Road Closures
Road closures are implemented for a short amount of time during each stage of the AJ Bell Women’s Tour to maximise the safety of professional athletes, spectators and anybody working on the event.
Road closures are implemented for a short amount of time during each stage of the AJ Bell Women’s Tour to maximise the safety of professional athletes, spectators and anybody working on the event.
Anybody who lives, works or commutes along each stage route should note that travel will be altered for a small window of time while the race passes through their city, town or village.
However, it is important to note that road closures will be minimal and disruption kept as low as possible. After all, how often does a world-class sporting event – one that’s free to watch, too – come to town?
Video: Learn how the Women’s Tour rolling road closure works in our explainer video
We operate a rolling road closure system rather than a full road closure to minimise disruption to the local community as much as possible. Therefore, roads will only be closed for a short window – approximately 30 minutes – while the race passes through.
Please check our stage timetables page (also referred to as our ETAs) for each day of racing to know when to expect the rolling road closure to be occurring near you.
The rolling road closure entails briefly closing roads along each Women’s Tour stage route, as well as surrounding junctions and access roads, ahead of when the race is expected to pass and while the race moves through.
A common question we get asked is how long the closure will last for. This is ultimately dependant on how spread out the riders are. Typically, the lead motorcycle instigating the closure is 15 minutes ahead of the lead rider. The closure then remains in place until all riders and race cars have passed through.
It is accurate to describe the rolling road closure as a moving bubble, with our field of world-class riders (comprising Olympic, world and national champions) at the centre of it.
There will be police cars as well as National Escort Group (NEG) motorbikes that will work to safely hold and the restart traffic. All policing costs to oversee the implementation of the rolling road closure are met by SweetSpot, the Women’s Tour organisers.
Anybody new to international cycle races may be surprised to discover that it won’t only be the world’s best riders who pass by their homes or places of work.
Our race convoy comprises several vehicles, all of which have a key role in getting the riders from each stage start to the finish safely.
Furthermore, these vehicles help create a security bubble around the event, which enhances the safety of all the spectators along the route. For this reason, we advise that fans do not turn their backs to the road at any time while watching the race.
At the head of the race convoy is our announcer’s vehicle, which will provide race updates for spectators shortly before the riders pass by.
