We’ve been away…
What’s the thought about the best place in Edinburgh to watch the men’s race on Sunday?
I saw someone saying they were leaving Holyrood at 9.30? But I thought they left from
The castle esplanade?
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Sport
Worlds - elite men’s Road Race: where to watch?
(41 posts)-
Posted 1 year ago #
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The route map on the UCI website shows the race starting at 0930 on Horse Wynd, in front of the Scottish Parliament building - effectively where PoP ends.
See: https://www.tissottiming.com/2023/crdwch/en-us/default/Stage/3/Map
Posted 1 year ago # -
At home or the pub, on the TV?
Then you get to follow the whole race, instead of waiting around for hours on end, then "whoosh" and it's all over
Posted 1 year ago # -
Its neutralised until KM0 on Craigleith Road: Personally I'd watch at Blackhall where you might see people trying to start a breakaway up the hill. Alternatively watch them trying to negotiate the cobbled turn into Royal Circus at Howe Street.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Was going to say Forth Road Bridge, but surprised to find it’s going over Queensferry Crossing.
Posted 1 year ago # -
@neddie we'll do that too. but will try to catch them in person as well.
we were in harrogate in 2019. what a blast (despite the atrocious weather). we almost bumped into Mads Pederson heading back to his team bus well after we thought they'd all left.
Posted 1 year ago # -
We are considering popping to Glasgow. They whizz around a circuit there several times. I think the circuit is similar to the Commonwealths, and perhaps also to the Zwift circuit.
Posted 1 year ago # -
As far as I'm aware the Zwift map is almost entirely fictional. There are location and streets from Glasgow but they don't link together in the same way.
There's no way they could have gone over the FRB. They'd be dismounting every 50m and going at a maximum of 15mph.
Being serious though the expansion gaps on the bridge are too large to guarantee safety. They would probably have to put barriers along the sides too. Not to mention that the camera angles for the estuary probably work better on the QC too.
Posted 1 year ago # -
“the expansion gaps on the bridge are too large to guarantee safety”
No doubt that’s the reason, would have been possible to cover.
Just surprised that it was agreed to ‘shut the motorway’.
Will ‘normal traffic’ be going over the FRB or just held up?
Posted 1 year ago # -
Montrose Street in Glasgow is big kicker and will have crowds though it didn’t at the commonwealth due to pishing rain.
Geraint bossed it then and if he is in it given the repeat forecast i wouldn’t bet against him
Posted 1 year ago # -
Alas, from what I've seen G is not on the list
Posted 1 year ago # -
Shame as he does well in winter conditi9ns in Glasgow summertime.
Posted 1 year ago # -
G is doing the Time Trial but not the road race, AFAIK.
We are thinking of going to Holyrood Park to see what we can see, and then getting the train to Glasgow, though it is not certain that we'll do the latter. The aim is to enjoy the atmosphere/seeing the race pass by, not to get a good overview of the actual race! If you really want to know what is going on, then watching TV is your best bet.
(When we watched the Worlds in Innsbruck, we managed to find a big screen after the riders had passed us for the last time and so did see what happened in the end.)Posted 1 year ago # -
@fimm we are also debating a train to Glasgow after the start, but likely won’t. We got wet enough at Harrogate.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Going to Glasgow still under discussion here. Some friends of Mr fimm definitely are doing so.
(I watched the Commonwealth Games RR in Glasgow. That was wet.)Posted 1 year ago # -
On the non-elite side spent a couple of hours watching Gran Fondo from outside Kirkmichael Village shop.
Quite a big crowd with flags, clapping and cheering.All amateurs- waves of them set off on 160km circuit from Perth including Loch Tummel and the Moulin Moor over from Pitlochry.
Mix of men and women - Chileans, Mexicans, Afghans... at least one rider from Malawi.
People really enjoyed the social and didn't moan about not being able to drive.
Posted on X.
