The West Riding Classic

£20.00 | 33, 65 & 75 miles | 22nd April 2017

“Great route, great food, great vibe”

The West Riding Classic is a 33, 60 and 75 mile sportive in the Yorkshire Dales. A non-competitive road cycle ride over the beautiful hills and valleys of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. This is a truly beautiful ride with something for everyone including first time sportive riders, intermediate riders and serious athletes.

What they say:

“A must-do on the sportive calendar, this 33, 65 and 75 mile sportive takes on Yorkshire’s most iconic roads and climbs in beautiful scenery. Exploiting the Yorkshire Dales’ finest cycling roads, the best feed station in the UK offering a unique, friendly, authentic experience”.

Read more from British Cycling

The West Riding Classic ticket price (£20.00) includes unlimited tea and coffee before, during and after the sportive for all the riders and their support team. A feed station provides free nourishment and refreshment of real homemade soups and parkin – we think it’s the best feed station in the UK - and plenty of challenging climbing. The 75 miles extra-long route has 2200 metres of vertical ascent.

Meeting point:

Clapham Village Hall, Cross Haw Lane, Clapham, North Yorkshire, LA2 8DZ

Start times:

• 8am - 9:30am: extra-long route, 75 miles, 2200m vertical climbing
• 8am - 10:30am: long route, 65 miles
• 10am - 11am: short route, 33 miles

What you get:

• Choice of three routes
• Analogue timing system with souvenir clocking-in route card
• Excellent feed station with home-made real food menu designed for endurance cycling
• Well signposted routes on quiet roads
• Free .gpx files (satnav)
• Friendly supportive atmosphere

Entry

• £20

Feed Station – No litter. No Gels.

Typically at a sportive feed-station, riders will have access to scientifically tested carbohydrate gels, carbohydrate drinks, jelly sweets and soreen cake. Often feed-stations and cycle routes can be covered in the litter from cyclists energy products. However, at the Open Wheel feed-station we provide proper home-made food such as soup, barwise bread, unlimited tea and coffee and of course Maggie McSherry’s famous parkin. Last year the very brilliant Mandy Booth of Simply Delicious ran the feed-station for us and I’m very pleased to confirm that Mandy will be doing it again this year.

2016 Menu

Good Causes – Cave Rescue and Goma Cycling Club

CRO - Each year, the Cave Rescue Organisation provide first aid cover for our event. In return we donate money from every ticket to the organisation. This year, £5 from each ticket will be donated. Cave Rescue are a volunteer Cave and Mountain rescue group based in Clapham and provide vital help to walkers, climbers, cavers, bikers and farmers in the Dales.

Goma Cycling Club – I was recently sent an article in The Guardian called ‘I only dream of bicycles’ about a fantastic cycling club in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Inspired by the article I contacted the journalist who in turn put me in touch with Guy who runs the club and funds their activities himself. As a result of our conversation we are now also donating £5 from each ticket to this fantastic cycling club. The money will be used to pay for breakfasts for the young riders and to help fund trips to Rwanda for competitions and fixing bikes etc. We hope to be able to raise more than £300. You can read more about the club here - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/15/i-only-dream-of-bicycles-the-drc-cycling-club-offering-hope-and-breakfast 

Volunteers

We always need volunteers at the feed station and at the start/finish. Volunteers get well looked after and it is a fun day.

If you’d like to know more about The Open Wheel and the West Riding Classic or if you’d like to find out about volunteering, please get in touch.