Young British talent is better than ever, despite the domestic scene's struggles - what next?

Adam Becket

News editor at Cycling Weekly, Adam brings his weekly opinion on the goings on at the upper echelons of our sport. This piece is part of The Leadout, a newsletter series from Cycling Weekly and Cyclingnews. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here. As ever, email adam.becket@futurenet.com - should you wish to add anything, or suggest a topic.

There are two types of headlines about British cycling at the moment, both of which you will have seen on our website over the past couple of years. There is, bluntly, good news and bad news. Let’s start with the good.

On Sunday, in her first ever professional race, Cat Ferguson finished second at La Choralis Fourmies. The 18-year-old signed for Movistar this year, and is one to watch in every race she takes part in. She’ll be joined by her compatriot Carys Lloyd at the Spanish squad next season, after both signed three-year deals; meanwhile, their fellow junior track world champion Imogen Wolff is heading to Visma-Lease a Bike.

Just a couple of weeks previously, we had the first ever British winner of the men’s Tour de l’Avenir in Joe Blackmore. The 21-year-old is a star of now, as well as the future, and his rate of GC wins this year has only pointed to bigger things to come; how long before we pin our Tour de France hopes on the Londoner? He has already signed with Israel-Premier Tech’s senior team from its development squad, despite not completing a year there. The IPT devo team are taking on board Fin Tarling, the younger brother of TT sensation Josh Tarling, who is still only 20. Meanwhile, Matt Brennan will be in Visma’s elite team next year, while Bob Donaldson has joined Jayco AlUla.

What’s more, the Tour of Britain Men has just had its first British victor since 2016 in Stevie Williams, the first British man to win La Flèche Wallonne, which also happened this year. Tom Pidcock, hardly old at 25, became the second man to defend his Olympic mountain bike title last month.

However, while these are the good headlines, there are the bad headlines too.

Just since the Tour de France, we have had ‘British women's team Lifeplus-Wahoo to close at end of year’, ‘20mph restrictions force key British race to make late route change’, ‘Road racing in Wales in 'unsustainable' situation, governing body says’, ‘Trinity Racing facing possible closure’ and today, ‘Important British race disappears from domestic calendar, as scene continues to suffer’.

This year, there were a record number of women’s Continental teams in the UK - six - but the biggest one, Lifeplus, is about to be no more, and another, Pro-Noctis-200° Coffee-Hargreaves Contracting came perilously close to closing this year too. If Trinity Racing were to close down, there would be just one men’s Continental team left - Saint Piran - and they are already the only senior squad anyway. There is not a defined pathway for riders to take from the bottom to the top, much of the time.

There are fewer races on which people can make their mark, too. Next year there will be just the men’s and women’s Tours of Britain and the men’s CiCLE classic in terms of UCI-ranked races, with the women’s RideLondon Classique skipping a year at least. Race organisers at all levels speak of the difficulty organising races, with the events low on cash-strapped councils’ priority lists, and a real lack of accredited race marshals, and race organisers simply not wanting to keep up the incredibly hard work forever. Add in the impact that the cost-of-living crisis has had on race entries, compounded by the pandemic, and the difficulty in attracting new people to road racing, then it seems bleak. Brexit didn’t help, either.

Just this week, I heard from a CX race organiser suggesting that the writing was on the wall if there wasn’t some way of getting more people involved. The crisis - and that isn’t hyperbolic - is affecting all kinds of cycling, despite the lockdown boom and the rise of gravel.

It doesn’t have to be this way. The good news is there. It was only a decade ago that we were basking in the 2012 boom for cycling in this country. Initiatives like Monument Cycling and British Cycling’s elite racing task force are trying to help, but there is a long way to go. I do not have the answers, but the dichotomy between the success of Britain’s youngsters and the state of its domestic scene is stark right now.

Sometimes we get told off, as Cycling Weekly, for being too negative. There are still so many good things to highlight and trumpet, but the truth is, there are many fault lines underneath the domestic scene that need looking at. Let’s hope that this golden generation is not the last, and get involved in racing if you can. It needs you!

This piece is part of The Leadout, the offering of newsletters from Cycling Weekly and Cyclingnews. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here.

If you want to get in touch with Adam, email adam.becket@futurenet.com.

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