They were flying down to Bridge of Cally...!Posted 1 year ago # -
“
One of the biggest names in professional cycling has joined some of his fellow riders in criticising the urban circuit of the 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships in Glasgow ahead of the showpiece Men's Elite Road Race on Sunday.
“
Posted 1 year ago # -
So what did people think of the whole event then? I enjoyed watching most of the elite women's race. Riders from Afghanistan took part - not really due to any great help from UCI though.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Being in Glasgow for the men's race was by far the best cycling spectator experience I've had
Posted 1 year ago # -
We had a week in Norfolk while this was on, but I bookended the journeys with the two road races. We watched the men go through Rosyth before heading south and I got dropped off in Glasgow to see the Women's RR circuits on the way back.
Both were great - the men's for the whoosh effect of the peleton flying through in a matter of seconds on roads I ride myself, and the women's for the steady build up of suspense until the last lap. I was able to move from Argyle St, to the finish, up Montrose St and settled round the corner on Cathedral St where I could see the riders twice, coming in 2 directions.
The event was well marshalled and road crossings were managed pretty well in the gaps between race entourages progress.
Disagree with the criticism of the circuit- the world championships are run over different parcours which suit different types of riders (climbers, sprinters, classics riders etc.). It is fine to have the criterium type race occasionally as well.
Think Glasgow embraced it fully I saw loads of people on the trains to and from the women's race and all were animated and excited about the event. Scotrail even planned for it in advance and had extra capacity on the train I was on (almost unheard of!)
Friends have been to the track and MTB in Glentress as well and thoroughly enjoyed it. Hope others did too!
Posted 1 year ago # -
Up Montrose St = epic
The coverage was good - although Sunday had BMX on till the race got into city (on BBC Scotland channel) - you had to use red button to get the women's race from start at Balloch.
Looking at the crowds it was obviously popular despite the moans of taxi drivers. The topography of Glasgow has never been used to such effect before.Scottish tourism elsewhere might get a benefit too but if it's just more campervans then maybe not that good. The difficult bit is when politicians think there may be long term active and health benefits. Chat of cycle tourism benefitting is premature. Safe infra is long way off and some older paths are needing upgraded.
Environmentally there is a cost of course with a big sport event - huge amount of energy used moving around but not as crazy as F1.
Scotrail had two very busy weekends I hear with people favouring direct trains into centre. Luckliy no strikes here.
Posted 1 year ago # -
We went to the rollout in Edinburgh and Mr fimm and some friends went through to Glasgow on the train and really enjoyed the atmosphere, especially on the Scott Street climb (which wasn't barriered, so the crowds were doing the whole moving in and out effect).
Mr fimm also took the train to Stirling for the women's time trial which he also enjoyed.
We went to Glentress on Saturday for the mountainbiking which was also very good - we enjoyed the atmosphere. There were good crowds but because it was ticketed it wasn't absolutely crammed. We went there by car, and they had park and ride set-ups with busses to take you on site. Mr fimm and some of his friends cycled down from Edinburgh.
We watched the women's race on the TV!
Posted 1 year ago # -
"Safe infra is long way off and some older paths are needing upgraded."
We all know this is true, but I'll take a bit of comfort from things I saw while spectating: The segregated cycle lanes on Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow. Similarly well done segregated cycle lanes outside the station in Stirling and along Dumbarton Road and Raploch Road, plus the general placemaking and road calming in front of the station and on Albert Place - I hadn't been in Stirling in years, and was really impressed by the changes. And the Peebles cycle path that I used from the park & ride down into town (could have done with something obvious along to Glentress, but I was running late so I just rode along the road on that bit). A long way to go, but these are good examples to build on and for other Councils to follow.
The racing was great. And it was fantastic seeing all the Belgian/Danish/Norwegian/Dutch etc fans here - will be interesting to see some figures around its impact on tourism.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Last weekend, we went along to Burnshot to see the Mens Road Race depart - the usual cavalcade of motorbikes and vehicles with a quick whizz of riders going past. Got on the telly for a frame or so.
