CyclistWhat is British Cyclings plan for the future of road racing in the UK?Cast your mind back a decade. 2014: Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome had each won one Tour de France apiece, kickstarting the glory years of Team Sky. Wiggins also finished third at what was then the Friends Life Tour of Britain, won by Dylan van Baarle, while Mark Cavendish had won 25 of his 34 stages at the Tour de France.It was a boom period for British cycling and capitalised on a post-London Olympics wave of enthusiasm, but in recent years the problems have piled up for the domestic scene and for the governing body. The Tour de Yorkshire no longer exists, a casualty of the pandemic. Many domestic teams have folded. Local racing has dwindled, and with funding squeezed across the board the road scene in the UK has looked precarious for some time.According to British Cycling, the number of British UCI Continental teams on both the mens and womens side dropped from eight to five from 2016 to 2023, and the number of road races fell from 17 to 11 despite a growth in womens sport. The cost of putting on events has risen by up to 10% each year since 2019, another massive constraint on teams, riders and racing opportunities.Luc Claessen/Getty ImagesAnd yet, there have never been more British cyclists competing at the elite level 33 men and 22 women and the ranks are full of promising young prospects like Josh Tarling, Pfeiffer Georgi and Zoe Bckstedt, as well as more established names like Tom Pidcock, Lizzie Deignan and Geraint Thomas. British riders continue to excel just in the past couple of weeks Georgi battled to third place at Paris-Roubaix and Pidcock sprinted to victory at the Amstel Gold Race.In early February, British Cycling announced a new vision for the sport in the UK. It was based on recommendations of the Elite Road Racing Task Force, which was created in late 2023 to find solutions to the issues facing domestic teams.That vision involves a long-term policy of expanding and creating new events in every discipline, from looking into a new BMX circuit to trying to bring the mountain bike and cyclocross UCI World Cups to Britain, as well as tackling issues of social inequality in a social impact programme (more on that later). Most ambitiously, the governing body also took charge of the financially-crippled Tour of Britain and Womens Tour with immediate effect.With the task forces recommendations only made earlier this year and encompassing the next five, theres still a long way to go before most of those visions become reality. But this Junes Tour of Britain Women will be the first concrete example of the plan in action so whats on the cards? Related Posts Cyclist Magazine Podcast episode 103: Ex-pro Scott Sunderland on 90s cycling, Classics, Cancellara, breaking stuff and RideLondon From North Wales to Manchester: Tour of Britain Women announces route for 2024 race Gallery: Best RideLondon Classique yet? The Tour of BritainZac Williams/SWPixFormerly organised by the now-liquidated Sweetspot, the Tour of Britains existence was under severe threat and the 2024 edition of the Womens Tour had already been cancelled thanks to financial mismanagement and a lack of sponsors. British Cycling stepping in to rescue the flagship events of the British calendar, and revamping them both under the Tour of Britain umbrella, was an encouraging sign that they mean business with this plan.The womens race part of the Womens WorldTour, the biggest for women in the UK, and running since 2014 until it was cancelled last year returns in 2024 in a shortened, four-day format, compacted into Wales and the north-west of England, but with ambitions to expand it in the future.Where we are in the timescale, I think weve got a really good four-day race, says race director and former Ineos boss Rod Ellingworth. Its going to be a challenging course. Stage 1 is going to be the most challenging stage for sure, [followed by] stage 4. I think the GC will come down to the final stage, but I think its pretty open.Naturally the British roads offer lots of different opportunities you dont have the big mountains but theres certainly some challenging roads, and you dont need big climbs to make good bike racing either.With the race designed and finalised in just ten weeks, it was a race against the clock to get everything set up for the grand dpart on Thursday 6th June.The race against timeJames YorkIts been a challenging process British Cycling chief executive Jon Dutton says there were many moments in the past ten weeks when the organisers thought it would fall through, This is an expensive race and were doing it times two, with the men as well. I daresay with 52 days to get there there will be more bumps in the road.I wont call them out but weve had authorities, host start towns and finishes, whove said, were in and then subsequently for other reasons are not in. Thats difficult because we always had an idea of a fairly condensed, compact race and when one pulls out thats an issue across the board. Its not been a straight line, but were really confident there is a huge desire to see the Tour of Britain Men and Women grow and flourish.Dutton says despite the intensified financial and time pressures, the races are still in a good place. Its been the perfect storm since the pandemic, and obviously anything that takes place on the highway is more costly than ever before, he says. The lingering impact of the pandemic, the cost of living, soaring inflation, and obviously Brexit, the challenge of getting things including people into the country and back out again. Were conscious of all of that, but were working hard to secure the revenue for at least this year to get as close to breaking even as possible.Despite those challenges including some local authorities annual budgets having already been allocated before the rescue plan was put together the event planning subsidiary, British Cycling Events, has found a lot of people receptive to their ideas. Dutton says, Theres a huge amount of goodwill. Its that close connection in local communities, rather than it being a bike race that comes through, that has an economic impact, has a moment of civic pride [we want to] do that time and time again in a deep and meaningful way via our social impact programme.That has translated into funding for the events, which will be largely supported by fees paid by start and finish locations, broadcasting revenue, and commercial and sponsorship revenue. We accept that maybe in year one the race has to run at a deficit, but this is about taking a longer-term approach to it, says Dutton, Were in the process of finalising [broadcast] contracts both domestically and internationally so were in a good place. Were looking at reaching out funding for these two races, for the whole of the five-year strategy.The mens race will also take place this year in its usual September slot, but reduced from eight to six stages. We believed in this race, these two races. Were excited, we got what we realistically could have expected this year in four and