BC Racing Return Sees Relief, Joy And Innovation

Grass-roots British Cycling competition returned last week, and gave a glimpse into racing’s ‘new normal’ reports James Shrubsall

- James Shrubsall

Racing cyclists in Britain breathed a long sigh of relief – and then drew a deep breath – as competition finally kicked off again under the auspices of British Cycling, following nearly five months of lockdown. Two circuit race meetings on Hertfordshire’s Bovingdon Bomber closed circuit were followed by a Brooks Cycles Track League meet at Newcastle under Lyme last week, with all being hailed a resounding success despite the challenges thrown up by the pandemic.

British Cycling’s head of delivery Jonathan Day called the return to race, “Hugely important. It’s part of the fabric of what we’re about as an organization, you know, it’s absolutely at the center of what we do. People race and compete for lots of reasons; because they enjoy it but also because physically and psychologically it provides a release from the stresses of life, and there’s a lot of that at the moment in people’s lives.”

Alex Webb, who organized the Brooks Cycles track meet last Thursday, said the event went “very positively. The number of smiles you could see around the venue was just amazing. Even just in the warm-up, you could see that having that number on their back, being back on the bike, just warming up ready for an event was enough to make people go ‘actually, I enjoy doing this again’,” he said.

As well as using online-only sign-on, and checking rider temperatures at the venue, Webb and his team kept races to a maximum of 18 riders and portioned out the track area so that each ‘bubble’ had somewhere to go and socially distance between events. Riders responded well to the measures, said Webb, “assuming the responsibility of being safe, but also having fun”.