[A]head of the Tour of Britain coming to Furness in September 2018, the Lakes Road Cub are bringing amateur road cycle racing back to the Furness area, with the Lakes Road Club Ulverston Summer Road Race being run by the club on the 15th July 2018.
It’s the first time in several years that amateur road racing has been held in the area, and the Lakes Road Club wanted to bring it back. Event Organiser and cub member Richard Dixon commented “Many of our members are involved in racing throughout the north west, but there are no events in this area, so we thought it about time to rectify that. We’ve pulled together a great team of people from the club who are all putting their own time into getting the event up and running”.
The event is being run under British Cycling regulations and the 60 riders taking part will take in 6 laps of a 9 mile circuit based around a start and finish on Birkrigg, with the circuit going to Scales, down to the Coats Road at Aldingham, along to Ulverston, up Oakwood Drive and back up to Birkrigg.
Richard Dixon said: “We’re trying to create a ‘Fan Zone’ at the Start / Finish area, where people can watch the race – we’ll be giving away clapper sticks and cow bells so that spectators can cheer the riders as they go through, and there will be prizes throughout the race for the first across the line on different laps, so hopefully plenty of action to see”.
The event has attracted entries from all over the north west, including promising local talent, so some of the names riding may end up as pros at some point in the future. In the past, riders such as Chris Boardman have ridden local races organised by the Lakes Road Club and gone on to be household names, so could the next Bradley Wiggins or Chris Froome be in this race? The Lakes Road Club hope so, and want to do their part in nurturing young talent.
The race is taking place on Sunday 15th July, with the start at 10:00am and will be finished by around 12.30. Richard said “We hope that people will come and watch the race. We’d also like to thank people for their patience while the event passes – you may be briefly held up but it will only be for a couple of minutes at most. We’re being supported by British Cycling and using Accredited Marshals to help with the event, who are able to control traffic as the race passes through. We’re also using the National Escort Group – a team of specially trained motorbike marshals, who also work on professional races, so the event will be really safe and have a real professional feel to it.”
