PROS GIVING BACK

We all struggle for time to volunteer but when you’re jet-setting around the globe as a pro, it can be even harder. James Shrubsall speaks to some who still find the time to make it work

- James Shrubsall

When you’re five points off that elusive secondcat road licence and your season’s going well, it’s quite the exercise in selflessness to forgo a ride in the weekend road race to volunteer instead. It’s not impossible though. But when the national road champion, who rides for Ineos Grenadiers no less, tells you that he can’t man the tea room at this weekend’s road race because he’s riding in the WorldTour, you can’t hold it against him. As far as excuses go, it’s cast iron; written into a contract with no wriggle room. But as Ben Swift points out, there are other ways to help out, such as being the president of the club you rode for as a child.

“I’ve been the club president in [Mossley CRT],” explains Swift, who became national road champion for a second consecutive time last October. “It was the club I used to ride for as a kid. They asked me if I’d be a lifelong member and president of the club.

“I’ve been down to their presentations and done bits and bobs. I’ve done a few sessions, especially through lockdown when it was all done on Zoom – that was good.”

There aren’t many pros who don’t understand that a large part of their road to a pro contract was laid by those who help make races happen for the love of it, so they are happy to give back to the sport, in ways that only a pro rider can.