CiCLE Classic confirms 25 April 2027 date for Britain’s only UCI one-day race
The Rutland International CiCLE Classic will run on the last Sunday of April next year, organisers announced on Monday—a fixed point for a race that has survived a washout and a funding scare in the space of two seasons. Where it will finish is still to be decided.
Britain’s only one-day UCI road race has its 2027 date. The Rutland International CiCLE Classic will take place on Sunday 25 April 2027, organisers confirmed on Monday, seven months out and a day after the Tour of Britain brought the country’s international calendar to a close.
The announcement came via the race’s social channels, on a graphic carrying the names of Sigma Sports and Schwalbe, sponsors of the past two editions, with CAMS as presenting partner. “As the British domestic international race calendar concludes, time to start planning for 2027,” the accompanying post read.
The date keeps the race in its traditional late-April slot—this year’s edition ran on 26 April, last year’s on 27 April—and by the organisers’ count makes next spring the 21st edition.
The race does not yet appear on the UCI’s published 2027 calendar, which so far covers only WorldTour events; the full international calendar, including the Europe Tour on which the CiCLE Classic holds its 1.2 status, is due for approval when the UCI Management Committee meets in Montreal on 20–22 September during the Road World Championships. The Lloyds Tour of Britain Women, moved a week earlier to 11–15 August, is currently the only British race listed.
Image: Milan Josy/The British Continental
First run in 2005 as a Premier Calendar race and elevated to UCI 1.2 status in 2007, the CiCLE Classic remains the only one-day race for elite men on the UCI Europe Tour staged in Britain, and the longest-running single-day international race in the history of British cycle sport. Its place-to-place format across the farm tracks and lanes of Rutland and east Leicestershire, conceived by founder and race director Colin Clews as a deliberate break from the multi-lap circuit races that dominate the domestic calendar, gives British elite teams a rare chance to race UCI Continental opposition on home roads.
That status has looked fragile at points. The 2024 edition was cancelled at 11.45 on race morning after flooding made even a shortened course unsafe, the first time weather had stopped the race, and Clews has said the financial consequences threatened its survival. It returned in 2025 with the finish moved from Melton Mowbray to Oakham because of roadworks, drawing a then-record 33 teams, and this April fielded 176 riders from 35 teams and 15 nations, the largest entry in its history. Otto Van Zanden (Azerion Villa Valkenburg) won by half a wheel from Thomas Armstrong (Wheelbase CabTech Castelli) at the end of a long-range three-rider move.
Monday’s post gave no start or finish location. Clews told the Melton Times in May that a return to the Melton finish, last used in 2023, remained open to negotiation, noting that the Oakham finale had drawn larger crowds than Melton previously managed and simplified the logistics, and that he would consult sponsors before deciding. As in 2026, Melton is absent from the race’s billing. The women’s and junior men’s CiCLE Classics, which ran from Melton in March this year, were not mentioned; Clews has said both will continue in that format.
Featured image: Milan Josy/The British Continental
Britain’s only one-day UCI road race has its 2027 date. The Rutland International CiCLE Classic will take place on Sunday 25 April 2027, organisers confirmed on Monday, seven months out and a day after the Tour of Britain brought the country’s international calendar to a close.
The announcement came via the race’s social channels, on a graphic carrying the names of Sigma Sports and Schwalbe, sponsors of the past two editions, with CAMS as presenting partner. “As the British domestic international race calendar concludes, time to start planning for 2027,” the accompanying post read.
The date keeps the race in its traditional late-April slot—this year’s edition ran on 26 April, last year’s on 27 April—and by the organisers’ count makes next spring the 21st edition.
The race does not yet appear on the UCI’s published 2027 calendar, which so far covers only WorldTour events; the full international calendar, including the Europe Tour on which the CiCLE Classic holds its 1.2 status, is due for approval when the UCI Management Committee meets in Montreal on 20–22 September during the Road World Championships. The Lloyds Tour of Britain Women, moved a week earlier to 11–15 August, is currently the only British race listed.
First run in 2005 as a Premier Calendar race and elevated to UCI 1.2 status in 2007, the CiCLE Classic remains the only one-day race for elite men on the UCI Europe Tour staged in Britain, and the longest-running single-day international race in the history of British cycle sport. Its place-to-place format across the farm tracks and lanes of Rutland and east Leicestershire, conceived by founder and race director Colin Clews as a deliberate break from the multi-lap circuit races that dominate the domestic calendar, gives British elite teams a rare chance to race UCI Continental opposition on home roads.
That status has looked fragile at points. The 2024 edition was cancelled at 11.45 on race morning after flooding made even a shortened course unsafe, the first time weather had stopped the race, and Clews has said the financial consequences threatened its survival. It returned in 2025 with the finish moved from Melton Mowbray to Oakham because of roadworks, drawing a then-record 33 teams, and this April fielded 176 riders from 35 teams and 15 nations, the largest entry in its history. Otto Van Zanden (Azerion Villa Valkenburg) won by half a wheel from Thomas Armstrong (Wheelbase CabTech Castelli) at the end of a long-range three-rider move.
Monday’s post gave no start or finish location. Clews told the Melton Times in May that a return to the Melton finish, last used in 2023, remained open to negotiation, noting that the Oakham finale had drawn larger crowds than Melton previously managed and simplified the logistics, and that he would consult sponsors before deciding. As in 2026, Melton is absent from the race’s billing. The women’s and junior men’s CiCLE Classics, which ran from Melton in March this year, were not mentioned; Clews has said both will continue in that format.
Featured image: Milan Josy/The British Continental
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