Round-the-world record holder, Mike Hall, will lead 12 riders on an epic 850-mile ride across north Vietnam. Just three places are left

The Cycle-A-Difference ride next May will raise funds for UK-registered charity, Newborns Vietnam, which supports Vietnam’s Da Nang Hospital for Women and Children.

Riders will tackle some 850 miles, including four days in the mountains, and a final stage along the Ho Chi Minh trail.

Epic riding and amazing scenery are promised to riders who will pledge to raise £3,000 for the charity.

Cascading rice terraces, and the Hai Van pass, are included the route, which will start at Lao Cai near the Chinese border and will see riders tackle about 85 miles each day.

Hall should prove an experienced guide. The Lancastrian cycled 18,000 miles earlier this year to circumnavigate the globe in 91 days and 18 hours, setting a new world record.

Dave Jacquin, a digital content manager at Factory Media, is one of the nine riders who have already signed up to take part. To support Dave, visit http://www.justgiving.com/david-jaquin

Ride organiser, Luke Humphreys, said those considering the ride could find inspiration in a film made by participants on a Rapha Continental ride through Sapa, Vietnam. Click here to watch the film.

He added that the Cycle-A-Difference ride would be fully supported and held on a route that had been tested and would be tested again before the ride next May.

 To get involved, visit Cycle-A-Difference.

Inverted Bike Shop is one of the films to be shown at the ninth Bicycle Film Festival

Line of Sight, a new film from director, Benny Zenga, and cinematographer, Benny Zenga, will receive its world premiere.

A showcase of two films from Ireland will be shown on October 7 at 5pm. Sean O Cualain’s Ras Tailteann, Men of the Ras, will be screened with Martin Dwan’s Shay Elliot: Cycle of Betrayal.

A programme described as ‘emotive short films from around the world’ will include Jason Giampietro’s Candy Rides, Justin Chadwick’s Boy, and Sister Session, a film directed by Helen Habakuk, Doris Taaker, and Brett Astrid Vomma.

Other events include a BMX Jam on Saturday October 6, a Rollapaluza roller on Sunday October 7, a bike polo tournament, and a ‘cycling symposium’ on Wednesday October 12, presented in collaboration with Transport For London, pledged to include debates, discussions and presentations concerning the future of cycling in London.

The British Film Festival, created in 2001, will travel to 25 cities this year, including Mexico City, Moscow, and Tokyo.

A BFF spokesman said: “The festival celebrates the bicycle by joining many creative communities, including fashion, music and art, with the bicycling communities – road cycling, mountain biking, fixed gear, BMX, cyclocross – in a shared passion.”

Bicycle Film Festival

The Haute Route Pyrenees will be as demanding as its Alpine sister event

The first Haute Route Pyrenees will take place on September 1-7 2013 and will take riders from Catalonia (Spain) to the Basque Coast (France), following an 800km route via 20 legendary Pyrenean cols and 20,000m of ascent.

The event will follow the same format as the Haute Route Alps, established in 2011 as the toughest and highest sportive in the world, with seven timed stages, including a midweek individual time trial.

“The Pyrenees offer an ideally suited profile for the Haute Route, with the exceptional beauty of the landscape and the authenticity of the valleys crossed,” said race director and course designer Jean-François Alcan, founder of the Etape du Tour.

“The highest cols of the Pyrenees will feature in the challenging course, including the mythical Tourmalet, and riders must be wary that these climbs are even steeper than the Alpine ones.”

OC Sport will announce the start and finish host cities, the course details and registration conditions in the coming weeks. Fifty entries will be reserved for participants who wish to take on the challenge of the Alps and the Pyrenees in the same year, with the Haute Route Pyrenees start in Catalonia one week after the Haute Route Alps finish in Nice.

www.hauteroute.org

Haute Route calendar

Haute Route Alps 2012 (second edition) – August 19-25 2012
Haute Route Alps 2013 (third edition) – August 18-24 2013
Haute Route Pyrenees 2013 (first edition) – September 1-7 2013

“At this special time in the nation’s sporting history, we felt we had to come up with something extra special to mark success in this significant cycling challenge,” said organiser Stewart Bergman.

“All I will say is that these high quality, custom made awards, unique to the event, will not be left languishing in the back of a draw somewhere, they will be much cherished and displayed with immense personal pride.”

At 112 miles, the Moor2Sea sportive’s Extreme Route is set to be one of the UK’s toughest. With more than 12,000 feet of ascent, it features more climbing than any single stage of the Tour of Britain, which passes through the same area the following weekend.

