No RideLondon Classique in 2025 after UCI changes dates 'without consultation'

There will be no RideLondon Classique in 2025, after the UCI changed its dates, which forced the organisers to cancel it.

The Women's WorldTour race was pushed back a week in the 2025 calendar, from the weekend of 23-25 May to 30 May to 1 June, published on Friday morning. Following that announcement, the organisers of RideLondon - London Marathon Events - said that they had no choice but to cancel it.

The three-stage event has been happening in its current format since 2022. This year, Lorena Wiebes won all three stages and the general classification.

"We were extremely surprised to be informed by the UCI that the 2025 Ford RideLondon Classique had been moved on the WWT calendar from the last complete weekend in May to a new date a week later," Hugh Brasher, the event director of  RideLondon and CEO of London Marathon Events, said in a statement.

"There was no consultation or prior warning and the news came despite LME previously being advised by the UCI that there would be no changes to the calendar until 2026.

"Major events in London are planned many years ahead and it is impossible for the Ford RideLondon Classique to take place in central London on the new dates proposed unilaterally by the UCI. Alternative dates at this late stage are impossible."

"The UCI will not reverse this decision or allow two Women’s WorldTour events to take place on the same weekend," he continued.
  
"Therefore, sadly, it will not be possible to stage the Ford RideLondon Classique in 2025.  It is a very sad day for professional women’s cycling."

The sportives will continue as planned, already planned into the London calendar on the 25 May 2025. 

The move in the calendar could be understood as an attempt to make the two British Women's WorldTour races - the RideLondon Classique and the Tour of Britain Women - be closer in a busy schedule, but it has result in one part of this British swing being cancelled.

The other shifts in the Women's WorldTour and WorldTour calendars, as announced by the UCI, were mainly moving things back to their original positions after the Paris Olympics interrupted some events this year.