Please note: There will be no entry on the day for either the Wight Riviera Sportive. The event must be booked in advance. Advance online booking closes at midnight on Wednesday (16th). Postal entry is now closed. Please do not send entries by post.

Island View Holidays are pleased to provide a late offer for participants of Cycle Wight and their families wishing to book a late accommodation deal in preparation for the event.

We are delighted to provide ‘Free Return Ferry Travel’ (applied to 1 x car travelling with Red Funnel Ferries) with all accommodation bookings any of our Island View Holidays parks saving you up to £75.00! We provide a range of accommodation options from well equipped family caravans to luxury bungalows and our idyllic parks are located in Rookley, Colwell Bay and St Helens.

This Cycle Wight Saver offer relates to short breaks with Island View Holidays arriving 18th May 2012. Please visit:

http://www.islandviewholidays.co.uk/holiday-special-offers.php

To take advantage of this offer please contact our customer service team on 01983 721606 (select Option 1) and quote reference ‘Cycle Wight Saver’. Our lines are open form 9AM to 9PM everyday.

Our Cycle Wight Offer expires on17th May 2012 and is subject to availability so book your break today.

Island View Holidays

We’re almost under starters orders for the Wight Riviera Sportive: The first closed road sportive stage in England will start at 9:45 am on Sunday 20th May!

Here are some details to help you plan your arrival. As you know this event has a mass start and rolling road closure for the first 25km. The start time for everyone will be 9:45 sharp. We will be gathering riders to the start from 9:30, for a short rider briefing at 9:40. 

If you are coming over on the ferry on the morning of the event, there are ferries at the following times that will get you to the event centre for the start time:

07:45

08:05

08:45 (Catch earlier ferry if possible)

(There is also an early ferry at 06:45). Any of these ferries will get you in on time, but we recommend the 07:45 or 08:05. If you are on the 08:45 ferry, you will need to arrive as ready to go as possible, as you will only have a short time to register and join the start. Riders arriving late will still be allowed to start, but must understand that they may be behind the road closure, so riding on re opened roads.  

If you are staying on the Island the night before (or if you live on the Island), there is parking at the event centre. However, if your accommodation is close  to the event centre in Yarmouth, consider cycling to the start if practical. It may be quicker and easier and will help us keep traffic around the event centre to a minimum.

See this link for ferry booking and discount codes.

Booking is still open for the event, but there will be no entry on the day. Advance booking closes at Midnight on Wed 16th May. Click here to reserve your place.

As with all of our events this season, we’ll be hosting the photos on our gallery, where you will be able to download them in return for a £1 donation per photo to the hospice. It’s a great way to get your photos at a fantastic price, and raise much needed funds for a good cause too! 

So we thought you’d like a first look at the shirt for the inaugural Wight Riviera Sportive; here it is:

Appropriately for a coastal classic in the making, the shirt features a weathered ‘beach life’ look. Exact colours may vary for final production, but as usual we’ll be giving you a shirt that passes the pub test every time!

You may know the Minghella name best due to the work of the celebrated film director Anthony Minghella (The English Patient, The Talented Mr Ripley, Cold Mountain). His parents emigrated from Italy to the Isle of Wight in 1950 and set up a family business making traditional Italian ice cream. That family business is still going strong on the Island, producing some of the best ice cream you can buy.

So we’re delighted to have Minghella’s Ice Cream at the Wight Riviera Sportive. Every rider who completes the event will get a free tub to cool down after the ride, and tubs will be on sale for anyone to buy during the day.

There are still more pictures to upload, including a full set from early in the ride on Bledlow Ridge. We’ll keep you updated here with progress on loading and tagging more images. And remember, we’re raising money for the Iain Rennie Hospices with these photos. All we ask is that for every picture you download, you visit the donations page, and give £1.

We’ll keep you updated here.

