[Closed] A road racing Q

Because of what I alluded to on the other thread - lots of people don't like the clubs on offer so they never join and just ride/do sportives rather than race.

I find it funny over on veloriders and other roadie forums when they all complain about the lack of races and then snobbily slag off newbies/triatletes for the horrible kit mistakes they make, poor riding, etc and can't see the connection

In fact, put it another way. Why WOULD people join a club? You can get a bike, ride with your mates and do any number of sportives which don't require you to be near the front end to feel that you've achieved something without any need to be in a club.

Its shrunk big time in our area thanks mainly to a league being set up which was actually meant to increase races, its a long and complicated story about how this actually came about happening.

I was an average 2nd Cat and I gave up racing in the end, finding yourself lining up on a sunday morning against malcolm Elliot, Rob Hayles etc. was not worth the £12 entry and petrol to get there and back.

I know what you mean, a club I was with wouldn't let me race for them in the first year.
But strangely I think the nature of road racing itself almost demands that regimented approach.

As above, why would I join a cycling club and pay money to do so when I could just turn up to Swinley and talk to people for free, yes you have to pay to use Swinely, but the roads are free so I'm not paying an arbitrary club so that I can ride on them as well!

The problem in the ERRL is getting a race entry - too many 3rd/4th cats for the number of places available.

Also, I get the impression organising races is a ballache that fewer and fewer people are willing to do, and approvals to run events on open road course are getting harder to get.

That's all very well thisisnotaspoon, but if you want to race road you will need a body to organise it i.e a club.

I was getting all cocky with a mate from the Peak about the ammount of road races I have on my doorstep, but when I checked, 2010 was dead. The only thing going strong is circuit racing and that's a million miles from road racing.

Well again, why road race? why not do sportives instead? I know that the road racers like to be snobby about them but clearly they have a big draw that road racing just doesn't at the moment at least...

The racers just aren't doing much about promoting road racing to new people beyond their own insular group of people who already race in general other than sneering at the sportives, triatletes and pro-kit wearing riders (who don't know better 😉 ) though I'll grant you that the hurdles put in the way of organising racing (eg police notification, etc) aren't helping.

The combination of the Surrey League and SERRL in the south east provides loads of road races for all cats. The big problem now for organisers is police permission and health and fricken safety. The aforementioned leagues have built up good relationships with the necessary bodies and work tirelessly to keep events year on year, however there are always requests for marshalls and it is always the same few ensuring racing happens for the many.

I have absolutely no interest in racing anyone. However, I don't mind paying a tenner or so to do a decent, supported ride somewhere different and can see the value in someone else finding all the good roads and marking them out for me.

Whether it's true or not, the cycling clubs all seem to be either for the hardcore roadies (early morning training rides, racing on weekends) or the CTC-type ones for pootling about. There's a lot of people in between that have a road bike and want to do something between the two - a few hours (or more) over decent roads at whatever pace you like. Thus no wonder sportives have got a hell of a lot more popular.

Well again, why road race? why not do sportives instead?

Because a (UK) sportive is nothing like a proper road race where everyone starts together with lead and following cars and motorcycle outriders. Also sportives are about times and RRs position so the tactics in a RR are much more complex and interesting.

Analagous to XC vs marathon / enduro / 24hr in mtb...

lb - can I just state that I've done and love road racing - I'm just making the case as to why it's not very popular ATM despite increasing numbers of people on bikes.

I think that there's several reasons:
1. As a conversation I had last night with someone who's really keen on racing. She's thinking very seriously of giving up because whatever races she enters she's up against semi pro and 1/2 Cat racers. There's absolutely no point in her even turning up to these, and she resents the attitude of those E/1/2 riders to people like her.
2. Why would any organiser put on a race when you end up with so much ball acheing and abuse from riders. I used to promote a London League/ Central League Cyclocross race but have stopped because I got sick of people moaning constantly and getting dozens of emails complaining about the course, the results, the organisation and the weather, why it isn't in Kent etc. So I stopped.
3. I used to be invoved with the organisation of a UCI cat race in the south east - it has now become very difficult to put on a large scale race with the conflicting requirements of the local Police and the increasing congestion that such a race causes.
I still marshall at races but am not prepared to put myself through the mill for the minority who've put me off organising.

