Overtaken by events

With pandemic shutdowns, inflation and Brexit, the UK cycling sportive and holiday industry has been dealt heavy blows over the past three years. Now, as the world opens for business again, we hear from organisers as they consider what cyclists want in a much changed landscape

- John Whitney

"Sportives are like Viennetta," says Richard Best, the boss of Iconic Cycling Events, an organiser of sportives and corporate rides across the UK. It's a curious comparison to explain the state of play in the UK events market, but I'm going with it.

I'm close to 40 and so grew up in a time when Viennetta, the once-ubiquitous ice cream and chocolate log, filled bowls across the country. We still see it now, in the freezer aisles of supermarkets, but what was at one time quite the delicacy is now very much yesterday's dessert, melting in the face of hotter, tastier competition. Richard was right, I hadn't bought one for years. "In the product life cycle, you have the growth, the plateau, then the decline. Sportives, like Viennetta, are on the decline... I think there's an element of fatigue with them."

Best is speaking from personal experience. His company, based in Bath, is a decade old and emerged in heady times for British road cycling. His biggest sportive in those early years was Bike Bath, a multi-distance event through the lanes of Somerset and Wiltshire. I lived in the city during this time and it was well backed by the local riding community. "I always thought we'd get to 3,000 riders in Bath and hover around that number, like the half marathon here." For 2023, however, it's not running.

Best calls a standalone sportive running annually a "tough marketing challenge. Taking a break and not trying to run an event every year is part of our thinking. There isn't the appetite. We took a break at Bike Chester and we came back last year and had far more riders taking part than we imagined."