Thanks to all of you who came out and rode, and of course to all of our team of helpers and event partners who worked as hard as ever to make the day run so smoothly. Results are now online here (checkpoint splits are being added at the moment). We’ve had the first photos from our fantastic volunteer lensmen too; we’ll start loading those for your viewing pleasure tomorrow. Remember, the pictures have been aken in suppport of the Iain Rennie Hospices in the Chilterns, and all we ask is that for every picture you download, you make a £1 donation to the charity.

Sailing in on the ferry, it’s clear that the big, orange and white start arch will be visible from the lounge at the front of the ship on the day, so finding the event won’t be difficult! And it will be from underneath that start arch, on the green by the pretty harbour front that you will gather with the massed throngs of riders to embark on the South of England’s first closed road sportive!

The road closure forms a 25km loop right out from the start line. 25 kilometres, traffic free, to get your legs turning and enjoy the mass start camaraderie. 25 kilometres as a standalone short fun or leisure ride, or 25 kilometres as the perfect launch-pad for the bigger sportive rides (up to 154km for the full route).
From the spot where the start arch will be, we roll out left at an enthusiastic pace, over the little harbour bridge, and then quickly wheel south in the direction of the iconic Needles. Our little chain gang is a blip compared to the crowds of cyclists that will occupy this road on the day of the event, but it quickly becomes clear that those crowds will start to spread out early, as we hit the first of three rolling climbs on the road towards Totland. Local knowledge will tell you that this is a flatish bit of the Island, but experience soon teaches you that ‘flat’ is a relative term on the Isle of Wight. While hardly significant in terms of the hills you will face later in the day, this little set of rollers has just enough bite to space out the wheels on the road.

The descent out of Totland ends in an abrupt hairpin and change of gradient that has gears scrambling for a moment, before cruising downwards again on the airy country lane into Freshwater Bay. We stop on the bay for photos (and, in a “jumpers for goalposts” moment, half time oranges), and to look at the pillars of rock that until just 20 years ago, used to join up and form the Freshwater Arch. Until it sadly collapsed. The two remaining mighty rocks, standing proud of the sea still look pretty impressive though. Then it was off again onto the feature climb of the 25k loop, from the bay up to Compton Down, on the stunning coastal Military Road. We gain height fast on the steep intro to the climb, then steady into the constant gradient of the hill proper. The workload of the climb is all but forgotten, with the broad sweep of Compton Bay commanding our attention, and doing just as good a job of taking our breath away as our exertions are.

Cresting the climb, the descent is a treat, and we plunge down the arrow straight cliff-side road, into a sweeping right-left zig-zag almost back at bay level. Ahead, I can see my companions jostling for best position behind the video crew’s van, vying for their 15 seconds of fame. Honestly, you stick a few grown men on bikes and point a lens at them, and they all go a bit Diva!  A sharp climb out slowed our progress and gave the van some breathing space, before the road dipped once more and we freewheeled into a left turn. A leafy lane points us northwards, leaving the sea temporarily behind.  The scenery closes in here, for an intimate, tree-lined soiree through the gap between Compton and Brighstone Downs. Even taking the path of least resistance, the land refuses to lie pan-flat and there is another little climb to crest before the road slopes gently back down towards the finish at Yarmouth.

A quick shimmy past Chessell Pottery, and we’re on the run back to Yarmouth, along narrow lanes flanked by open fields, sloping gently down towards the Solent. And before we know it we’re back on the sea front, cruising along the promenade and back into the town. For you on the event itself, this will either be the end of your ride, or just the conclusion of the first chapter, before you wheel back past the start arch and out again onto the open roads of the rest of the Island. That’s another story though, and one that features a further array of hills and spectacular views and many more miles of tarmac goodness to enjoy.
It has been eye opening ride, and we retire to a pub in the pretty little harbour town to discuss our day. the 25km Avant loop is a beautiful ride in itself, and as part of a bigger ride it gives you plenty to get your teeth into and to spur you on for the miles to come. And with the prospect of that full loop on traffic free roads, it becomes one of the most significant 25km on the events calendar this year. There’s nothing else like it in the south of England, in fact nothing exactly like it in the country. It’s the thing that turns the Wight Riviera from a great ride into something truly special!