In a British bike racing landscape that is often challenging for the clubs, organisers and associations that are trying to ensure competitive events thrive rather than dwindle, tales of woe are as common as success stories.
In the UK whole regions have fallen out of favour when it comes to promoting top-level road races, while the country's fastest time trial courses are being picked off one by one by new road developments that mean they're no longer raceable. A lack of marshals, volunteers, youngsters… they're all issues that many bike racing organisers and administrators lose sleep over.
However, there is one body that should give cause for optimism across cycling and which, thanks to innovation and determination, has seen participation and engagement headed in the right direction.
Northampton & District Cycling Association presides over a number of clubs in the UK's Midland area and was on the brink of extinction just a few years ago when its stalwart and figurehead Richard Daniells died after being in collision with a car while riding home from an event.
The association was pulled from the ashes by a determined band of volunteers who formed a new committee in a period not long after Covid and its associated lockdowns when UK time trialling was struggling as a sport.
Three years on, N&DCA is thriving having attracted new time triallists who are riding greater numbers of events.
"Richard basically did everything," says new N&DCA chair Noel Toone. "He was the treasurer. He managed the coordinating, all the events that the clubs organised…"
Determined to build on everything Daniells had done, Toone and his new committee introduced innovative ways of inspiring people to race more and to bring together those most disparate of factions – the new time triallist wanting to use their road bike to race on quiet roads, and the old hands with their fully-loaded TT machine whose bread and butter is the dual carriageway.
Introducing a new handicapped results system, Toone and his colleagues have been able to boost rides and engagement, and offer something for all.
"We've turned it around," he said of time trialling's dwindling fortunes. "It's gone up steadily, not a huge amount, but very clearly, the road bike entries have gone up, and also ladies' rides."
The new system awards prizes based on a rider's performance against their predicted time on time trialling platform Spindata, which is linked with Cycling Time Trials and analyses all performances in open events, proving remarkably insightful and accurate.
"It doesn't matter you can be 12, you can be 80, you've got just as much chance of winning the top prize, because it's, have you beaten your Spindata prediction," says Toone.
Like the rest of UK time trialling, N&DCA has also seen the benefit of the introduction of the new road bike time trial class, launched by CTT back in 2022, around the same time as N&DCA was being saved after Daniells's untimely death. There was some consternation around the new class at the outset and how easy the rules would be to manage, but Toone's view was: "The start timekeeper's assistant can see if it's a road bike or not. No need to worry about measuring depth of rims or this and that. 'Is it a road bike?'. [That's sufficient] for our level of competition."
That said Toone himself has first-hand experience of some of road bike time trialling's teething issues – he was the organiser of the National Championships in 2024 that saw complaints made against the set-up of Midlands rider George Fox, who was only crowned the winner after seven weeks of investigations and an appearance in front of a CTT panel.
But Toone's own experiences riding the bike leg of relay triathlons with his daughter have taught him that competition appeals to so many riders – they just need it to be accessible.
"You see people doing the triathlons, and some are on aero TT bikes with disc wheels and everything, but a lot are on road bikes and quite a lot are just on mountain bikes, and they're really enjoying it," Toone says. "So there's a lot of people out there that like a bit of competition, but don't want to go the whole hog… and just ride on what they've got. And what they've got is usually a road bike."
Other initiatives put in place in recent years include online racing on Training Peaks, which is being extended from just winter to winter and spring, with groups according to ability levels and separate results for all. Part of this particular plan is to encourage and enable younger riders from N&DCA's own 'Cyclones' group and beyond to discover bike racing.
But there is one issue with which organisers from time trialling and road racing alike continue to struggle with – volunteers.
"It's the only thing that causes any sort of stress for an organiser," Toone says. "As far as I'm concerned, when I'm organising, the village hall, not a problem; road conditions, checks, risk assessments, they can be done. But if I don't have enough marshals or my timekeeper's pulled out… that's the thing that causes the stress."
Toone wholeheartedly recommends the Spindata handicap prize system to other clubs and DAs out there who might be struggling, as well as season-long road competitions to keep things accessible and people engaged. It has worked for N&DCA, and anyone in need of a bit of help and advice could certainly do worse than giving them a call.
