Can the London-Surrey Classic establish itself as an elite race?

On Sunday past, the third edition of the Prudential RideLondon Classic saw the most exciting racing of its brief existence. Aggressive riding by Philippe Gilbert (BMC Racing Team) ripped the field apart on Box Hill, with eleven riders going clear, and did so again on the run-in to London. As a result a group of five riders went on to contest the finish on The Mall, where NFTO’s former BMC rider Adam Blythe proved the fastest, claiming victory ahead of Ben Swift (Team Sky) and Julian Alaphilippe (Omega Pharma-Quick Step). It was a fine win for Blythe and a nice reward for a rider who stepped down two levels from the World Tour to join a newly created British Continental team in 2014. However a quick look through the start list for the race reveals an absence of big names; support for professional cycling is on the rise in Britain and the races are receiving greater recognition, so why can they not attracting stronger fields?

This really is a golden age for British road cycling. British riders on a British team have won two of the past three editions of the Tour de France, Team Sky’s Sir Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome, while Lizzie Armitstead (Boels - Dolmans Cycling Team) is one of the world’s elite female riders, and the most successful British rider, Mark Cavendish, is one of cycling’s all-time great sprinters. Wiggins and Froome aren’t the only British riders excelling at Sky either, as Geraint Thomas, Peter Kennaugh, Ian Stannard, Ben Swift, Luke Rowe and Josh Edmondson are all talented riders, and Kennaugh may be the next British rider to challenge for a Grand Tour. Nor is Team Sky the only team to host promising British talent; the Yates twins, Adam and Simon, have excelled as neo-pros with Orica GreenEDGE, while 20 year old Hugh Carthy (Rapha Condor JLT) has impressed on the Asian circuit and may be the next British rider to emerge with a World Tour team.

The success of British cycling on the road goes beyond the athletes and teams taking part, both the Tour of Britain and the RideLondon Classic have risen in stature this year, reaching 1.HC status, the highest tier of races outside the World Tour, while a new three day 2.1 event begins in Yorkshire next year. 2014 also saw the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France receive magnificent welcomes in Belfast and Yorkshire respectively. Considering all this success it is difficult to understand why the leading one-day race in Britain  struggles to attract the biggest names in cycling.

It is a course that suits the sprinters yet very few of the top sprinters have taken part. Mark Cavendish raced and won the inaugural event in 2011, but hasn’t returned since, he finished ahead of Sacha Modolo (2nd) and Alexander Kristoff (7th) but neither of them were sprinters of note at that stage of their careers. Arnaud Démare won the second edition last year ahead of Modolo and Yannick Martinez, a promising sprinter but hardly a big name. Peter Sagan had taken in the start in 2013 to great acclaim, but he was unfit after his efforts at the Tour de France and failed to finish the race. This year the biggest sprinters were Elia Viviani (Cannondale), Team Sky’s Ben Swift, who is more of a fast finishing opportunist than a pure sprinter, and promising Irish sprinter Sam Bennett (NetApp-Endura). Contrast that with the field for the women’s race where the podium was comprised of three of the very best riders in the sport, with Giorgia Bronzini, Marianne Vos and Lizzie Armitstead finsihing first, second and third respectively. Attracting Vos in particular was quite a coup for the organisers; the race is not a top tier event yet the legendary Vos still took part.

One issue may be the timing of the event; it comes during a traditionally quiet period after the Tour de France, when the stars from that race are taking it easy, claiming prize money at the post-Tour criteriums, recovering from their extreme fatigue after three arduous weeks of racing, and planning the rest of their season around a target later in the year. Riders who come to London having raced at the Tour de France are likely to be far from their best, as Sagan was last year. Those that didn’t race the Tour de France are generally building their form for the Vuelta a Espana and World Championships, and will be using stage races this week to raise their fitness ahead of those events. It should be possible to convince some of them to ride this race en route to those other preparatory races, but not many do.

There aren’t any issues with the venue itself; London is one of the world’s great cities. Much of a professional cyclist’s career is spent racing in the middle of nowhere, so starting and finishing in a major city is always something to look forward to. It is also great logistically, with easy travel into and out of London, particularly pertinent for those who will be travelling to race the Eneco Tour the following day, as Ian Stannard and Philippe Gilbert (BMC Racing Team) did this year, or jetting elsewhere in Europe for another race ahead of the Vuelta a Espana.

However while London may provide an excellent backdrop for a sprint finish on The Mall, and make a fine venue for a time trial, it lacks the natural geographical features to host a great one-day bike race. There are 50 kilometres of flat racing after the final climb of Box Hill on the RideLondon Circuit, and provided the peloton wills it, it will generally finish with a large bunch sprint; certainly there is nothing about the parcours that will automatically force a selection.

Of course there was a selection in this year’s race, but that owed as much to the lack of big name sprinters in the field, as it did to the exciting riding of the breakaway group. Only the riders from the Cannondale team, working on behalf of Elia Viviani, were fully committed to the chase after Box Hill, and with just five riders in support of Viviani they found themselves outnumbered by the break. If more teams had brought significant sprinters they would have contributed to the chase and ensured a large bunch arrived in London together. A peloton can normally move faster than the break because there are more riders in the peloton to share the work, but that simply wasn’t the case in this year’s race, enabling Gilbert’s attack to stick.

The very best one-day classics in cycling are De Ronde van Vlaanderen, Paris-Roubaix and Liège-Bastogne-Liège, three of cycling’s monuments. All of those are distinguished by the sheer difficulty of the terrain over which they are held; the brutally rough surface of the cobbles, and the short sharp climbs of the hellingen and côtes. They often prove to be extremely selective races full of aggressive riding, and are typically decided amongst a handful of elite riders.

Britain has plenty of challenging terrain that would provide a suitable parcours for an exciting one-day classic; there are plenty of punchy climbs to be found around Wales, Scotland and England. That was amply demonstrated on the magnificent second stage of this year’s Tour de France, when the sharp climbs of Yorkshire ripped the peloton apart, against the backdrop of a heaving mass of fans. However that great cycling terrain is a long way from London.

Must this race remain tethered to the nation’s capital? Of the three great races mentioned above, none of them start or finish in one of the world’s great cities (don’t be fooled by the name of Paris-Roubaix, the race has begun in Compiègne for the past 37 years). Instead they are located in smaller towns and cities where the terrain is ideal for hosting a challenging bike race. However it’s unlikely that the same decision will be made in Britain, where the money, the media and the attention tends to centre on London.

An alternative would be to start the race in London, but find a more challenging finish outside of the city; perhaps borrowing the finish from stage seven of this year’s Tour of Britain which finishes in Brighton. The race could leave London to the southeast or southwest, wind about the countryside then approach Brighton via Ditchling Beacon to the north, with the crest of the climb less than 20 kilometres from a finish in Brighton. At 1.55km, Ditchling Beacon is shorter than Box Hill, but much steeper with an average gradient of 8.7% and ramps up to twice that, more than challenging enough to force a selection of riders, close enough to the finsh to make it unlikely that the race regroups on the run-in. Ditchling Beacon could even feature more than once as part of a finishing circuit.

The organisers have options but ultimately they are unlikely to waver from their desire to finish in London, but it won’t often see a repeat of this year’s exciting racing, with a sprint finish more likely instead. The increased prize money awarded as a 1.HC event should help strengthen the field over time, as would moving the race away from this cycling dead period, if a suitable date can be found. Ultimately though, if they want to host a truly great one-day bike race in Britain, they need to start looking beyond London.