six stages, but again thats the reset year. We want to stage racing in Wales, England and Scotland and we will satisfy that across the two races this year, Dutton says.To avoid detracting focus from the womens event and to give the organisers adequate time to plan everything the Tour of Britain Men route will only be announced after the womens race finishes, in between June and the Olympic Games.What about the domestic teams? James YorkThe womens race will continue to be categorised as WorldTour, but lower-level British teams will also have a seat at the table. All six British UCI Continental teams have accepted wildcards to the race, alongside a specific Team GB setup with riders yet to be selected. Dutton suggests it will be a real celebration of British womens international elite road racing.Former World Champion Lizzie Deignan will be racing the Tour of Britain Women as part of Team GB, rather than her WorldTour outfit Lidl-Trek. Im delighted, Deignan says. Every opportunity you get to compete on home soil is obviously exciting. Im really grateful to all the hard work thats gone on behind the scenes to pull this event off. Sometimes its underestimated how much it takes to put on a race and Im really grateful to the people that have made it happen against the odds.Racing in Britain has always suited me because you have the home crowd, but also the terrain wherever you are in the country is relentless and grippy. Often I have opportunities to come away with a win, so looking to the Tour I want to perform there and come away with a win and give myself confidence going into the Olympic Games.On both the mens and womens side, the challenges at the domestic level will continue. Dutton says, It might be in the future we see less [racing], and we see more quality. It might be that we have to be a bit more strategic about the calendar, to make sure weve got compelling riding experiences across all levels. Obviously development is really important across the sport, but we just know how really tough it is to deliver safe events on the highway with the escalating costs. I think theres some more work to do on perhaps saying well have more, what we can do is have more, better experiences.What next for racing in the UK?British Cycling is confident that its rescue plan for the Tour of Britain will deliver, and is full of ideas about how to develop both races in future years good news in particular for the womens teams. Dutton says, I think we can offer a brilliant, fixed point in the calendar for womens racing. Weve spoken to more than 50 local authorities since the start of January. We almost have more start and finish locations than we have opportunities for next year, which is really exciting.These two races are the jewel in the crown for domestic, elite international road racing here in Great Britain. If you look at both women and men on the WorldTour, its quite astonishing from a GB perspective, and we want to make sure they have the opportunity to ride here on our roads.Part of giving riders that opportunity means expanding the reach of cycling an expensive hobby to wider groups in the UK. From a diversity perspective we already do some great work through our city academy programme and we want to deliver that more extensively, and in particular it would be great to see people on the podium at future Olympic and Paralympic Games that truly represent the communities they come from. Were a long way ahead of that already, but the social impact programme will maybe help supercharge that work, says Dutton.He also says British Cycling plans to integrate other aspects of the social impact programme into the racing calendar. When we sit down and look at a town or city we talk about some of the things we can do to address societal challenges and do that through the power of cycling, whether that be people that ride to work and active travel, or people who have no interest in cycling whatsoever. And this is the great thing about the Tour of Britain, is that it has the power to connect local people together.For Deignan, thats an important aspect of the Tours appeal, she says, Its hard to quantify really [the impact of having a race in the UK]. Its something I always can count on, I just perform better. The general atmosphere, people in the UK are brilliant sports fans and theres this sense of excitement and thrill at being able to be part of a spectacle like a bike race, and being at the centre of that is not something I take for granted.In the future that desire to get crowds out on the roadside will hopefully translate to the Tour of Britain visiting some new locations, particularly in editions less hamstrung by constraints of time and budget as this one.Could we bring the Tour de France back to British shores?Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty ImagesFor Ellingworth, the storied history of British Cycling athletes is a force pushing it on. Theres a massive part of me that really wants to drive forward and think about the future. The success of British Cycling after the last fifteen years, across all different events, we want to inspire young people to ride bikes and I think its important that we deliver both races the same these being the flagship events.There are also plans in the works across a wide array of disciplines, including expanding gravel racing and BMX freestyle at the National Cycling Centre, piggybacking off renewed interest in the sport likely to come from the Paris Olympics. At the moment these plans are vague, focussing around the feasibility of hosting events rather than putting them into practice.Dutton adds, Its a broad plan its really ambitious. Its got to be done in a sustainable way, and thats why were going to take five years to deliver. But if we can entice more people from different backgrounds, we know we can attract a different, younger, more diverse audience, and if we blend the urban with music, culture, lifestyle, its a completely different proposition and Im really excited by that.The new-look British Cycling team Dutton joined in April 2023, Ellingworth in March 2024 also have bigger plans. Dutton suggests another Tour de France Grand Dpart on British soil is a possibility: We appreciate what happened in 2014 was absolutely fantastic and wed love to do everything we can to bring it back. We definitely have the same level of determination for that as we do for [the Tour of Britain].Theres still a long way to go and plenty of challenges remain, not least the ongoing financial burden on putting a race together and ever-present complications of Brexit. But from British Cycling HQ the signs are looking positive and well see it start to come together in Welshpool this summer. Related Posts Cyclist Magazine Podcast episode 103: Ex-pro Scott Sunderland on 90s cycling, Classics, Cancellara, breaking stuff and RideLondon From North Wales to Manchester: Tour of Britain Women announces route for 2024 race Gallery: Best RideLondon Classique yet? The post What is British Cyclings plan for the future of road racing in the UK? appeared first on Cyclist.