York Cycle Rally & Festival

20-22 June 2025

Major news for 2026

—

by

Peter Eland
in

You may have been wondering why you have not heard from us until now to confirm the dates for the 2026 York Cycle Rally & Festival, and to open campsite bookings. This is for good reason, as we explain in detail below.

But first we (the all-volunteer organising team) can now confirm some major news for 2026:

  • The 2026 event will be going ahead – and hopefully better than ever. The dates are now confirmed as the 12th, 13th and 14th June 2026. 
  • For 2026 the event will be held at a new venue with excellent facilities, Driffield Showground, because for reasons beyond our control we cannot use the Knavesmire. 
  • Accordingly, the event’s name will change to the “Yorkshire Cycle Festival”.
  • It is likely that this will be a permanent move, although if future circumstances permit we would of course welcome a return to the Knavesmire in York.  

A POSITIVE FUTURE

This relocation was unexpected but we believe it can also be a very positive move to keep the event successsful into the future. 

  • Driffield Showground will be an excellent venue. It has great facilities and ample space for camping and for all of the other aspects that make up the Rally & Festival – with room to grow. Importantly, as an enclosed ground security should be much improved. We are also pleased that the management team there is eager to host us in 2026, and into the future.
  • From Driffield, the “Capital of the Yorkshire Wolds” there’s great riding on a network of quiet roads, including routes over to the coast and its many attractions. 
  • The Showground has indoor facilities available to us, and extensive hardstanding and well drained fields, giving us options and resilience for all weathers.  

We do recognise that this change of venue will not be easy, either for us as the organising team or for you, our loyal participants and supporters. We will all need to overcome challenges around transport in particular – we provide some preliminary information on this and about local facilities in Driffield below.

We will all miss the familiar places, routes and destinations from York.

But with your support we can still meet familiar faces, explore new places and make new traditions, from our new base in Driffield. 

The dates for 2026 (12th to 14th June) are a week earlier than our usual midsummer weekend – this change was driven by the availability of the venue, and we will seek to return to the ‘usual’ weekend in future if possible.

CAMPSITE BOOKINGS OPEN NOW – PRICES UNCHANGED   

This year’s event in June was a success, both in terms of visitor feedback and financially. The increase we reluctantly made in 2025 campsite fees meant that we ended with a modest surplus. We are constituted as a not-for-profit Community Interest Company, and so every penny of that surplus is available for us to invest in this year’s event.

We have decided that campsite fees will remain unaltered for 2026. As you read this, campsite bookings are now open.

We also have decided, in light of the late opening of campsite bookings, to extend the earlybird booking period (with the lowest possible prices) until the end of January.

Although we are still working out the details, the familiar campsite set-up will transfer over to Driffield. We hope that the facilities for campers (water, toilets, showers etc.) will be even better than we were able to provide in York. 

As usual, organising team volunteers will be booking our own pitches at the same cost as everyone else.

HOW YOU CAN HELP   

As outlined below, this decision has been forced on us late in the day, with under seven months until the event. We have a host of details to work through with the new venue, for the campsite and many other aspects, so please bear with us as we develop the full details, and while we update the various websites, social media and related publicity. 

There are two things you can do NOW to help us through this transition:

  • If you can, please book your campsite pitch!
  • Our Rides Co-ordinator, Yvonne, will be facing a huge task, to bring together a schedule of led rides for all abilities from the new base in Driffield. We know it’s a lot to ask, but if the volunteer ride leaders and back markers who helped put together such an impressive rides list for York last year could again offer your support, that would be hugely appreciated – along with anyone who might have local knowledge – or even anyone who could head over to Driffield in the coming weeks and months to scout out ride routes and cafe stops! If you can possibly help, please drop a note to Yvonne on rides@yorkrally.org ASAP to offer your support.
  • Our organising team would welcome active new participants! You can be based anywhere (there’s always an online option for meetings) but it would be especially useful if anyone with local knowledge of Driffield and surrounding area could join. Please just contact us if you’re interested.  

We will be in touch again soon to ask more of you, our loyal supporters – for example doing leaflet distribution to help publicise the event at its new home. 


BACKGROUND – WHY WE HAD TO MOVE

After the 2025 York Cycle Rally & Festival in June, the organising team took a short well-earned break before a review meeting in mid-August to discuss lessons learned from the event, and improvements for the next. We followed that in late September with what would normally be the first planning meeting for the 2026 event. 