I know that from stalking you clubber 😉

and I understand your points from a newcomer's point of view. There's a similar situation at Herne Hill velodrome; hundreds of people go to the training sessions, but maybe 50-60 actually enter the race meetings.

Road racing is also flippin tough, you can't just turn up if you're not super fit as you'll get dropped straight away. Much more competitive than the NPS XC - I never got anywhere in the ERRL whereas could podium in NPS (Sport).

Cool - I've not had a stalker before 😉

The thing with sportives is it's like a stage of the TdF (with some imagination) and that massively appeals (ask most first time sportive riders about it they'll explain that it's like a stage of the TdF to people who don't know). A road race for a newbie is like turning up in a 2CV for an F1 race.

If I couldn't race and the only other option was sportives then I'd hang up my road bike.
Don't forget a sportive is totally non competative so it's no substitute for racing. And it certainly won't breed future champions, interest yes.

It's that kind of absolute and completely negative view of sportives though that paints a pretty negative view of many roadies though...

I reckon that if clubs encouraged new riders in with a view to making them ride sportives better then a reasonable proportion would get interested in 'proper' road racing and give it a go... Newbies clearly find sportives appealing. Putting your fingers in your ears and ignoring that doesn't help anyone.

If I couldn't race and the only other option was sportives then I'd hang up my road bike

I'm with you there fella. I'm taking a 'racing break' whilst our little'un is small, and in the meantime I've had a crack at a few sportives and don't get what I 'need' from them/just don't get them - if I want to go for a ride, I'll do it and not pay anyone for it thanks.

It's a really difficult balancing act.

[i]1. As a conversation I had last night with someone who's really keen on racing. She's thinking very seriously of giving up because whatever races she enters she's up against semi pro and 1/2 Cat racers. There's absolutely no point in her even turning up to these, and she resents the attitude of those E/1/2 riders to people like her.[/i]

Agreed but at the same time I know organisers have tried to hold 4th Cat only womens races and they rarely work - not enough numbers - so the only option to ensure break-even is to hold it as an all-cats which leads to the situation above. the E/1/2's mop up all the prizes, the 3/4's are out the back by lap one, get dispirited and never come back. 🙁

Endless amounts of hassle with the police. Some forces are very helpful and will supply police outriders etc to the bigger events. Some forces are actively hostile to the idea of a road race or they'll agree to it but then ask for £10000 in costs to police it.

Some people get put off by the perceived bureaucracy of road racing (it's not bad but to an outsider it can appear to be impenetrable), the fact that road racing is almost entirely club based and to those outside a club they have no idea where to find out about it.

Let's turn it round - there are quite a few keen roadies on here so what would make you go and try a race?

aP you never said, why wasn't it in Kent?

Incidentally, the whole growth of sportives and the racers' views of them reminds me of where we were 5 tto 10 years ago with BC's decision to push track racing as development towards getting a British Pro Team at the TdF and winning it. Almost all roadies sneered and said it'd never work because it wasn't proper racing, etc...

I think oldgit and bristolbiker aren't coming from the same place as clubber's newbies though. Once you've done proper road races, a sportive will never fill the gap. However, if you haven't, then they could be a good stepping stone.

Exactement - all sports need new blood coming into them. Sportives would be a great way for clubs to get new members but most seem to prefer to just ignore them and stick to 'proper' racing...

Right, so I'm theoretically good enough for a mid table finish in Master at a Gorrick, with an emphasis on power for flatter riding. Could I enter a road race and not be made a fool of?

Sportive organisers have the freedom from tradition and/or rules and regs to be a bit more creative, making it fun for people. For example, we have a 'race the train' Sportive. Everyone races the Worth Valley Steam train from one end of the line to the other, it's great fun.

Hard to say for sure molgrips but you'd probably find the changes in pace hard to deal with for the first few goes so may find you do less well than you expect for your relative level of fitness.

Could I enter a road race and not be made a fool of?

