World's top women cyclists race on Scotland's roads

Annemiek van Vleuten of the Netherlands is the current world champion

The world's best women cyclists are taking to Scotland's roads in the final event of the UCI Cycling World Championships.

The Women's Elite and Under-23 races are being combined and will follow a 154km (96 mile) route from Loch Lomond to Glasgow on Sunday.

The race will finish after six laps of the Glasgow circuit that proved so exciting in last week's Men's race.

Many roads in the city centre and west end will again be closed.

The race begins in Jamestown, near Balloch, just south of Loch Lomond at 12.00.

It then loops northeast through Drymen and Fintry, where it joins the route the men rode from Edinburgh to Glasgow last Sunday.

The riders will go over Crow Road, a 5.8km climb with an average gradient of 4.5%, before heading down through Bearsden into Glasgow.

Lotte Kopeckyof Belgium is one of the favourites for the race

The race ends with six laps of the 14.3km (8.9 mile) city centre circuit that has been described as one of the hardest world championship circuits ever.

It is an extremely technical circuit with about 50 corners per lap and several steep ramps.

Last week the focal point of the circuit was the climb up Montrose Street, a 200m ramp with 10.8% average gradient, although the eventual winner of the men's race - Dutch cyclist Mathieu van der Poel - launched his attack in the city's Park District in the west of the city.

He won the race despite a nasty crash on the rain-soaked roads.

In the end, the men's event had only 51 finishers, making it the second-most punishing road race in the event's history.

Van der Poel surveys his leg injuries after coming across the finish line

Last year's Women's Elite race in Australia was won by Annemiek van Vleuten of the Netherlands.

She will be among the contenders this year along with Belgium's Lotte Kopecky, Netherland's Demi Vollering and Poland's Kasia Niewiadoma.

The Women's race is will be the last event of the UCI World Cycling Championships which brought a range of disciplines together in one 11-day mega event for the first time.

Competitions were held across Scotland from cross-country mountain biking in the Tweed Valley to elite track cycling in Glasgow's Sir Chris Hoy velodrome.

There was also time trials on roads around Stirling, para-cycling road races in Dumfries, and a special Gran Fondo event in Perth and Dundee.

The championships also featured downhill mountain biking, BMX, Indoor cycling and Trials.