British Cycling can confirm the course for the forthcoming HSBC UK | National Circuit Championships in Stockton-on-Tees.

The men’s and women’s national champions will both be crowned on what is due to be a sensational evening of racing in the town centre on Friday July 13.

Both races will start and finish on the pedestrianised section of the High Street, with riders initially heading north before circling back through the town centre. Riders complete a long, fast straight past the Town Hall, before doubling back on themselves and tackling the finishing straight.

The women’s race will begin at 6:15pm and the men’s at 7:45pm, with both events taking in an hour of racing plus five additional laps of the circuit.

Won last year by Olympic, world and Commonwealth champion, Katie Archibald, and one of the sport’s rising stars, Tom Pidcock, the HSBC UK | National Circuit Championships are among the highlights of the domestic road calendar.

This year’s event opens the hugely popular Stockton Cycling Festival, which is now in its eighth year. Following Friday’s circuit races, Saturday will see a mass participation sportive event, but elite riders again take to the town’s streets to compete in Sunday’s HSBC UK | Grand Prix Series races.

Full details of the festival, and how to enter the sportive, are available here.

The event is part of a fantastic summer of cycling in the North East, which has already hosted one national championships – the HSBC UK | National Cyclo-cross Championships, in Sunderland – this year, and will stage the HSBC UK | National Road Championships in three weeks’ time.

Those inspired by the elite cycling in the region will then get the chance to take to closed, traffic-free streets themselves at the HSBC UK Let’s Ride Newcastle event on July 29.