Mayor of London Boris Johnson has announced plans for a two-day cycling festival to take place in the capital next year.
The festival, planned for August 2013, will be the first major event to happen in the Olympic Park once it is reopened to the public in phases from the previous month.
It is expected that the festival will become an annual event and form a plank of the London 2012 legacy.
Kulveer Ranger, the mayor’s director of environment, said the event was part of Johnson’s drive to make London a cycling city. He said it would help to “inspire Londoners to be cyclists and to use the cleanest, greenest form of transport”.
The festival will comprise an eight-mile family fun race in the capital on the first day – expected to attract up to 70,000 participants – and a 100-mile challenge race for 35,000 amateur and elite cyclists on the second day.
The latter will begin in the Olympic Park and be largely based on the 2012 Games cycle road race route, taking in the Surrey countryside, before finishing at “an iconic location” in central London.
Ranger said: “One of the ambitions of this event is that the revenue it will hopefully generate will be fed back into cycling and cycling infrastructure in London.” A commercial partner is now being sought to help stage it.
The mayor’s office says Johnson has overseen a 15 per cent increase in cycling in London over the past year. Some 6,000 “Boris bikes” are now available in the city centre and it is planned to extend the scheme eastwards later this year.
Visit tfl.gov.uk for more information.
Report by Michelle Mannion
