UCI cycling championships: Where and when to see Men's Elite Road Race from Edinburgh to Glasgow on Sunday

Riders cycle down the Royal Mile at the start of the men's Elite Road Race at the Cycling World Championships in Edinburgh (Photo by Oli SCARFF / AFP)

The world’s top cyclists are taking part in the Elite Men’s Road Race as part of the UCI Cycling World Championships on Sunday.

They are racing on a 168 mile route from Edinburgh, through Central Scotland and ending with 10 laps of a Glasgow city centre circuit.

Various rolling road closures will be in place throughout the day.

The race began at 9.30am near the Scottish Parliament before heading out of the city across the Queensferry Crossing.

Estimated times and locations

Edinburgh 9.30am - 10.02am

Fife 10.02am - 10.36am

Clackmannanshire 10.36am - 10.40am

Falkirk 10.40am - 11.20am

Stirling 11.20am - 11.45am

East Dunbartonshire 11.45pm - 12.12pm

Glasgow 12.12pm - 4pm

British cyclists will need creativity

Great Britain will need to get creative if they are to make themselves a factor in the road race.

Mathieu van der Poel is bidding to become the first Dutch men’s world champion since Joop Zoetemelk in 1985, while a stacked Belgian squad is led by Wout van Aert, and the late entry of Slovenian superstar Tadej Pogacar has added another twist.

Britain cannot match that sort of calibre on a Classics-style course which starts in Edinburgh before 10 laps of a technical circuit in Glasgow, containing more than 450 corners in all.

But in national champion Fred Wright Britain have a breakaway specialist capable of shaking up the race. Wright is one of three leaders within the eight-strong squad along with Ben Turner and Connor Swift, with the supporting cast led by experienced road captain Luke Rowe.

“It’s no secret that we’re going into the race as slight underdogs,” Rowe said. “I think it’s obvious there’s four or five guys out there who are on a bit of another level to the rest of the peloton.

“If you wait and race them mano-a-mano in the final I think you’re just waiting with a loaded gun to your head and you’re going to come off second best so it’s counteracting that.

“The way to do it is to get ahead of the race, but at the same time there’s probably about 100 other blokes thinking that. You know what will be said on most buses is to try and get ahead of them and make them come across to you. So, no pressure Fred, but that’s your job, mate.”

Gold for Archibald

Saturday saw Katie Archibald and Great Britain celebrated an emotional women’s team pursuit win in Glasgow at the UCI Cycling World Championships on Saturday night.

Archibald joined up with Elinor Barker, Josie Knight, and Anna Morris to beat New Zealand to gold in a time of four minutes 8.771 seconds, more than four seconds up on their rivals, to give Britain a first world title in this event since 2014.

It was a fifth world title for Archibald, and a hugely poignant one as she races at these championships in her home country to honour her late partner Rab Wardell, who tragically died of a cardiac arrest as he lay in bed last August.