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Has it been done? Does it work? Just read the Daily Mail thing about the Surrey Classic and wondering if there was another solution. I know most circuits won't have that much of a climb, but a shortish detour outside the venue might be a way of bringing that in without massive road closures and still getting a decent race length.
Off the top of my head;
Dunsfold (Top Gear track) hosts road and cross races, oh and running events.
Goodwood motor circuit has events as does Brands Hatch on occasion.
I even believe Silverstone has been used in the past.
Tis a subject that comes up a lot on roadie forums.........
Definately run them at Darley Moor, Croft and Mallory off the top of my head...
Make pretty good crit circuits... racing is fast ... surface is good .. alot of room to move around so generally alot less incidents
Croft do them every Tuesday in the Summer AFAIK
They do duathlons at Castle Combe.
Ingilston, although its not used for Motor Sport anymore.
The 2012 Paralympic cycling will start/finish at Brands with some events confined to the track & the road race heading out onto the local streets.
great for crits as above.
I do know someone who high sided coming out of the chicane at Goodwood and broke their pelvis so they're not [i]that[/i] safe...
Its a bit out of the way but the Nurburgring gets used for cycle races too
Thruxton is also used and crystal palace was a former motor circuit that still has an annual car TT.
Circuit racing is very different to road racing though, for example the pros would never let an early break get a 6min gap otherwise they'd lap the field and it would be game over!
Castle Coombe on a Thursday night through the summer...
Silverstone has duathlons
Silverstone used to be a venue, don't know if it still is. It was horrid. Wind, that's all I remember wind.
Donnington would be good, down Craner curves 😀
Strangely the biggest crashes I've seen / been involved in were all at wide closed ciruits. Dunsfold/Chertsey/Goodwood/Brands. People seem to lose their normal riding care at them compared to open road races. So I wouldn't say that they were safer - execpt in the avoidance of motor traffic.
That is the only closed road race in the UK, I don't think that one such race every decade is too much to ask is it?
Goodwood was actually used for a road race championships about 30 years ago, thing Saronni won, certainly an Italian.
Blackhound - MemberGoodwood was actually used for a road race championships about 30 years ago, thing Saronni won, certainly an Italian.
A chunk of the route still gets used on the [url= http://www.southdc.org.uk/courses/p911.htm ]classic 27 mile TT[/url] held each October. - Tis a real marmite course, mainly on the horrible climbs.....
Done one at Thruxton.
Don't forget the [url= http://road.cc/content/event/28587-24-heures-velo-du-mans ]24 Heures du Mans[/url] (on the Bugatti circuit) 🙂
They have crits at Rockingham
Strangely the biggest crashes I've seen / been involved in were all at wide closed
+1
Seen some crazy crashes at Goodwood particularly!
Curborough near Lichfield has had a few. Tight crit like circuit.
Why don't we also suggest that the marathon and all the walking events take place in the stadium too, that way no roads have to be closed. The triathlon could be done the same way, swim in the pool, then ride around the velodrome a few times, and run around the track to finish?
It's a road race. It happens like this how often? It was well advertised. Deal with it.
IIRC oulton park have some too.
Tli run crits at Oulton park in the summer.
I've no problem with London shutting down for a race now and again just thought of this as an option to get racing free from traffic and a quick google didn't tell me how much it went on. Hopefully the race will go well on the day, maybe they needed to manage the expectations of the motorists a bit better for this week's though, but not being a southerner I didn't see how it worked on the ground.
Well, there used to be a nice closed cycle circuit at Eastway, but they've destroyed it to build some rubbish instead. 😥
Once rode the whole prom from St Tropez to Monaco then rode round the Monaco GP route. Couldn't get over how hilly the circuit is!!! Great to do it though it gives you a much better insight when you watch the F1 cars bazzing round it
C
They used to hold a week's worth round the TT circuit on the IoM - plenty climbing on that.
Err they did have some fairly big road racing closures in London a couple of years ago too with a TT in central london and a stage out to the coast next day.....Tour de ....something 🙂
Amazing to see how well ASO dealt with the road closures etc compared to LOCOG
I think the issue here was more one of maintaining a closed road throughout, due to the nature of the route, rather than the more traditional rolling road closures that are used for TdF/ToB stages.
I wouldn't take too much notice of what the Daily Mail says...
Closed circuit racing is different to road racing and putting all cycle racing onto closed circuits is not something that should ever be discussed, there's way too much at stake in terms of development of athletes - you can't get people up to Olympic/World standard if all they're ever doing is closed circuits.
Different in terms of how they're ridden, the terrain, hills etc. Anyone into road racing will know what I'm on about, anyone who thinks that "it's all just riding a bike" might need another analogy - imagine if all MTBing was at trail centres, there was no access at all to "the great outdoors". It'd be kind of like that but worse.
My boss races at Castle Combe.
I cannot imagine a more depressing place to ride a bicycle.
Cadwell Park would be fun/hard though.