It's a cube.
Black ice or avoiding a cyclist
Now I'm very afraid. If they're falling back on "but all drivers are trained and we have road laws" as a safety measure all bets are off. As far...
They'll go batshit when they find out what TNT Sports have done in U.K.
Sorry, I think you can only see this on Facebook, but absolutely brilliant: guy in a Range Rover has his vehicle seized for no insurance, his wife...
So which is the free one then? All the ones I can see in this list will cost.
Nice though that Ribble is, it's not a pro-team bike, is it? Got to love a bit of 90s Campagnolo, shame it's only a 50t, but I guess those Chiltern...
Agree, but again it's how to start to break the vicious circle?...
I'm either amazed that they can get through with (presumably) a full sized waste truck, or amazed that she could not. Although as you say the bin...