The final ascent of the day, Mamhead, will carry its own King of the Mountains medal pin for those who complete the section inside the, as yet undisclosed, designated time.

For those seeking a shorter, but not neccessarily less difficult, ride, there is the 67-mile Challenge Route, which also links Dartmoor’s rugged moorland with the South Devon coast. However, for riders unable to complete their chosen route, Devon by Bike will be in support, providing a recovery service from the designated feed zone.

Energy products supplier High5 are the most recent partner to join forces with the event, while Olympic Games and Tour de France photographers SportivePhoto will be on hand to capture images of the riders in action.

Exeter Race Course will be the sportive’s HQ, where services include hard standing parking for all vehicles, pre-start breakfast, post-event catering and massages to soothe away those aches and pains before the journey home.

The event concludes with a two-mile closed road circuit and all finishers will be rewarded with a goody bag, worth approximately £20.

Entries for the Moor2Sea sportive are limited to 500 riders, with the start list already 80 per cent full. For full details and to enter, visit www.moor2sea.com

Mr Johnson, flanked by double Olympic gold medalist, Laura Trott, unveiled plans for Ride London, which will be held for the first time next year on August 3 and 4.

“This will be the greatest cycle weekend in the world in what is fast becoming the greatest cycling city on earth.

“I think it will be a wonderful thing for our city. I can’t believe we haven’t tried it before. I don’t know why we haven’t tried it before,” said Mr Johnson.

The weekend will start on Saturday August 3 with the Freecycle fun ride, with organisers expecting up to 70,000 people to ride the eight-mile, close- road loop past landmarks including the Houses of Parliament, Tower Bridge, and Buckingham Palace.

The three remaining events will be held on Sunday August 4.

Some 20,000 cyclists will set off from The Mall between 6am and 8am on a modified version of the Olympic road race course for the ‘RideLondon100′ sportive-style event.

A ballot will be held to deal with the expected over-subscription, and participants will be seeded to ensure all finish within nine hours.

Hugh Brasher, son of London Marathon co-founder, Chris, will be event director.

He told today’s press conference: “We are still in the middle of this amazing Olympics where London has shown to the sports world what it can do, and this event will be something similar.”

While the London100 unfolds, the Grand Prix series of Criterium races for juniors, hand cyclists, and women will be held on a 1.3 mile circuit on closed roads in St James Park, close to the start-finish line for the RideLondon Classic.

The SweetSpot Group, organisers and promoters of the Tour of Britain, will take charge of the elite race, the RideLondon Classic, for which they hope to gain accreditation from the sport’s world governing body, the UCI.

Mick Bennett, race director of the Tour of Britain, and technical director of SweetSpot, pledged to make the RideLondon Classic the biggest single-day race in the world.

He revealed that Mark Cavendish and Bradley Wiggins will ride the Tour of Britain this September, and said squads like the duo’s Sky Pro Cycling team would be encouraged to sign up for the RideLondon Classic during the race.

“The Tour of Britain is the ninth to the 16^th of September and this couldn’t be better positioned to help promote Ride London. It will give us an opportunity to talk to speak to those teams, encourage those teams, and try and get the sign up very, very early.

“I’ve been in the sport, promoting and organizing professional cycle racing for many, many years. This will be and will build to be the biggest single day classic. We used to do single day Classics here many, many years ago as part of the World Cup.

“I am absolutely convinced with the marriage that the London Marathon and Sweetspot have, this will build to be the biggest single day Classic in the world bar none,” he said.

Discuss in the forum

Ride London

The revised route is longer and includes more climbing, with the 102-mile course packing in more than 7,500 feet of ascent, while the 76-mile option rises for almost 5,000 feet.

The event is based from Uttoxeter Racecourse in Staffordshire and the climbing starts immediately as both courses head south for a loop taking in Mayfield and Stanton Bank before the routes split.

The long route takes in five major big climbs, including Ilam and Grindon, before joining the shorter, less hilly course again at Ashbourne. From here it’s a relatively flat profile until the real sting in the tail with five miles to go with the climb of Marchington Cliff, followed by a gentle ride back to the finish at Uttoxeter

Both routes will be fully signposted, timed, have well-stocked feed stations with Clif Bar energy products, full mechanical backup en-route as well as at the start/finish, and a broom wagon if the climbing takes its toll.

Sign-on starts at 7:30am in the winner’s enclosure of Uttoxeter Racecourse, with riders on the long route rolling out at 8:30am, with the short course starting at 9:00am. Plenty of free car parking is available on site and all finishers receive a free meal on return.

Entry costs £29.50 in advance at www.wheelsinwheels.com (online entry closes today, Wednesday August 8) or £30 on the day.

