“The cycling boom is here to stay,” the chief executive of British Cycling, Ian Drake, proudly announced in 2014. A more innocent time. Perhaps it’s all a little early in the cycle for 2010s nostalgia, which is why the decade still feels more like a palimpsest of random motifs and images than a cogent cultural narrative. I’m getting Cat Bin Lady humming Despacito on her way to bottomless brunch. I’m getting a Buzzfeed quiz entitled Pick Your Favourite Food Bank and Let Us Guess Your Age.
And in this country at least, it was the decade of cycling. It was the decade when Laura Trott’s and Jason Kenny’s wedding made the cover of OK! magazine (relegating “Princess Charlotte’s First Royal Tour” to an inset picture). It was the decade of “G” and “Cav”, of Wiggo sideburns and Hugh Porter, of long summer afternoons wasted away in the Rapha café while some bore in Lotto‑Soudal kit droned on about echelons. Dave Brailsford was a god-level genius, and the sun would never set on the British Empire.
