City of London Nocturne reveals two-day programme as elite races join Rapha Super-League
New details of this summer’s City of London Nocturne show how the revived event will be structured, with a Friday charity Pro-Am, Saturday support races and feature events, and UCI elite women’s and men’s criteriums forming part of the 2026 Rapha Super-League.
More detail has emerged about what the City of London Nocturne will actually look like when it lands in the capital in June, with organisers confirming a two-day programme that stretches well beyond the headline UCI races and gives a clearer sense of the event’s intended shape. Rather than a simple revival of night-time city-centre racing, the Nocturne is being pitched as a broader festival format: part elite sporting fixture, part public spectacle, part corporate-charity activation.
The headline from a domestic racing perspective is that the Saturday evening elite women’s and men’s criteriums will sit within this year’s Rapha Super-League, giving the event immediate significance within the British calendar as well as its international UCI status. Those races are scheduled for 20:00 and 21:00 respectively on Saturday 13 June, each over 60 minutes, on a 1.3km closed-road circuit through Cheapside and Bank in the heart of the Square Mile.
Nocturne circuit
But the newly released programme makes clear that the weekend is being built from much more than those two races. Friday 12 June will be given over to the GOSH City Criterium, a new charity Pro-Am team event in which teams of four ride alongside an allocated professional rider. Qualification is due to begin at 13:00, with a team relay final scheduled for 15:00. Organisers say teams will bid for their preferred pro rider ahead of the event, with money raised supporting Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity’s appeal for a new Children’s Cancer Centre.
On Saturday, community rides and children’s activities open proceedings from midday, followed by club mile racing, women’s and men’s support races for categories 2/3/4, a Limitless Race, an interval for Guinness World Record attempts, then the more familiar Nocturne-style set pieces: the Penny Farthing Race, Voi Bike Challenge and Brompton Folding Bike Race. An elite mile run is scheduled for 19:30, immediately before the women’s and men’s elite criteriums close the programme.
For domestic cycling, that leaves an interesting balance. On one hand, the elite races should carry real sporting weight: they are on the UCI calendar, expected to attract leading British and international riders, and now feed into the season-long Rapha Super-League. On the other, they sit at the summit of a programme clearly designed to reach beyond the existing racing audience, with novelty races, mass participation and entertainment central to the event’s identity.
Image: Adam Roberts
That is no bad thing. British domestic racing has often struggled to place itself visibly in big urban spaces, and one reading of the Nocturne’s emerging format is that it is trying to solve exactly that problem: packaging elite competition in a way that feels legible and attractive to a broader London public. The City of London Corporation is certainly presenting it that way, with policy chairman Chris Hayward describing it as the kind of event that helps make the Square Mile a destination where people choose to “live, work, learn and explore.”
The event will be free to attend, with hospitality tickets available around the finish, while the elite races are due to be shown live on TNT Sports and HBO Max; other races will be streamed on YouTube. That gives the Nocturne a visibility few races on the domestic calendar can match.
Rapha presents The British Continental.
More detail has emerged about what the City of London Nocturne will actually look like when it lands in the capital in June, with organisers confirming a two-day programme that stretches well beyond the headline UCI races and gives a clearer sense of the event’s intended shape. Rather than a simple revival of night-time city-centre racing, the Nocturne is being pitched as a broader festival format: part elite sporting fixture, part public spectacle, part corporate-charity activation.
The headline from a domestic racing perspective is that the Saturday evening elite women’s and men’s criteriums will sit within this year’s Rapha Super-League, giving the event immediate significance within the British calendar as well as its international UCI status. Those races are scheduled for 20:00 and 21:00 respectively on Saturday 13 June, each over 60 minutes, on a 1.3km closed-road circuit through Cheapside and Bank in the heart of the Square Mile.
But the newly released programme makes clear that the weekend is being built from much more than those two races. Friday 12 June will be given over to the GOSH City Criterium, a new charity Pro-Am team event in which teams of four ride alongside an allocated professional rider. Qualification is due to begin at 13:00, with a team relay final scheduled for 15:00. Organisers say teams will bid for their preferred pro rider ahead of the event, with money raised supporting Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity’s appeal for a new Children’s Cancer Centre.
On Saturday, community rides and children’s activities open proceedings from midday, followed by club mile racing, women’s and men’s support races for categories 2/3/4, a Limitless Race, an interval for Guinness World Record attempts, then the more familiar Nocturne-style set pieces: the Penny Farthing Race, Voi Bike Challenge and Brompton Folding Bike Race. An elite mile run is scheduled for 19:30, immediately before the women’s and men’s elite criteriums close the programme.
For domestic cycling, that leaves an interesting balance. On one hand, the elite races should carry real sporting weight: they are on the UCI calendar, expected to attract leading British and international riders, and now feed into the season-long Rapha Super-League. On the other, they sit at the summit of a programme clearly designed to reach beyond the existing racing audience, with novelty races, mass participation and entertainment central to the event’s identity.
That is no bad thing. British domestic racing has often struggled to place itself visibly in big urban spaces, and one reading of the Nocturne’s emerging format is that it is trying to solve exactly that problem: packaging elite competition in a way that feels legible and attractive to a broader London public. The City of London Corporation is certainly presenting it that way, with policy chairman Chris Hayward describing it as the kind of event that helps make the Square Mile a destination where people choose to “live, work, learn and explore.”
The event will be free to attend, with hospitality tickets available around the finish, while the elite races are due to be shown live on TNT Sports and HBO Max; other races will be streamed on YouTube. That gives the Nocturne a visibility few races on the domestic calendar can match.
Find out more here.
Featured image: Nocturne
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