Proabaly, but it's not an even effort - took me a few goes to cope with positioning and the constant changes of pace.

If you can hold a wheel and know how the pack gets spread out in corners ie ready to sprint out of them etc, then you should be able to hang on to the bunch.

molgrips, you'd probably be fine in a 4th cat race or 3/4 first time out, but real difference is the sprint at the end which 90% of these lower cat races finish as.

Very unfair clubber, see you have to understand that if you take away the racing then it's just a ride.
I'm only negative about sportives from my personl view. I realise that sportives have a huge positive on the sport. But to me they will always be a glorified Sunday ride and not a million miles away from RTs that have been running for years.
I can look at a map any Saturday night and pick out new roads and pen them onto a 'fag packet' and head off for hours the next day. That's why I feel the way I do about them, they're like the bottled water of cycling.

Road racing is about so much more than fitness - tactics, experience and teamwork play a huge role in it which is why most people are lucky to even finish their first race in the bunch, never mind start contesting the sprint.

Once you get into it though it's great fun. Generally pretty cheap to enter, a great way of improving fitness and bike handling. The hurdle (IMHO) is getting people a) to want to do it and b) to keep coming back for the few weeks it takes to be able to finish in the bunch rather than getting put off by getting a kicking!

I wasn't having a go oldgit - it's a perfectly reasonable view for you to hold. It's that for a newbie who likes the idea of a sportive, goes for a ride with a club and is told that sportives are crap, just an expensive ride that should be free, doing, would be better to quit than do and so on, it's not a very good impression to make and may well completely put them off the club and in turn road racing...

And I know this happens as I've seen it happen several times, not to mention having heard it from plenty of people I know who I've got into road riding.

If you can hold a wheel and know how the pack gets spread out in corners ie ready to sprint out of them etc, then you should be able to hang on to the bunch.

Not got a lot of experience riding in a bunch... crash-tastic 🙂

Need to get in touch with my local clubs.

That isn't good, and I'm suprised. I rode past a sportive last weekend and was suprised to see a fair few local clubs in numbers.
I am guilty of actually telling a young rider that the reliability trial we were about to do would have a better class of rider than the sportive we did before, so that in a way though probably true was a bit negative.

But strangely the cameraderie within a race is great, if you've ever been off the back and you've hooked up with fellow riders to get back into contention you'll know what I mean.

On the other hand why do a sportive and waste 40quid when you can do a long ride for afew quid? Or do an audax for under a tenner.I do see the point about inexperienced riders racing at speed in a bunch swerving and braking at the wrong moments is dangerous and bunch riding at speed takes time to get used to

molgrips that's were this dicipline in clubs comes in, it is harsh and can be a bit stuffy, but the club route delivers you ready to race.
Typically you join up ride with a group, train with them over winter, ride some RTs to get used to larger bunches and suss out the other clubs then fine tune it with the faster riders before the season kicks off.
A lot of non competative cyclists mistake this focus for rudeness.

Sportives are supported and allow people to imagine that they're doing something similar to what the TdF riders do (irrespective of how far from the truth that actually is...). A ride on your own doesn't do that.

Audaxes ditto and are poorly perceived unfortunately as being for old bimblers with mudguards - one of the reasons that my team put one on and made a real effort to advertise it as being fun/enjoyable. And having lots of cake 🙂

A lot of non competative cyclists mistake this focus for rudeness.

very true. There are some very rude clubs/members but on the other hand, the extra friendly clubs round my way have an earned reputation for providing ready to crash racers....

I think the current BC thinking of only allowing 4ths on closed circuits is a good way of trying to keep (bad) crashes down a bit.

Just thinking sportives as an alternative would cost me a fortune as I try to race every week during the season.

Sportives are supported and allow people to imagine that they're doing something similar to what the TdF riders do

And that's fine as far as it goes.... but if they finish, say, 25% behind the 'winner' and think 'that was alright, I'll have a go at the local evening circuit race', they're still likely to turn up and get a kicking.

Absolutely. Which comes back to my point about trying to welcome those riders into clubs rather than immediately telling them they're wasting their time with sportives.

