Does anyone know of any good sportives, either UK or abroad?

thejimmerman

Title says it all really! I'm up for doing some challenging sportives this year, so I was wondering if any of you knowledgeable chaps could point me in the right direction of a few? Thanks!

young dog

Depends where you live and how difficult you would like...?

thejimmerman

I'm in London, but I'm not too worried about travel (well, at least the South is pretty flat so I've resigned myself to travel!). I'm in pretty good shape, so the more challenging the better... the Fred Whitton is already on my list.

bigpikle

pretty much all the high profile bigger events are sold out long ago now... the Fred is an instant sell out and IIRC they operate a lottery system anyway, and forget the big Euro events like Etapes, Maratona etc. The Dragon ride and lots of the other headline events are also likely sold out a while back. Plan these for 2013 and keep a keen eye open for when entries open.

Thats not to say there arent lots of good events around you can do, but you will need to do a little more digging to discover them. Cyclosport.org has a good calendar where you can look at dates and locations, in the Uk and around the world, and they have reviews of past events to look at. You can look at the event details on there as well ad decide which might appeal to you. If you dont mind a trip further north then the Polocini events are superb if the dates/distances etc suit you.

young dog

The more challenging the better?.
Hardest rides are in The Forest of Bowland.

phreak

I'm doing this in August. Dare say entries are still open.

http://www.sportcommunication.info/web2 ... rophee=161

Pretty challenging route with I think more climbing than your average Etape/Marmotte.

CakeLovinBeast

thejimmerman wrote:

...at least the South is pretty flat...

Errm, if you fancy some hills, come down to the SW in September and we'll show you one or two!

thejimmerman

Fair point. Should have clarified that with the 'South East... is relatively flat'!

leedsmjh

Richmond Cyclosportive in Yorkshire is a good one, 2nd June this year I think.

McCullochE

Increasingly I don't bother with doing the actual sportives - but I use their routes to do them at another time of the year. It's almost impossible to get onto Fred Whitton for the actual sportive, but they run a system where you can do a timed race any time of the year. Also, last year a small group of us did the Marmotte, in September. Great fun - would highly recommend it.

JamesB

Good sportives IMO are not ones that necessarily sell out, or vice versa:

IME the following I`ve found to be `good`:

Autumn Epic

3 Counties

Richmond 5 Dales

Cumberland Challenge (if that one still exists)

Le Terrier

Tour of Black Mtn

Devil Ride

this should now trigger a debate on `good`

spokegeezer

phreak wrote:

I'm doing this in August. Dare say entries are still open.

http://www.sportcommunication.info/web2 ... rophee=161

Pretty challenging route with I think more climbing than your average Etape/Marmotte.

This is actually 1,300M LESS climbing that La Marmotte.

phreak

Stand corrected.

malcolmfrost

pretty much all the high profile bigger events are sold out long ago now... the Fred is an instant sell out and IIRC they operate a lottery system anyway, and forget the big Euro events like Etapes, Maratona etc

The Etapes are still both open AFAIK, Marmotte and Maratona are full.

SwissRetreat

Hi thejimmerman,

If you want to avoid the crowds and go abroad then check out the sportives in Switzerland, they are really well organized (think Swiss watches), scenery is great and you don't have to set an alarm the day entry opens like with Marmotte or Etape, you can even rock up on race day.

The Cyclotour du Leman is a nice early season sportive doing a 180km loop around Lake Geneva, it's mostly flat (some false flats!) and starts and finishes in Lausanne which i 45 minutes by train from Geneva - so you can make a weekend of it easily from UK.

Later in the season check out the Verbier-La Romandie Classic, it goes from Aigle (starting at the UCI HQ velodrome) and heads up to Verbier. Route takes you along the Rhone valley before finishing with a timed ascent of verbier - the peleton did it in a silly time during the Tour de France and you can compare times. Again you could take the train - about 1 hour to Aigle or 1.5hrs to Verbier.

Closer to home London Revolution looks like a nice route - a great one to do in 2012 with the Olympics featuring on the course quite heavily.

Hope that helps - have a great summer wherever you ride.