All proceeds from the Pain on the Plain Sportive will go to the Soldiers, Sailors, Army Families Association

The event starts and finishes at Tedworth House, a 17th century building now used as a rehabilitation facility for Army personnel and supported by SSAFA.

The sportive will have two routes on offer – 100 miles and 100km – and takes in public and private military roads on Salisbury Plain. Several optional off-road sections are on offer along the route if any adventurous riders fancy some gravel road action on their road bikes.

There will also be a starter route of 30 miles for inexperienced cyclists wanting to try an organised event for the first time and entry for this will cost £10 on the day. Saturday afternoon will see the Army Cycling Union criterium championships taking place in the grounds of Tedworth House, while there will also be two Go-Ride coaching sessions on Saturday and Sunday.

Entry for either the 100km or 100-mile routes costs £29.50 in advance or £35 on the day. Enter online at www.wheelsinwheels.com

Based out of the York Cycle Show, there’s a choice of two distances, 100 and 150km through the Howardian Hills and North Yorkshire Moors, with the optional 33 per cent climb of Rosedale Chimney.

The 100km route takes riders from York up on to the moors before dropping into Hutton-le-Hole and on to Marton. The 150km route tackles the climbs of Farndale and Blakey Bank, which the organisers describe as “savage”. After a stop at Danby Moors Centre, the route climbs back over the moors before dropping into Rosedale where those with fresh legs can take the option of the Chimney.

From there it’s a lumpy run through the grounds of Castle Howard and back to the York Cycle Show, taking place at York Racecourse over the weekend June 23-24.

Both routes, which take in some of the favourite roads of local cycling legend Ron Kitchling, will be fully signposted, timed, have well stocked feed stops and mechanical back-up on route as well as the start/finish.

The Ron Kitching Ride is one of the Shimano Wheel Service test events where selected riders, via a ballot system, can try out the latest Shimano wheelsets during the sportive for free. See the event website for full details.

Entries can be made online or by post with a discount for CTC members and group bookings for teams of four or more. Enter online at www.ctcchallengerides.co.uk

Lizzie Armitstead and Rebecca Romero were among 7,000 rider who took part in the Great Manchester Cycle (© Nova International)

The closed roads sportive, the UK’s largest timed cycling event, featured three different distances (13, 26 and 52 miles) based around a 13-mile city centre loop.

“I spend a lot of time in Manchester and to be able to explore the city in this way is something I really wanted to do,” said Armitstead, who will start this summer’s women’s Olympic road race among the favourites.

“It was a fantastic day and something I was delighted to be a part of.”

Olympic individual pursuit gold medallist Rebecca Romero added: “This event is so great because it’s a big sporting event but it has closed roads and that’s unique.”

“For people who cycle recreationally, to have this kind of structured event with a timing chip and to have the route mapped out, is a great opportunity to test themselves.”

Starting at Eastlands, the home of Manchester City FC, riders were set off in waves, with British Cycling members leading the way. The route includes a section on the city’s most well known motorway, the Mancunian Way – normally off limits to cyclists.

David Hart, communications director of organisers Nova International, said: “We were thrilled with the reaction to the Great Manchester Cycle, which in its first year, has become the UK’s biggest timed cycling event.

“With the three distances, it was a celebration of cycling on the closed roads of Manchester to suit different levels of ability and we believe this event has a hugely exciting future.”

The first Lancashire Hotpot sportive will take place on Sunday September 16 Pic: British Cycling

The sportive starts from Blackpool Football Club and offers 115, 85 and 60-mile routes, finished in finishing in Stanley Park.

The Lancashire Hotpot takes in some of the county’s toughest climbs,  including Jeffrey Hill, Nick of Pendle, Pendle Hill, Waddington Fell and Trough of Bowland.

“The long route of 115 miles takes in all of Lancashire’s iconic cycling climbs with a total ascent of 2,500m and visits all three event feed stations,” Kilo To Go told us. “The 85-mile route misses out Nick of Pendle and Pendle Hill to bring the total climbing down to 1,500m and visits the Longridge and Ashton Memorial feed stations.

“The shorter 60-mile route ascends Jeffrey Hill, with phenomenal views from the top. This route totals 800m of climb and visits the Longridge feed station only. There’s a route for all levels of sportive riding ability.”

Entry costs £28, £31 or £34, depending on route you opt for, with £1 from every entry donated to the Rising Star Fund, a charity which gives young sportsmen and women in Lancashire financial support to enable them to excel in their chosen sport.

Enter online at www.kilotogo.com