Let them do the training rides with the club for sportives and some will undoubtedly want to try 'proper' racing. Do the more usual 'scared of change/the unknown/anything different' roadie thing and slag everything else off and no one gains.

A bit of advice for newcomers to road clubs is to get fit beforehand unless the club has a proper newcomers organised ride group.
If you just rock up to a club and join a group of racers with an agenda you're going to have youre nose knocked out of joint.

Which is yet another failing of most clubs... Having to train in order to go and do training rides with a club - anyone see the issue there? 🙂

haven't read the thread but

Let's turn it round - there are quite a few keen roadies on here so what would make you go and try a race?

if i could actually work out where to find one/ how to enter one. or even one to watch to be honest.

...welcome those riders into clubs rather than immediately telling them they're wasting their time with sportives.

Agreed - that's not on, but give it a generation and I think those clubs will die of a kind of 'natural selection'. It looks like RR organisation is moving to local leagues with a central organisation/liason approach to deal with the H+S/Admin/Police, rather than each club individually organising a race-a year. How that will affect the 'machine' by which road racers are produced in clubs, I don't know. I certainly didn't come through the club system (albeit, playing at it a bit at Uni) and am notionally a member of a club currently, but even before children I didn't have the time to ride with them - so my graduation through the early kickings and winning points was very much on my own.

Don't bother - you're not allowed to race if you're not in a club and wearing the right kit

(for the hard of understanding - JOKE!)

why not road race? personally i have done it to death a long time ago and have no real desire to go back to it. i have diversified my interest and now ride/race mtb triathlon running. i have noticed that cycling, particularly road racing, has more than its fair share of macho egomaniacs that like to hammer people and talk shit/belittle other sports.
i have never done a sportive but see them as a good thing thats getting people out riding. its not a race but if people want to pretend it is, i don't mind.

Going back to the original question. The reason the calendar is dead is due to traffic calming, police, insurance, road rage etc..etc.. Putting a race on is a nightmare these days and the risk assessments often close circuits due to road works, poor road conditions and other factors. One classic race on the calendar was the Elizabethan, now unfeasible as a traffic crossing is on the course. Many other races run over minor roads to avoid this problem, but they are stuffed with all the potholes etc..Getting volunteers to marshall is harder these days and the police are often far too overstretched/expensive to support a race. My club used to promote 2 races per annum and now we do nil, all of the reasons above are why.

[i]if i could actually work out where to find one/ how to enter one. or even one to watch to be honest. [/i]

Thomthumb:

Try:
http://new.britishcycling.org.uk/road

Tabs down the left hand side for the Events Calendar and some basic info about getting into road racing.

Also:
http://new.britishcycling.org.uk/clubfinder

for finding a local cycling club.

LBS is also worth a visit, a lot of shops support a local club or will at least know where/when the local roadies hang out, meet up, ride, race etc.

If you can fathom out the BC website, there's a lot of good info on there!
If you're keen it is well worth joining a local affiliated club with 3rd and 4th cat racers( not a "team", too many grumpy wannabes) for the sake of £25 a year. They will be able to help you with all the ins and outs. BC racing is surprisingly simple to enter once you know where to look.

If you're in Yorkshire then the Cavendish cafe in Bolton abbey is a good place to meet road racers on a Saturday morning.
Just jump on the back of the bunch as it leaves for Otley and beyond and along the way spark up a conversation.
I'm sure you'll get all the info you need to start racing.
And if you're still on the front at pool bank then you might also do quite well!
There's some good lads go out this way too,
Scott Thwaites- Endura racing
Tom Barras-Team Raleigh
The Brownlees- world class triathletes
Mark Thwaites- Team Giordana

As for Sportives not being racing and racers not being bothered with them................

