Cycling Knight Makes Late Entry into RideLondon Race

Sir Bradley Wiggins to ride through Chiswick this weekend

Tour de France winner and Olympic gold medallist Sir Bradley Wiggins is to join Team Sky for this weekend's Prudential RideLondon-Surrey Classic. Chiswick is on Sunday's race route with the riders expected to pass through this area in the early afternoon. They will come up over the Hammersmith flyover westbound, towards Chiswick Bridge, as they did last year.

Sir Bradley Wiggins

The race will see Wiggins return to the roads used for the time trial and road race events in London 2012, where he won Olympic time trial gold. It will be only his second appearance racing in London since the Games, having won the overall Tour of Britain on his previous visit to the city’s streets last September.

Lining up alongside Wiggins will be 2012 world champion Philippe Gilbert, 2014 Tour de France top 10 finisher Laurens ten Dam, top sprinters Mark Renshaw, Alessandro Petacchi and Elia Viviani and several Commonwealth Games medallists, led by points race gold medallist Tom Scully and road race bronze medallist Scott Thwaites.

The race will be shown live on BBC1 from 14:00 and on British Eurosport from 14:30 on Sunday 10 August.

The RideLondon-Surrey 100 and RideLondon Classic events will run on a route extending through south and south west London into Surrey, similar to that used by the Olympic Cycling in 2012.

The RideLondon Surrey Classic race for 150 of the world's top professional male riders will start at 1 pm on Sunday August 10th and the cycle route will come from central London with cyclists taking the Hammersmith Flyover on the A4 westbound. The organisers have told us that the elite race can be expected to arrive in Chiswick at around 1.40pm.

Transport for London say there will be a significant impact on traffic across a large part of the Capital on Sunday. Road closures will be in place from 5am. From around 3pm roads along the route in London will be opened in phases, once the event has passed and it is safe to do so, with all London roads expected to be opened by 8.30pm.

The road closure between Chiswick Bridge to Hogarth Roundabout will reopen following the last amateur cyclist passing around 10am on Sunday. The A4 will reopen as far as possible in between the mass participation and professional events. The professional race will operate on a ‘rolling’ temporary closure on this section of route when the race arrives at approximately 1.25pm.

Vehicles will not be able to drive on or cross the route while road closures are in place. A number of river crossings will also be closed for some or all of the day, including Chiswick Bridge and Putney Bridge.

A205 South Circular will be open, apart from small sections in south west London (Sheen, Mortlake and Putney areas).

Vehicles will not be able to cross the route while the road closures are in place, though local access will be maintained for as long as possible. Access for emergency vehicles will be maintained at all times and pedestrian access to properties will not be affected.

To allow access across closed roads on the race route, pedestrian access will still be possible at designated crossings, where marshals will ensure you can cross the road safely. Access for on-call emergency vehicles will be permitted at all times.

Parking will be suspended along the route and on some adjacent roads. Check local signs to see when the suspensions will apply.

South West Trains have issued information for people who wish to use local trains though not travelling to the event.

"Trains to and from Central London will be very busy over the weekend. On the Sunday, the longer cycling course will pass close to stations on the following routes:

• London Waterloo to Feltham via Richmond and via Chiswick
• Kingston area

"If you need to use local bus services to and from stations on these routes, you may also find these bus services are altered or disrupted by the road closures for this event. If you intend to drive to or from stations, you may find local road access difficult with road closures and delays, and some station car parks will be closed.

"If you are not travelling to the event, we would recommend you avoid these routes and find alternatives if you can."

The 2014 Prudential RideLondon festival of cycling begins on Saturday 9 August with Prudential RideLondon FreeCycle, a chance for all the family to enjoy cycling a traffic-free loop on closed roads through central London.

The event for 24,000 riders will begin at 6am on August 10 at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and come through Putney across Putney Bridge to the finish at the Mall. The route is essentially the same as for last year's event.

In its first year, riders in the Prudential RideLondon-Surrey 100 raised more than £7 million for charity, setting a new record for a UK one-day cycling event. In 2014, organisers have set the ambitious fundraising target of £12 million.

If you intend to travel in to view any of the events, visit the RideLondon page on the TfL website for more information.

South West Trains are not planning to introduce any special restrictions beyond their normal cycle policy, but cycle space on trains will be very limited, and they cannot guarantee to be able to accommodate all of them.

RideLondon FAQ page

RideLondon route and local road closure information page

Transport for London travel information for RideLondon

July 31, 2014