The Verenti Dragon Ride Wales, the largest open road sportive ride in the country, is gearing up for its best edition yet with a host of technical innovations and a larger and more bustling village chief amongst a range of new features.
Speeding up the process of start and finish timing, the Verenti Dragon Ride will employ an all-new ChampionChip combined bike number and chip timing system that will mean no more queues to hand back timing chips at the end of a gruelling day in the saddle. Event organiser BreakAway Cycling was the first in the UK to do away with having to turn up and register at the event. Now riders don’t even have to return their timing chip after the ride or post it back if they can’t attend.
“I’m really excited about this new innovative timing chip.” commented organiser Lou Lusardi, “I used a similar chip-in-number way back in 2003, on an Italian Gran Fondo. Those old systems weren’t that accurate, which is why we haven’t used them in previous Dragon Rides. This new version is much more precise. In my opinion this could be the Holy Grail of sportive timing – a totally disposable transponder. It’s lighter, cheaper and greener to send out, requires less packaging and is easier for the official photographer to match rider to number”
New to the event this year is a licenced bar and live music plus improved parking and the presence of a range of the world’s top manufacturers and retailers in the Verenti Village along with the complete range of Verenti sportive-specific road bikes.
The Verenti Dragon ride will run once again from Pencoed across beautiful Southern Wales on June 6th.