But there was a problem. Although the horse racing calendar was finalised (and our usual weekend was clear) we had been unable to book the Knavesmire as we usually do. After persistent requests, we were eventually told that our booking could not be confirmed until contract renewal negotiations for the management of the Knavesmire, between Make it York (on behalf of City of York Council) and York Racecourse, were completed.

Throughout October we made increasingly urgent and desperate requests for this to be resolved – or at least, for a clear date when it would be resolved. We involved local officials and politicians. We prepared a press release to local and national media, and stressed that we needed a decision by our 22nd November planning meeting, if we were to run the 2026 event on the Knavesmire. 

This was no exaggeration – we must have the dates confirmed before we can book suppliers of marquees, showers, portaloos and more. The usual mid-June weekend is one of the busiest nationally for events, so if we cannot make bookings early the whole event is at risk. Without the dates confirmed, we also risk our valued traders and exhibitors going elsewhere. And our visitors (and volunteers) need as much notice as possible to book leave from work, arrange accommodation etc.   

Finally, a week before our ‘decision time’ 22nd November meeting, and just before we were due to go to the press, we were informed that at last, a decision had been made. We could make the booking, but with conditions attached.

Those conditions were unfortunately completely unacceptable. We simply could not comply with them and still run a safe and sustainable event. 

It is probably not helpful to go into the proposed conditions in huge detail (not least because we may hope for a change of heart in future) but a key issue was that they placed major restrictions on motor vehicles moving to the centre of the Knavesmire. This would mean displacing the campsite outside of the racecourse perimeter track – unacceptable both for security and for distance to facilities. Also, the event would be subject to short-notice cancellation on the rather vague basis of “reasonable concerns” about our ability to cope with adverse weather.       

With our ‘crunch time meeting’ coming up on the 22nd November, we had just a week to make a decision. 

We could of course have tried to negotiate, enlisting our supporters, the press, local MPs and more – to attempt to make these booking conditions more acceptable. But that could take months, with no certain outcome. Even then, without a willing host, how could we know that new obstacles would not be put in our way? If, for example, we later found we could no longer use the Racecourse toilet block, that would be a showstopper. 

Another option would be to cancel the 2026 event, carry on negotiating and try again in 2027. But the risk then would be that all momentum would be lost, and the event would simply never return. 

Fortunately, having had an idea of the way the wind was blowing, we’d already started researching “Plan B”. We looked into every possible alternative venue in York, without success. Then we moved to surrounding towns and villages. As it turns out, there are very few venues large enough, with camping facilities, and with availability in June. 

Fortunately Driffield Showground was one of those – as outlined in this note, it should be an excellent venue to make a new home for our much loved event. In contrast to the difficulties in York, the management team in Driffied are positively friendly and eager to attract our Rally and Festival to their town. 


MORE ABOUT DRIFFIELD

Driffield Showground is fully enclosed for security, large enough for us with room to grow, and includes indoor spaces which will, we hope, mean that we can save on marquee rental, hold talks indoors with proper audiovisual facilities, and offer secure indoor bike storage. There’s ample hardstanding and electrical hookups for caterers (and just possibly, for some campers). There’ll be plenty of space for a grasstrack or cyclocross circuit, arena events and trade show/cycle jumble. There are great toilet and shower facilities (including an accessible shower). 

Transport to Driffield

  • By cycle: We hope to provide better route recommendations from local knowledge ASAP but Google Maps suggests cycling to the venue from York will take around 3 to 3.5 hours, covering 33 to 42 miles or so depending on route. From Hull, it’s more like two hours. 
  • By train: Driffield station is 15 minutes walk or 5 minutes by bike from the Showground. It’s served by direct trains from York every hour, and more frequently with changes. Journey time from York is usually just under two hours. From Hull, it’s just 30 minutes, and there are generally two direct trains per hour.     
  • By bus: Various routes run from York, including the X45 direct service. 
  • By road: The postode for Driffield Showground is YO25 9DN, and various A-road options take you to it from the motorway network. The Showground itself has extensive hardstanding and wide entrances, so there should be no issues with access or manoeuvring, even for large vehicles in poor weather. 


Driffield facilities

AND FINALLY

This message is quite long enough already – natually there will be much more to come as we firm up details of the 2026 event. 

As ever, your all-volunteer organising committee hugely values your support as we do our very best to keep this event alive and successful, and we very much hope to see you in Driffield in June. You can book a campsite pitch here!  

Until then, tailwinds and safe cycling! 

The all-volunteer Yorkshire Cycle Rally & Festival organising team