This weekend we went to Glentress to see the MTB racing, which was very exciting with Tom Pidcock chasing down the leaders and some major new routes which will also have to go back to try.
Also of note was the massive bike parking area at the bottom which got completely filled. We were glad of cycling from the P&R site as the queue for the buses at the end was massive. We also got overtaken by several of the competitors as we made our way back to Peebles.
Sunday we went to the BMX in Glasgow. A very different experience but amazing to watch. We were at the bottom of start ramp and had prime spot for the inevitable crashes. It was slightly macabre to see the stretcher next to the track get replaced very quickly after the first injured rider had need of it and then the next race it got replaced again...
The whole of Quarterfinals, Semi Finals and Finals for 6 different categories was completed in 2 1/2 hours so whist each race was only c.30seconds long, we didn't have to wait long for the next race.
Beth Schreiber was awesome in every race and well deserved her Rainbow Jersey. It was amazing that even in the post race interview 5 minutes after the race finished the riders are still panting heavily - they certainly give it everything during the race.
Really good to have a World Champs nearby and opportunites to go see them.
Posted 1 year ago # -
We made it to a few events over the championships.
We started with a couple of laps of the junior ladies road race was nice to see but as we didn't know anyone it lacked interest.
We then went to the BMX freestyle which was a washout. Every time a show came through they would stop and wait. Once it was dry there would then be 20 minutes of warmup before a few competitive runs followed by more showers. They did have come and try BMX and trials setup though which the kids enjoyed but inevitably had long queues due to the lack of competition.
We then made it to the velodrome which is always a good experience and this time including the first run of the Bigham V Ganna Pursuit.
The outstanding event for us though was indoor cycling. We booked it as a bit of fun and ended up there on finals day. Almost the entire crowd seemed to have come from Switzerland, Austria or Germany. The Swiss in particular had a large section of the crowd wearing their local team colours after all the national team was their 1st team. During the artistic cycling you could have heard a pin drop in the crowd as the only sound was the riders music. However things changed every time a cycleball match began. The security team at the entrance were very effcient at confiscating metal water bottles but somehow drums, trumpets, vuvuzelas, airhorns, clapperboards, etc had all got past them. We were sitting next to the Austrian teams friends so their semi final against Germany was especially loud.
Sadly Switzerland didn't quite manage to win the cycleball but they did stop the German's achieving a perfect clean sweep of rainbox jersey's by winning the ACT4 artistic event.
Germany dominated this section of the championships winning 6/7 jerseys and 9/20 medals.
Posted 1 year ago # -
I managed to get to both elite road races and the time trial in Stirling. All really well attended with a great atmosphere. Taking my bike with me for the men’s road race was a mistake that wasn’t repeated! I managed to get on the second EDB train with ~10 other cyclists in the same carriage.
On the last day they also had 50% off most of the merchandise/Santini gear but thankfully I could resist. Anyway, on a completely unrelated note, does anyone have three coat hangers I could borrow?
Posted 1 year ago # -
It's always great to experience the atmosphere and energy of such events. As for your request for three coat hangers, you might want to try asking friends, family, or neighbors if they have some to spare, or consider checking local stores or shops where you can purchase coat hangers if you need them for a specific purpose.
Posted 1 year ago # -
"Bike Shop Edinburgh" is a versatile and well-regarded establishment in the city bike coop, catering to both casual cyclists and enthusiasts alike. With its wide range of bikes, accessories, and knowledgeable staff, it's a go-to destination for anyone interested in cycling in the Edinburgh area. One of the notable aspects of this shop is its commitment to customer service. The staff at Bike Shop Edinburgh are typically passionate about cycling and are happy to offer expert advice and recommendations based on individual needs and preferences. Whether you're a seasoned cyclist or a beginner, they can guide you in finding the perfect bike or accessories to suit your goals.
Posted 1 year ago #
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