British Cycling Road Race Championships

14 February 2011

High action cycling returns to the roads of Ryedale, North Yorkshire on Sunday 24th June 2012 when the British Cycling National Road Race Championships come to the district.  Ampleforth Abbey and College, Ampleforth is the new venue for the event, traditionally known as the Race HQ in previous years.

This magnificent site is the home to Benedictine monks and has been used in recent years for the start and finish of BC Yorkshire’s Ryedale Rumble Sportive.  The circuit is completely new with a move away from the Hovingham hub that has featured on previous editions. The Women’s Championship, beginning first at 9.30am uses seven laps of a 9.5 mile circuit using Ampleforth and Yearsley as its main reference points. It’s also traditionally “rolling” as befits this part of the world.

The Men’s Championship later in the day will cover this circuit as a finishing loop of six laps after first negotiating three laps of an 18.9 mile route that takes in Ampleforth, Wass, Coxwold, Crayke and Brandsby en-route and includes a hard drag from Bransby to Yearsley.  Both circuits will lap through Ampleforth where the event village will be located.

First held as the Ryedale Grand Prix in 2005, the event merged with the earlier Peter Longbottom Memorial Roadrace to continue the legacy of honouring the Malton based Olympian who was killed in a traffic accident in 1998. The organisational team is a joint venture between British Cycling Yorkshire Region and York based cycling clubs that include Peter's former clubs Clifton CC and VC York. It is also an integral part of the Yorkshire Festival of Cycling a season long series of major events that also includes the National Curcuit Race Championships, East Yorkshire Premier Calendar Race at Beverley, the Otley Town Centre races and the York City Centre cycling event.

To see some of the action from previous year's National Road Race in Ryedale click here.