Etape du dales sportive 2010,
939 Malcolm Elliott M40 05:43:24 Gold
940 Mark Thwaites M20 05:49:59 Gold
936 Ed Clancy M25 06:49:26 Gold
941 Scott Thwaites M20 06:38:32 Gold
934 Ian Bibby M20 06:49:21 Gold
938 Pete Williams M23 05:50:09 Gold

If you're in Yorkshire then the Cavendish cafe in Bolton abbey is a good place to meet road racers on a Saturday morning.
Just jump on the back of the bunch as it leaves for Otley and beyond and along the way spark up a conversation.
I'm sure you'll get all the info you need to start racing.
And if you're still on the front at pool bank then you might also do quite well!

.

I hear that particular chaingang can get a bit kamikaze at times

That's the same guys on a Tuesday and Thursday chaingang.
The cafe run is a little more sedate!

[i]Incidentally, the whole growth of sportives and the racers' views of them reminds me of where we were 5 tto 10 years ago with BC's decision to push track racing ....(ok up to here)...... [b]as development towards getting a British Pro Team at the TdF and winning it....( this bit is poo...)[/b].[/i]

BC pushed track cycling because getting medals led to getting more money. I was racing at the time, and the only way to get on the performance plan was to do well at the track; BC ignored road racing, and only decided to take an interest much, much later.

British Cycling representation abroad was second class for years, with no coherent road race strategy; it was considered at the time to be too complex and too difficult to do well compared to the track.

The majority of UK riders went abroad and did well with very little help from the federation, and even now there is a golden group of riders who have come through the system and the rest get ignored.

Hamish Haynes, UK champ is a case in point, as is the way Robert Millars talent was never used.

Lovely out on the roads this evening.
Anyway going to have a good look through the calender. At the moment I'm racing LVRC which is almost all circuit racing and midweek. Both are now a pain.
Looking to go back to racing under BC if there's anything left.
Good chaingangs up North, when I was 'courting' my missus from leeds I'd slip out and join a chaingang near Skipton.

Well a quick look shows me that there are just two open road races in the region!
So I might as well stick with the LVRC as that's weekly plus there are two open road races left as well.

Thank God for the cross season, at least that's growing and I can race the LVRC cyclocross Nationals this year.
This sports great, last year I was bimbling round the cross circuits with damaged ribs and back and a chest infection because of it, but it's all still here for me to try again 😀

Interested in getting started but first problem is the entry level being so high. I've been doing club 10s for a couple of years now and progressing nicely into the middle of the table for our club. A couple weeks ago I popped along to Pembrey to try a closed circuit race. It was a Cat 3/4 and I figured I could probably just about hold the bunch. I lasted 6 or 7 of the 14 laps until I was eventually spat out the back. This was partially to do with me not being confident in the bunch and slipping back until at the back and the concertina effect killed me, but It was still damned hard. A friend said the problem with road racing is that you have to be good to be crap! Too true.

I must have lucked into a good club though as its really friendly and they do everything from 10s 25s and 3 mile hill climbs to weekly varied ability Sunday club runs and mid week chaingangs. A few race on weekends and some of them came 2nd in the Ras de Cymru last week.

Do I go back to Pembrey and try and hang onto the bunch again tomorrow night? It's a handicap this week rather than a 3/4 so should start slower but pick up as the groups merge? No sign of my race license yet though. I've payed and the BC website says I have one, but I don't fancy shelling out a tenner for a day license when I've already got one.

I can't help but think that the increase in traffic on the roads isn't helping matters. I'm pretty sure the roads are a chunk busier than I recall them being when I was a kid and that's always going to increase the hassle of running a race on open roads.

Admittedly that's a slightly trickier problem to solve than grumpy clubs telling people sportives are for pansies 😉

I'm 47 and started mountain biking 2 1/2 years ago and road biking a year ago. There are plenty of closed circuit races about(in the Midlands) and at about £10 a time pretty cheap. No problem joining a local club and no snobbishness either. Its a different discipline to XC enduro and a lot more about being able to up the pace hang on then recover quickly.Just bust my shoulder(racing the MTB) but was accessing 2 to 3 closed circuit road races a week(crits)
To surfr-a year ago I thought I was reasonably fit but couldn't stay anywhere near the race guys in race simulations. Just do more threshold work and you will soon be mixing it up front

a lot more about being able to up the pace hang on then recover quickly

A bit like say racing at Swinley?

molgrips - Member

a lot more about being able to up the pace hang on then recover quickly

A bit like say racing at Swinley?

