Le Tour comes to Scotland in 2027 …and The Grand Tour comes to Ride the North

The Grand Depart of Le Tour de France will be hosted in Edinburgh in July 2027 – it will be the biggest global event ever hosted in Scotland. We have been inspired to get involved …question is ‘will you be’?

Ride the North has has taken place in the Highlands, Moray, Aberdeenshire and Angus – our Grand Tour will see participants complete a multi-day event that will feature lots of the roads and the communities that have featured on the event since it’s creation in 2011.  Visiting some old friends and one or two new ones to join the dots. Aberdeenshire’s castle country, Speyside’s Malt Whisky Trail, Loch Ness, the Cairngorms National Park, Highland Perthshire and the Angus Glens. 360 miles! Quite a lot of climbing! What else?

If you have been a RtN participant before now, it should be pointed out before this goes too much further that there is no prospect of this version of our event being the same concept as you will have experienced in past years.  The version of our event that runs when le Tour is not coming to Scotland goes quite big on support …mechanics, signs, water, coffee, cakes, support riders, sweep vehicles etc.  Doing a multi-day ‘event’ has to be a different concept – it will be lighter touch and will require more self sufficency.  The village hall of each communitty on the route will not be waiting with home-baked pancakes! I just can’t make that happen!  I’d demand half of the fee the Tour de France organisers are getting!!

There will definitely have a bag transfer service, there will definitely be a detailed route guide that will tell you as are stood outside the corner shop how many miles until the next shop, there will definately be a rescue service in the event of broken bike in the middle of nowhere. There are other aspects of this that are to be determined before we sell any places.  It cannot be a level of support that the normal event offers.

The idea from the start was to create a route that has frequent locations that have the services a cyclist will need. Probably a 3 day plan will feature overnight stays in towns A and B. A four day plan in towns C, D and E and a 5 day in towns F, G, H and I.  This is not an event that you will be in the same place at the same time as every other partricipant.  There will also be a bike-packing option for those who are not contrained by where the hotel beds are.

This is a plan that keeps alive some of the cycle touring origins of RtN, revisits some favourite roads (and climbs). It also takes Ride the North back to communities that have played such a big part in it’s past.

Whether this was the start of a new annual event or indeed a new cycling product that could attract visitors beyond the Tour de France is for future consideration. It is a route shaped around some of Scotland’s tourism icons – mountains, lochs, glens, castles, distilleries and local communities that love to welcome visitors. If others see some potential in that, it would be exciting to see it develop. This website https://ridethenorth360.com/ is showing interim information with the real website to be developed at a later date – if there seems to be interest in this idea.

Are you interested in joining us on the Ride the North Grand Tour? Date and start location TBC (I don’t want rooms being booked speculatively). It will be a late June start and a finish that will allow for travel to Edinburgh/The Borders for those who want to see the real thing!

An expression of interest at this stage is nothing beyond that.  No commitment!  However, in the event this proves popular, those who have registered interest here will get first refusal for the 2027 event.

Register interest via the form on this page!