E.ON Cycle Live Nottingham Announced
Posted Saturday 19th May 2012 –
A brand new festival of cycling to be called E.ON Cycle Live Nottingham has been launched this week. The three day event will take place in Nottingham this summer from Friday 13 to Sunday 15 July and will include the Great Notts Bike Ride with 100 mile sportive or 48 mile challenge distances on the Sunday.
The weekend will kick off with the E.ON Cycle Live Nottingham Grand Prix, a whole host of circuit races taking place on traffic free roads in a variety of categories, from a schools challenge through to elite races.
The Saturday will see the E.ON Cycle Live Nottingham Festival of Cycling, incorporating the Big Wheel’s Big Day Out. The festival will include everything from come-try-it-sessions, heritage bikes and the latest in two wheel power to live music and entertainment, offering something for the whole family.
The weekend will draw to a close with the E.ON Great Notts Bike Ride. The ride, which is now in its 31st year, will see the formation of three brand new routes and a new start venue at the Victoria Embankment. The distances on offer are the Sportive (100 miles approx), Challenge (48 miles approx) and the Community (19 miles approx). There will also be loan bikes available at the event to take all the barriers to entry away.
There will also be a new 3 mile ride titled the E.ON Nottingham City Ride which will take in closed roads around the south side of the city. Supported by event partner Decade of Better Health, this event will be free to city residents to encourage those from deprived communities to take part. For the first time ever,
Councillor Dave Trimble, Nottingham City Council’s Portfolio holder for Leisure, Culture and Tourism, said: “We are proud and delighted that E.ON have chosen Nottingham to launch what will be a great weekend of cycling, putting top quality races alongside events for novice cyclists so that there is something for everyone.
“Expanding the ever-popular Great Notts Bike Ride in this way gives a variety of options for people of all abilities to get on a bike, get involved, have some fun and get in some healthy exercise. It could be the catalyst that persuades the weekend’s cyclists to adopt cycling as their transport of choice.”
All activity will start and finish on Nottingham’s Victoria Embankment on the River Trent.
E.ON, which has around 6,000 staff in the greater Nottingham area and is currently building the city’s greenest office space, is the title sponsor of the brand new cycling event. Cycle Live is the first of a number of sponsorships designed to invest in the community where it operates, rewarding local customers and sharing E.ON’s sustainable energy story.
Jeremy Davies, Marketing Director at E.ON, said: “We want to do more than simply supply people with the power they need to run their lives and I’m delighted we’re able to do that here in Nottingham with E.ON Cycle Live Nottingham, offering a greater experience to our customers in a way that’s relevant and convenient to them.
“We’re all about helping people to become energy fit – reducing their energy use, their bills and their effect on the planet – and E.ON Cycle Live Nottingham is a great way for people to get fit themselves and also hopefully learn something about energy efficiency along the way.”
They’ve got a busy summer ahead of them, following the E.ON Cycle Live on the weekend of the 13 July, from the 20 July they’ll be at the E.ON Nottingham Riviera for six weeks and then at the end of the year sponsoring Nottingham Playhouse’s pantomime, Robin Hood and the Babes in the Wood.
Jeremy added: “Over the coming months we’ll be offering free entry, discount tickets and priority areas for our customers, along with the opportunity to learn more about our sustainable projects in Nottingham and how we’re helping their customers to get energy fit.”
Chris Simon of event organisers Perfect Motion Sports Marketing said, “We want to get the people of Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, the East Midlands and even further afield excited by this brand new event, which puts the county on the map as a cycling hot spot.
“The weekend will have something for everyone, from the excitement of circuit races on the Friday through a whole host of weird and wonderful cycling displays and activities on the Saturday. We then finish with the new routes at the E.ON Great Notts Bike Ride on the Sunday. From the novice cyclist and families looking for a great day out, right through to elite riders, we hope that everyone will join us in July to celebrate all things cycling”.
Those involved in the weekend will be able to raise sponsorship money for the official event charities Cerebral Palsy Sport, CLIC Sargent, Nottinghamshire Scouts and the RNLI.
For further information, go to www.cyclelivenottingham.co.uk.