Assuming thats MTB XC racing then no. Surprisingly different.My son started racing this year and was running near the front of the field in the British MTB champs from the off. On the road he was getting dropped by the bunch in the first few races and is only just getting on the pace for a full race.

the problem with road racing is that you have to be good to be crap!

How true. A lot of us are paddling in the shallow end of the gene pool when it comes to aerobic power and just don't have the engine needed to be competitive at even the lower categories no matter how well we're trained.

I'd need to increase my power output by 20-30% to stay the pace in a road race and even then I'd have my ass handed to me. Sorry but that's no fun. I'm pretty well trained from regular road riding but even if I trained all hours there's no way I'll ever be able to close that gap. I'm not prepared to spend all my free time training for something I'd be crap at.

However with sportives I can challenge myself by setting a target time or simply by getting round and finishing with a bit of style, get the atmosphere of being in an event with like minded people, maybe find riders of my own standard to get some fun working together in a group and generally have a good time being a crap cyclist.

I'm an average racer - racing mtbs at Gorrick, Thetford, Transalp. Since Beastway (mtb race) at Eastway disappeared, a few of our gang ended up with a mid week void, so ended up racing on the road at Crystal Palace on Tuesday nights. Absolutely fantastic way to spend an evening! The pace is ferocious - took me about 8 attempts to stay with the pack. Stuck with it, and then a few points started coming .. and that's when it gets interesting. Ultimately, if you see it as a hard work out rather than a 'race', you've really got nothing to lose for a tenner.

In terms of 'friendliness' - road racers really aren't any different to mtb racers. Lots of chatter post race.

Even with the highest activity road race league in the UK, the Surrey League, "road" racing has shrunk compared to circuit racing. There are definitely fewer road races as the police etc... make it harder and harder to run them, whilst closed circuit racing proliferates.

In comparison to RRs a friend recently organised a 150km sportive that attracted 600 riders (plus more unofficial riders) and he didn't even have to inform the police! This is the south east of England too. He's aiming for 1000 riders next year.

Having done the odd bit of road racing over the years I know it's a completely different (high adreniline) buzz compared to riding sportives. RR is a lot more directly competitive and full on, although races are usually shorter than the big sportives which are more endurance based. I love them both, although I'm a bit slow these days.

I meant like Swinley as in it's fairly constant high pace with periodic really hard efforts.. not many let-ups. Unlike riding in the big hills where you climb for 5-10 mins then rest on the descent.

Echo some of the comments made above in answer to the original question. Organising a road race is hard work, involving a lot of volunteer effort, and relatively few selfless people are prepared to put up with the hassle. Increasing road traffic and a lack of support from the police in some areas is another negative factor. I think one of the big factors is simply fewer people wanting to compete. Numbers have bounced back a bit in the past few years, but in my area, there are a handful of junior riders. 25 years ago there were full fields for junior races, and without a steady stream of new people coming through, the sport suffers.

Some of the other comments are a bit puzzling. Sportives and road racing are completely different beasts. I've ridden and enjoyed sportives and Audax, but neither come close to the visceral thrills of full-on competitive road racing. I liked the slightly tongue in cheek definition that sportives are for people pretending to race, and Audax is for people pretending not to race...
Joking apart, I haven't come across the "anti-sportive" attitude described above. Lots of people in my cycling club enjoy sportives, and in fact many of them only ride sportives. I'm sure sportives have taken away a few potential road racers, but equally they have provided a stepping stone for others to try road racing. On balance I think they are probably good for the sport.

Why WOULD people join a club?

Sure you can do some of these things as an indvidual, but it's a lot more effective as an organised group (and more fun!). Without clubs to organise events and provide volunteers there would be no grass roots road racing in the UK. Incidentally there would also be fewer sportives, as many of these are organised by clubs or depend on club volunteers.
As for slagging off triathletes and newbies, my club organises runs specifically for beginners, and triathletes make up about a quarter of our membership. Most of the cyclists I know ride on and off-road and it's great to see people in the club being exposed to different disciplines, and deciding to have a crack at duathlon, triathlon, track, road racing or MTB.

crikey - Member
...ok up to here)...... as development towards getting a British Pro Team at the TdF and winning it....( this bit is poo...).

