RIDERS donned their finest suits and braced the Oxfordshire rain yesterday to race their fold-up bikes around Blenheim Palace in the name of a good cause.

In one of Oxfordshire’s most eccentric events, 750 owners of Brompton bikes travelled to Woodstock from around the world to compete in the manufacturer’s annual World Championship.

The event is the highlight of Blenheim Palace’s third annual cycling festival for Breast Cancer Care research charity.

The rules of the bizarre race dictate all competitors must wear jackets and ties, and sprint to their fully folded bikes before starting the 13 kilometre course.

Some of the entrants dressed in pith helmets, dinner jackets, and school uniforms to take part.

First across the line was 43-year-old Liam Curran, from Bangor, Northern Ireland, who said he had been training for months to improve on last year’s eighth-place finish.

The Northern Ireland Road Race Championship winner said: “I’ve been training once a week on it and practicing unfolding the bike as quickly as possible.

“It is a great race, even in this weather. Everyone is up for it.”

The Brompton World Championship was the highlight of a wet Bike Blenheim Palace festival, which still attracted thousands of bike enthusiasts to a day of cycling around the palace grounds.

The event also featured bicycle polo, cross country cycling and a 20km time trial for top cyclists.

And hundreds of families completed laps of the palace of between two and nine kilometres in the afternoon to raise money for Breast Cancer Care.

Sisters Hannah and Olivia Letton of Waterford Road, Witney, were brought by dad Simon Letton, 41, to their first cycling festival.

Hannah, seven, said: “We go cycling every Saturday, but this our first time here. It was really fun and we went really fast.”