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Laura Trott to start attempt on bike parade record at RideLondon FreeCycleLaura Trott (copyright John Stevenson)

Laura Trott to start attempt on bike parade record at RideLondon FreeCycle

Prudential RideLondon FreeCycle to host biggest-ever paceline
by John Stevenson
Thu, Jul 18, 2013 15:45
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The Prudential RideLondon FreeCycle on Saturday 3 August will include an attempt on an unusual world record, for the longest single parade of bikes, and double Olympic gold medal holder Laura Trott will sound the klaxon to start it off.

Over 2,800 riders have registered to take part in a bid to break the current world record of 916 bikes, which was set in Davis, California, USA in 2010.

The record attempt has been so popular that applications to join it have now closed, but the FreeCycle ride itself is still open. The first event of the RideLondon weekend, FreeCycle is expected to attract 50,000 riders to ride an eight-mile circuit that includes Green Park, St Paul’s and Tower Hill.

Laura Trott said: “I know how amazing it feels to break a world record on your bike so I’ll be cheering everyone on from the sidelines. I’m really excited to play a small part and I’ll be wishing everyone the best of luck on the day – I hope they do it!”

The record attempt will be led by Martin Johnson, captain of England’s world cup-winning rugby team in 2003.

The Freecycle ride will take over part of central London for the day and in the evening Trott will be racing in the Prudential RideLondon Grand Prix race on closed roads in and around St James’s Park from 17:00. The racing program includes hand-cycle races and junior bike races too.

Sunday sees London’s first-ever closed-road sportive, the RideLondon-Surrey 100, which starts at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, then makes its way through the centre of town before heading out into the Surrey countryside on some of the route of the 2012 Olympic road race course.

The RideLondon-Surrey 100 will finish on The Mall and will be followed by the Prudential RideLondon-Surrey Classic men’s road race, on a similar route.

If you're coming to London for the events or the free bike show at the Excel centre August 1-3, organisers recommend planning your travel around road closures and the inevitable disruption. 

All the details are on the Prudential RideLondon website.

Prudential RideLondon
RideLondon
RideLondon FreeCycle
John Stevenson

John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.

He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.

Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.

John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.

He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.

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