In welcome news for domestic road racing, British Cycling has announced an expanded set of calendars for the National Road Series and National Circuit Series in 2024.

Here is what we know about the respective calendars, together with a few thoughts about where this leaves the elite racing calendar.

Updated: 2 February

Featured image: Ian Wrightson x The British Continental

National Road Series

The National Road Series is the premier road racing series in the UK for men and women. The Series has suffered a number of setbacks in the last few years, the calendar slowly shrinking, with races such as the Klondike Grand Prix, the Stockton Grand Prix and the Tour of the Reservoir all either postponed or disappearing altogether.

Last year’s calendar was the slimmest it has ever been, consisting of five one-day races for women and four for men. With the costs and administrative barriers for road racing raising the bar ever higher for putting on a National A road race, the concern was that the Series may never fully recover.

However, British Cycling’s announcement of the 2024 calendar offers some hope. The Tour of the Reservoir will return after a four-year absence, a much needed stage race (albeit only two days long). * The East Cleveland Classic will in effect be a revival of the East Cleveland Klondike Grand Prix, while a new stage race is pencilled in for the end of the September. “British Cycling is also currently in discussions regarding the addition of a further open and women’s stage race to conclude the series, on the weekend of 27-29 September, with further details to be announced in due course”, says the British Cycling press release.

The Stockton Cycling Festival Grand Prix remains off the menu. As does the four-stage Manx International Stage Race which was postponed last year because of planned roadworks; British Cycling had said the race would return in 2024, but it seems not.

* The Tour of the Reservoir organisers announced on 2 February at the race would not go ahead in 2024 but that they hoped the race could go ahead in 2025.

‘Open’ calendar

First of all, for those confused by the term ‘Open’ calendar (previously called the ‘men’s’ calendar), it is the result of British Cycling’s Transgender and Non-Binary Participation Policy, which created a new Open category alongside the ‘female’ category. Transgender women, transgender men, non-binary individuals and those whose sex was assigned male at birth are eligible to compete in the Open category (those whose sex was assigned female at birth are also able to compete in the Open category if they so wish).

In 2023, this calendar was down to a meagre four one-day races, resulting in slim pickings for Elite Development Teams and others that were hoping for a strong calendar of domestic racing to help their riders progress. Next year, however, the programme could feature as many as seven rounds, including two stage races.

The East Cleveland Classic supported by Redcar and Cleveland Council will be the first race of the Series in 14 Apr, with the iconic Rapha Lincoln Grand Prix then forming round on 12 May. The Tour of the Reservoir returns on the first weekend of July at what will be a busy time of year for domestic teams, who will be travelling up and down the country for the National Circuit Series at the same time.

Date	Round	Race
14 Apr	1	The East Cleveland Classic supported by Redcar and Cleveland Council
12 May	2	Rapha Lincoln Grand Prix
6-7 Jul	3	Tour of the Reservoir
28 Jul	3	Lancaster Grand Prix
18 Aug	4	Ryedale Grasscrete Grand Prix
15 Sep	5	The Beaumont Trophy
27-29 Sep	TBC	TBC

The Lancaster Grand Prix, a race which has gone from strength to strength, is positioned at the end of July, two days after the final round of the National Circuit Series, while the stalwarts that are the Ryedale Grasscrete Grand Prix and the Beaumont Trophy retain their August and September positions in the Series calendar.

The yet-to-be-confirmed stage race is slated to be the Series decided and would take place at the end of September.

And whisper it, but there is also (well-founded) talk of the Bourne Classic returning on 14 July. If it happens – and nothing is confirmed at this stage – it would be a National A road race for the Open category only initially, and would not be a part of the National Road Series. We understand that the plan would then be to incorporate a women’s race to the event in 2025, all being well.

Women’s calendar

The women’s National Road Series will comprise a possible eight rounds in 2024, up from five in 2023. It shares the same races as the open Series but with one important difference: the 8th ANEXO/CAMS Women’s CiCLE Classic. This race keeps its new March date, a move which resulted in a mud-filled edition of the 2023 edition a truly deserving winner in Jess Finney.

Date	Round	Race
17 Mar	1	The 8th ANEXO/CAMS Women’s CiCLE Classic
14 Apr	2	The East Cleveland Classic supported by Redcar and Cleveland Council
12 May	3	Rapha Lincoln Grand Prix
6-7 Jul	4	The Alexandra Tour of the Reservoir
28 Jul	4	Lancaster Grand Prix
18 Aug	5	Ryedale Grasscrete Grand Prix
15 Sep	6	The Curlew Cup
27-29 Sep	TBC	TBC

National Circuit Series

The 2023 National Circuit Series programme has experienced less instability than the Road Series in recent years. And in more good news for domestic racing fans, the Series is set to grow in 2024. There will be a new Yorkshire round, and the Fort Vale Colne Grand Prix will include a women’s race this year for the first time, ensuring parity between the open and women’s calendars.

The Series begins with spectator favourite the Otley Grand Prix on 26 June. This is quickly followed by the Ilkley Cycle Races, another race that regularly attracts a good crowd. The CANYON Guildford Town Centre Races give the Series a much-needed southern round on 3 July, before the Series heads to the West Midland (TBC) on 12 July and then up to Yorkshire for the Sheffield Grand Prix (17 July) and the new Yorkshire round (19 July). The Fort Vale Colne Grand Prix (23 July) and an East Midlands round (26 July) close out the Series.

An educated guess is that the yet-to-be-confirmed West and East Midland rounds will either be the Dudley Grand Prix and the Newark Town Centre Races round that took place last year, or will be hosted in neighbouring towns by the same organiser, Chris Lawrence, but let’s see.

Open and women’s calendars

Date	Round	Race
26 Jun	1	Property Development Group Otley Grand Prix and Santini Otley Women’s Grand Prix
28 Jun	2	The Ilkley Cycle Races
3 Jul	3	The CANYON Guildford Town Centre Races
12 Jul	4	West Midlands (TBC)
17 Jul	5	Sheffield Grand Prix
19 Jul	6	Yorkshire (TBC)
23 Jul	7	For Vale Colne Grand Prix
26 Jul	8	East Midlands (TBC)

A few thoughts

In last season’s post about the 2023 calendar, we highlighted the “slow, insidious, almost imperceptible” decline of the domestic road racing, renewing our call for British Cycling to “kickstart the development of an ambitious action plan to revive the British road racing scene”. The then chief executive Brian Facer had stepped down and we were keeping our fingers crossed that Facer’s replacement would help to galvanise things.

Fast forward 12 months and the new BC chief Jon Dutton’s elite road racing task force is on the verge of making recommendations to British Cycling. The task force’s brief was to “to innovate and energise the domestic scene” and to develop “recommendations for the organisation to implement in 2024 and beyond”.

British Cycling says that these recommendations will be published in the new year. They will mark an important milestone for domestic road racing. If they are pitched right and, most importantly, if British Cycling and its stakeholders can act on them, then domestic road racing’s future won’t look as bleak as it did 12 months. Indeed, external factors not withstanding, it might offer hope that the expanded National Road Series and National Circuit Series calendars in 2024 will not be a one-off blip of good fortune, but the first steps toward a longer-term revival of the elite racing calendar.