RideLondon to return in May 2022

The headline cycling festival organised by London Marathon Events, RideLondon, will return with a new look and new time slot in the calendar.

Taking place on Sunday May 29, 2022, the popular RideLondon 100 sportive will now take riders through London and Essex, courtesy of a new partnership with Essex County Council. Thee event will also feature a new three-day UCI Women’s WorldTour road race.

A new route

First held in 2013 as a legacy event from the 2012 London Olympic Games, the event expanded rapidly, but was unable to be held in both 2020 and 2021 as a result of the COVID pandemic.

“The partnership will mean Essex will be the joint host of a new 100-mile challenge ride that will start in the capital, go out to Essex and finish back in central London. The county will also host stages one and two of the new three-day UCI Women’s WorldTour road race, which will be held from 27 to 29 May and feature the world’s best teams and riders.

“RideLondon will also feature shorter family-oriented rides on traffic-free roads. The full format of the event and routes across London and Essex will be announced in due course.

“Entries for the RideLondon-Essex 100 will open on Wednesday November 10 and you can find out more at ridelondon.co.uk”

The new 100-mile event will be known as the RideLondon-Essex 100.

London Classics

While sportive events are not core to our content here on TRI247, we know that RideLondon is of particular interest to many triathletes, in part due to the London Classics, which was introduced in 2017.

This was the very clever addition by London Marathon Events of an incentive (and a very heavy medal), for athletes who have completed all three of their headline events – the London Marathon, RideLondon 100 and Swim Serpentine. These don’t need to be done in the same year – in my own case, there was 23 years between my first London Marathon and then completing Swim Serpentine in 2017, when the London Classics was introduced.

With RideLondon now back on the schedule, that would seemingly open the door for triathletes who have the marathon and swim ticked off already to complete the set.