Sunday 7th August from 8:30am, here…

Warwick is only about 15 miles from my house so I’m planning to ride over early’ish and sit on the route to watch a few laps of Ladies and maybe Mens Road Racing.

Anyone else going to be there?

Anyone got tickets for the Start/Finish in St Nicholas Park?

Start list here:
Start list from Procycling Stats

Some pretty strong teams from Oz, England, Wales and, oh, the Isle of Man! Also NZ and SA have some big names – could be an interesting race.

Anyone seen a route profile? I have no idea whether its lumpy or flat.

I’ll be heading down, mum lives in Leamington so good excuse to see her at the same time AND watch the races.

My lad is in Stourbridge this week and was heading to his girlfriends in Leamington on Sunday on the way home – I’ve just warned him!

The route passes a couple of hundred yards from my house. I’ll probably wander out for a look. There’s also a big screen and many beer vendors in the market square, if you want to make a day of it 🙂

The local wingeing about the road closures has been epic, unsurprisingly.

Its pretty flat by the looks of it 130m of elevation each lap.

Even flatter than Glasgow 8 years ago

Yep will be riding over, maybe a coffee at Jack’s Shack on jury st to watch the peleton speed past.

If anyone is coming the best way into Warwick by bike is via the canal to avoid the closed rds

Anyone seen a route profile? I have no idea whether its lumpy or flat.

There aren’t many hills in warwick or Leamington but they’ve got most of them in. It’ll be fast and probably a breakaway. Will be shouting for Cav if he rides even though he’s riding for IOM

The Belize entry is interesting – the Williams Brothers (Legion of LA) are listed

Excited.
My favourite rider is Welsh, I’m English so torn. Think Fred Wright is going to be hounded and not given an inch.
Sadly the race is too far for me to travel. Hoping the Brummies will have a good road side turnout.

When our small town had the tour of Britain a few years ago, the grumblings from road closures were ignored by most people, the turnout to watch the race was phenomenal and was talked about for months after.

I was surprised to see one of the local big hitters in a couple of the track cycling events earlier this week, then surprised not to see him enter the TT the other day, but he is racing tomorrow. Red Walters, won his national road and TT events in Grenada a month or so ago.

Having lived in both Warwick and Leamington, I must compliment the course designers for their complete lack of imagination and effectively it’s just a glorified town-centre crit. They could have at least done a longer circuit down to Edge Hill, Chipping Norton or Broadway with a few finishing laps around the towns. Unless the course designer’s brief was to make something that helps Mark Cavendish win?

Unless the course designer’s brief was to make something that helps Mark Cavendish win?

More like accessable for spectators either the m40 and excellent rail links and the opportunity to see the riders multiple times

Plus of course the static cameras can be placed at vantage points and again film the riders multiple times

The Belize entry is interesting – the Williams Brothers (Legion of LA) are listed

Yeah, I’m only really familiar with them in the context of the US crit scene. Will be cool to see how they fare in this race.

Surprised to see Ben Swift riding for IoM – I thought he was a Yorkshire guy.

Yes Swifty has lived in IoM for many years now and qualifies.

Road closure moaning is always pretty incessant with these things, had it around here for the TT

I’ll bet the day will go fantastically with the decent weather, I’d love to make it over but for the first Sunday in months I actually need to be back early 😕

Enjoy!

The road race at Glasgow 2014 was absolutely superb.
The atmosphere on the first climb on Col de Montrose Street (Pure Dead Steep) was the most incredible experience ever. A wall of noise greeted the cyclists, many of whom – and particularly the back markers – were having the time of their lives.

Pisser the heavens opened and after a couple of laps they pulled everyone other than the leaders.

Good fun though.

56 women out on the course atm.
Weather looks perfect.
Sadly one crash already, with a long wait for service (front wheel change needed for Gibraltar).

Couldn’t make it due to family medical emergency but friends say crowds are large and queues long
Particularly the Stourbridge.cc lot hogging Hatton lock cafe 🤣

Just got back from an excellent day out. We took the bikes, as I thought it may be best to move around, and that was proved right. We were only going for the Ladies race, and the first lap of the Mens, but stayed until the end, and watched the last 2km on my phone. We saw Geraint in front with 2 km to go, and thought he had got it, but the TV showed he was struggling with 1 km to go, and dropped out.
What always amazes me is the speed they do uphill. We were on the bottom of one downhill for lap 1, and I said I can go as fast as that, which is probably true, but, I couldnt go half as fast as them on the uphill sections.
A different view point for each lap, 2 laps we watched on the 2 big screens, one on the square, one at the finish line area, as you could see the screen from the park behind the finish straight.Paying to stay on the finish line would have been rubbish I think, far better to get around the course to see different parts.
And the crowds were huge for the Mens. Pretty respectable for the Ladies too, which had the early start, and a lot of traffic getting into the area to slow the crowds down.

Took my daughters, they’d never been to a big race before. We had an ace day, the lap format meant we could skip a couple to find shade/get an ice cream, and move round viewing spots. They hung out at the feed zone and picked up a few bottles. They both want road bikes, so mission accomplished for the organisers I reckon.

It was a great day, although the fact that it’s all over hasn’t stopped the moaning. Or the moaning about the moaning.

I also wandered about the course. Saw those Stourbridge guys getting a policeman to take their photos. Was amazed by the size of the crowds almost all of whom were really enjoying themselves. Access wasn’t helped by the A46 being closed for a burst water main for most of the day, so I don’t really know how people even managed to get here. Obviously a lot had cycled – there must have been millions of ££s worth of bikes lying around the course. Warwick looked pretty good in the TV pictures, so the council will be pleased.

And huge Congratulations to Sam Culverwell from ‘little’ Guernsey! Longest 2 Ks ever… If G hadn’t attacked 😉

Had a daft couple whining about the Warwick crits a few years ago.
Council member and his wife, “I voted against having the races, therefore I’m going to go through the barriers exactly where I want and I’ll be back in 20 minutes in the car.”

Left them with a nice policeman.