Travel insurance

I work for a Tour Operator so have some knowledge. EHIC is essentially a back up which your travel insurance will insist you have in place anyway where applicable. It'll cover you for the medical cover in EU countries but cannot be relied upon as sole cover. Ie. If you needed repatriation back to the UK with a broken pelvis (like I've got now as it happens) then EHIC doesn't cover that.

Most policies won't cover competitive riding but is a timed sportive competitive? I'd class it as a leisure ride but I'm not the underwriter!

Someone like Sports Tours International probably offer insurance when buying a packaged tour to a sportive but likely won't sell a policy alone. However, you might see who underwrites their policy on their website (I've not looked) and then you can go to them

I'll have a look on line later to see if I can see anything.

a) Take your European Health Insurance Card (EHIC). Hoping you won't need it, but hey ho.

b) Some of the packaged bank accounts have travel insurance attached. Read the wordings carefully - this goes for all retail travel insurance really. Some of the travel insurances "free" with packaged accounts specifically exclude bicycles/equipment from the baggage section, and time trialling/racing* from all the other bits (medical expenses, liability, etc). Check the policy wordings carefully, specialist insurance may well be the better option.

* I did try once to to explain the whole concept of sportives, but colleagues' brains stopped working "Look, it's just a long way, and there's a bunch of us, 'kay?"

Forget cycleguard, sorry - misread your question.