As road captain of the Lancaster University Cycling Club, Will Scholey was responsible for organising last autumn’s crit series. The spring edition had been a riot – more than 30 riders entered each round, and the club made money. How hard could it be to repeat that success? The answer, it turned out, was very. “We had, at most, three riders enter,” the 20-year-old says. Round one was cancelled, and with no greater uptake for rounds two and three, the whole series fell apart. “It was my first time doing it, and to get nothing, little to no entries,” he pauses. “It was all for nothing.”
Scholey still isn’t sure why so few people entered. He wonders if concerns about poor weather played a part, or if he didn’t advertise the series on social media early enough. Simply registering each race on the British Cycling website cost his club £30 a go. “So that’s £90 down the drain,” he says. Sadly, Scholey’s ill-fated series is not an isolated case.