BC pushed track cycling because getting medals led to getting more money.

Absolutely and they always said that that was the case. What they also said was that the track sucess would feed into the road scene which it has. Roadies said for years that this would fail. It hasn't. We have a British pro team. We have a TdF contender (though I'll admit I don't think Wiggo will ever win it) and we have a sprinter who's breaking records. We also have talented riders like Geraint Thomas getting a good go of it.

I was racing at the time, and the only way to get on the performance plan was to do well at the track; BC ignored road racing, and only decided to take an interest much, much later.

I agree - they didn't necessarily make the best of supporting road racing in the years between starting to push the track and now and that hasn't been good for the road scene but on the other hand, I think it's very easy and lazy to blame BC for everything that's wrong in the road scene. Once again, I think that the clubs and riders themselves need to take some responsibility - what were they doing to try and promote involvement in cycling? Most (not all) clubs I've seen and heard about seemed to be going the way of British TTing and just burying their heads in the sand about participation falling and blaming it on everyone but themselves.

British Cycling representation abroad was second class for years, with no coherent road race strategy; it was considered at the time to be too complex and too difficult to do well compared to the track.

If BC had decided not to focus on the track when it did and instead had focussed on the road, where would we be? Chances are we might have had a few more pros racing on the continent but I don't reckon that any of them would have attained the level of Wiggo or Cav or even Doping-level Millar. Plus there's a reasonable chance that they'd have been just as 'damaged' as the likes of Millar..

The majority of UK riders went abroad and did well with very little help from the federation, and even now there is a golden group of riders who have come through the system and the rest get ignored.

I think that's always going to happen in elite sport to some extent - I've been on the end of it myself (though not at international level) - and maybe that's where there needs to be some improvement however it's also easy to blame coaches having 'favourites' when you're on the wrong end of a selection decision but eventually realise that maybe it wasn't so clear cut (again, been there).

Hamish Haynes, UK champ is a case in point, as is the way Robert Millars talent was never used.

Well, ex-British champ but he's pretty old really for the pro scene now though maybe he could have done something when younger. As I said, BC could have done more for the road scene in the track focussed years but then it's arguably better that they lost out on some riders in those years but have now ended up in the current situation with a British pro team which provides an easy route to the pro tour for British talent.

KCR - sounds like your club is progressive and forward looking - great. I never said they don't exist, I just said that a lot of clubs aren't like this...

[i]As I said, BC could have done more for the road scene in the track focussed years but then it's arguably better that they lost out on some riders in those years but have now ended up in the current situation with a British pro team which provides an easy route to the pro tour for British talent.[/i]

I think we're not really arguing; just not agreeing totally...

It was a major bone of contention when the velodrome opened in Manchester; the feeling among the racers I knew was that it would be great for the sport and would encourage cycling generally. I found the opposite, with a lot of people who had raced on the road suddenly changing their focus and spending time at the track, there were no extra bums on seats, just fewer bums out on the road.

I wouldn't blame BC for the fall in racing, but I do think their focus was too track based for many years, not to get into the arguement about their support for mountain biking and Downhilling....

A British pro team is good, but again I wonder about the wisdom of a single major team on the domestic scene, and the links between a pro team and a cycling federation.

I also wonder what will happen when Sky get bored....

Yes, ditto 😉

I guess BC had pretty limited resources when the track thing kicked off so realistically, could they have done lots more to support road racing than they did? As for mtb/DH, well it's the same thing in that there are very few/no Olympic medals there so would it have been a good way to spend what cash they had? Add to that the general reluctance of mtbers to get involved with BC...

As to Sky getting bored, that is a risk but then it's to some extent controllable - keep getting results and positive PR for Sky at the TdF and the Olympics and they'll keep paying (it's small cash compared to the investment in other sports) and even if they did decide to quit, if the team performs, other sponsors will come on board.