Long, long ago, when tyres were thin and frame tubes were round, my friend Bernard organised a bike race. It was a time trial. A small time trial. A small, badly organised time trial. It was notable for the village hall being double-booked with a funeral, which gave it a more upbeat atmosphere than many time trials, but led to a tense stand-off over a plate of bread pudding. In retrospect, we should possibly have let the grieving family just have it. I’m still waiting for the race results, and also my prize money.
Nonetheless… “I can’t believe how the Tour of Britain fell apart,” he said - referring to the organiser SweetSpot's demise - on a ride last week. “I mean, it’s not difficult to organise a bike race. I should know.”
“So you could have found £2.6m?” I asked.
“You put the entry fee up. That’s how I made it work.”
Well indeed. I suppose the riders might be happy to stump up £27,000 each for the pleasure of riding round Britain in the rain. But I have my doubts.
I have never organised a race, and I don’t suppose I ever will, because I want to stay at least reasonably happy. At any level, from World Tour to club ten, race organisation is a task fraught with difficulty and ingratitude. With a major race like the Tour of Britain, everyone hates you because a) the race doesn’t pass their house, or b) the race does pass their house. Their justifications are precisely opposed, but they’ll hate you with an indistinguishable passion.
But if you think you’re short of love, that’s nothing compared to how short of cash. You need to pay a lot of people, for police cover, road closures, marquees, timing services, vehicle hire…. It turns out that every single one of these people is convinced that invoicing a bike race is how they’re going to pay for their house in Spain.
On the other side of the balance sheet, no one wants to give you money. Road racing has suffered for decades from the “problem” that you can’t make spectators pay – they’re just standing by a public road.
TV rights are worth very little for most races, to the extent that a lot of races have to pay to get the race shown at all, or it will just vanish from view entirely.
Sponsors are hard to find, and even if you back someone into a corner, no one wants to give you headline-sponsor money. Local authorities, faced with a choice between paying for social care to keep people alive and giving money to bike races, consistently fail to see the big picture.
It's not much better a little lower down. Domestic road races have recently ended up looking down the barrel of £35,000 policing bills because apparently police motorbikes run on Chanel No.5. This is why entry fees keep going up and up, to the point where if you enter a race and get dumped out the back on the first climb you’ll find yourself in the dock at the monthly family-accounts hearings.
It gets worse. Among the dei ex machina that sank the Tour of Britain in its most recent incarnation were firstly an almost unprecedented global pandemic, followed by the death of the Queen. You really would start to feel that the fates themselves were on the side of the sort of local resident who puts tacks on the road.
About the only thing you can organise that’s even remotely straightforward is a very small race, like a club time trial or a crit on a circuit.
You’ll be pleased to know that Bernard has a solution. Every race will have an identical entry fee, and the smaller races can subsidise the bigger ones. So if, next time you sign on at your club 10, you’re asked for £27,000, you’ll know who to blame.
