Organisers of Bike Blenheim Palace have added a 40km off-road sportive to the Festival of Cycling, set to take place on Saturday August 18.

Bike Blenheim Palace event director Paul Orsi said: “We’ve been wanting to provide an off-road element for mountain bike riders for a long time, it’s fantastic to be able to bring this awesome new route in 2012 now that the event has grown to two days.”

The course will see riders head south on the tarmac roads of Blenheim Estate before turning north up the west side of the Estate through what’s described as an “undulating and gnarly off-road section”. The route will then zig-zag through Blenheim Palace’s private woodland before crossing open countryside, heading towards the Oxfordshire village of Charlbury.

Bridleways will take riders through farmland, in and out of copses (small thickets of woodland) and on a host of minor ascents and descents. Riders are then rewarded with a well-earned feed stop after 24km before turning through the village of Stonesfield and crossing a river before climbing back up to East End.

A fast descent follows through the bridleways, continuing back over the river before climbing up to the village of Combe. A fast tarmac section will head north along the road to the stewarded T-junction before the route returns to the Blenheim Palace Estate for a final off-road trail through the trees, out through a field, and onto the road that heads towards the Palace and the finish line.

Bike Blenheim Palace is a two-day cycling festival which includes a 60/80-mile road sportive, family rides and the Brompton World Championships. Entry to the off-road event costs £28. Fine out more at www.blenheimpalace.com