What Are Cycle Sportives?

Cycling Sportives have taken off in the last few years. They are held most weekend and provide riders of all abilities a challenge.

They are very well organised rides that can consist of anything from 30 to 120 miles depending on the one you choose and the terrain also varies, from mostly flat to ones that include a lot of hills. These can be really challenging.

Here in the UK each weekend you will find many of them up and down the country with some of the most famous ones being held on the continent. They enable you to see what it's like as a professional bike rider to ride up to 120 miles in a day.

Whether for a personal challenge or for charity, you can tackle what ever distance you want, even within the same sportive there are usually a short and a longer route, so if you're struggling, you can easily switch to the easy route.

You can enter them on your own or why not signup with some friends. They are help usually on open roads so you need to take care and ensure that you follow the rules of the road for yours and other safety.

Modern microchips are give to all entering the sportive. When you start you ride past or over a sensor that is triggered by the microchip and when you finish you ride over or past another sensor and your time is automatically calculated. This is usually posted on the sportives website later in the day for you to check your time.

A few days before the sportive it is usually possible to download the gps file of the route, so you can upload this to your gps computer. This enables you to follow the route of the sportive, although most are excellently signposted and marshalled.

For the ultimate sportive challenge you can even take part in the etape du tour which is run every year. A stage of the Tour De France is chosen and a week before the race the roads are closed and you are able to do the exact stage that the professionals will be doing. The tap du tour is usually held over one of the challenging mountain stages and has in the past featured Mount Ventoux and L'Alpe D'huez.

Make one of these sportives your ultimate challenge, they do require a lot of planning as they attract thousands of riders each year and sell out very fast.