WOODSTOCK, UK - The 2013 Bike Blenheim Palace sportive that was scheduled for Sunday August 18 has been cancelled. The move is a surprise as it has been one of the most popular sportives over the past three years and has attracted record entries.
1,600 cyclists took part in the 60 and 100 mile sportive last year, which was part of the Blenheim Palace Festival of Cycling. Over a mid-August weekend the event attracted 15,000 people, up 88 per cent on 2011. The weekend included the Brompton World Championship in which a sell-out 750 cyclists took part. It was widely considered to be a massive success.
Antony Auty of Bikesoup who organised the trade expo at Bike Blenheim Palace in 2012 confirmed that the 2013 event would not take place. He told Sportive.com: "Blenheim has not made an official announcement but those involved with it have known for a month or so that it will not be taking place. It has been a huge success but in the end it is down to money and the Blenheim estate do not think there is enough money in it if they take on outside organisers. In the end they are running a World Heritage site and are not events organisers themselves and commercially it doesn't add up for them."
Auty added that many of the 75 exhibitors who attended last year were disappointed to hear that there would not be an event this year but many were planning to attend the Orbital Festival at Goodwood Motor Circuit instead.
Paul Orsi from the Blenheim Palace Estate office said that he regretted the event would not be happening again but that financially it did not support itself: "Years of time and energy has been spent building it up but it simply was not making a financial return. Whilst we enjoyed doing we need to have a focus on making money to preserve a World Heritage site. We wanted to find an events partner to work with who could make it work but in the end we could not find one.
"It is quite sad. All five events were fantastic and the one last year was the best one of all. But the costs were very high and we could not continue to support it as it never quite turned the corner."
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