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Dragon Ride Wales is a cyclosportive event based in South Wales, UK. The event is a non competitive cycling marathon run over the hills of South Wales and the Brecon Beacons National Park. The ride takes in the challenging climbs of the Bwlch and Rhigos mountain roads which are long with relatively constant gradients. The event has different courses to suit riders ability, these are typically around 200 km (120 Miles), 125 km (80 miles) and more recently 40 km (25 miles). The longer "Gran Fondo" route has climbs totaling 3000 metres. The Dragon Ride is held annually in June. Entries are available from late December via the event website. Traditionally the event sells out within weeks of the entries becoming available. Cyclosportives are a recent addition to the UK, although these types of events have been very popular in Italy, France and Spain. In 2004 the first Dragon Ride was held, this being at the time one of only a handful of such events in Great Britain. The format of the Dragon Ride was based on an Italian Gran Fondo, although unlike Italian events it was not held on closed roads. Event organiser Mr Lou Lusardi, whose family originated from the Parma area of Italy, had taken part in several Gran Fondo and saw an opportunity to bring this type of event to South Wales. An organising team of friends and relatives was set up under the BreakAway Cycling banner. Based in Bridgend, the first "Dragon" had 280 entrants. In 2005 the Dragon Ride became the first UK cyclosportive to be included into the UCI calendar. The popularity of the inaugural event and the demand for this type of cycling challenge saw the Dragon Ride more than double in size each year between 2004 and 2006; a continual growth over the following years saw the 2010 event with 3700 entrants, the largest for any UK open road sportive. In 2007 the Dragon Ride linked up with the Cape Argus Pick n Pay Cycletour in Cape Town South Africa and the Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge in New Zealand to cross promote and share resources. Pencoed, situated a few miles east of Bridgend became the venue for the start and finish of the ride from 2008, the new location provided more space and was situated only a mile from junction 35 of the M4 Motorway. Since 2012 then start and finish is at Margam Park near Port Talbot. The Dragon Ride organisers have introduced various innovations. The event was the first to use online entries, with riders numbers and timing transponders posted out in the weeks prior to the event. In 2010 a totally disposable timing chip was introduced eliminating the need for riders to hand back their transponder at the end of the ride. In 2010 the Dragon Ride signed a three-year title sponsorship deal with UK online cycle retailer Wiggle via their own brand of sportive bikes, Verenti. BreakAway Cycling sold the rights of the Dragon Ride to Participate Sports, (now Humanrace) in December 2012, Lou Lusardi stays on as Ride/Technical Director and BreakAway Events continued to provide most of the organisation on behalf of Humanrace. ==References== *(Dragon Ride website ) 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Dragon Ride Wales」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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