Skip Madness
New Member
The Goodwood 1982 thread and the description of the course got me thinking, if the World Championships were going to be held in Britain, where would you want to see it staged?
According to the Wikipedia page, the only prior visit of the road Worlds to Britain was in 1970, in Leicester. In the interests of avoiding repetition, I say that automatically strikes a line through Leicester and Goodwood. London will get the Olympic road race in 2012, too, so that gets crossed out - at least for a while.
Ideally, I would want a fairly large city with a distinctive atmosphere and interesting urban views, not too far from some pretty countryside for the out-and-back loop. Whether it would be a course for the sprinters, climbers or something in between I will leave up to you. Remember that the laps are usually 10-18 km long. Obviously I am not asking for detailed route profiles, but which location would make for the best racing and best viewing based on the above factors?
I do not know why, but for some reason I think of the Manchester-Leeds-Sheffield triangle as the home of cycling in Britain, or England at least. Whenever I browse forums, that seems to be the area with the highest proportion of passionate riders and followers. For that reason I see it having potential. I have only been to Manchester out of those three, and then only driving through it incredibly briefly, so I do not know much about it. Sheffield, could be good, I think.
As a Bristol boy I would obviously like to see it down here, and there are some pretty good views within the city and routes out to the Mendips. I am not sure it has the road infrastructure for it, though. Exeter might be suitable but I suspect the best bits of Dartmoor are probably just out of reach, logistically.
Swansea? It has hills, the coast and a reasonably-sized city, plus Nicole Cooke was born there for a cultural link.
Anyway, given the surge of British cyclists and cycling in Britain that we seem to be experiencing, it is not inconceivable that the Worlds could find itself on our doorsteps some few years ahead. If you had the final say where would it go?
According to the Wikipedia page, the only prior visit of the road Worlds to Britain was in 1970, in Leicester. In the interests of avoiding repetition, I say that automatically strikes a line through Leicester and Goodwood. London will get the Olympic road race in 2012, too, so that gets crossed out - at least for a while.
Ideally, I would want a fairly large city with a distinctive atmosphere and interesting urban views, not too far from some pretty countryside for the out-and-back loop. Whether it would be a course for the sprinters, climbers or something in between I will leave up to you. Remember that the laps are usually 10-18 km long. Obviously I am not asking for detailed route profiles, but which location would make for the best racing and best viewing based on the above factors?
I do not know why, but for some reason I think of the Manchester-Leeds-Sheffield triangle as the home of cycling in Britain, or England at least. Whenever I browse forums, that seems to be the area with the highest proportion of passionate riders and followers. For that reason I see it having potential. I have only been to Manchester out of those three, and then only driving through it incredibly briefly, so I do not know much about it. Sheffield, could be good, I think.
As a Bristol boy I would obviously like to see it down here, and there are some pretty good views within the city and routes out to the Mendips. I am not sure it has the road infrastructure for it, though. Exeter might be suitable but I suspect the best bits of Dartmoor are probably just out of reach, logistically.
Swansea? It has hills, the coast and a reasonably-sized city, plus Nicole Cooke was born there for a cultural link.
Anyway, given the surge of British cyclists and cycling in Britain that we seem to be experiencing, it is not inconceivable that the Worlds could find itself on our doorsteps some few years ahead. If you had the final say where would it go?
