Times Online: Cycling: Wheelers dealing with wrong images - 22 August, 2006

This Sporting Land with Alan Lee Our correspondent meets racers facing road rage and mistrust

Mention the sport of cycling and one of two reactions is likely — either sneers at the corrupting drug culture that blurs its every modern achievement, or impatient sighing at the perceived traffic disruption it causes. And then somebody will recall a grisly accident between bikes and cars and the subject will be dismissed amid much headshaking. Those who cycle competitively grow understandably frustrated with this.

They feel misrepresented and misunderstood in a country where their sport is variously regarded as marginal, murky or a downright menace and inspires none of the passion that it induces on the Continent.

Whichever way you look at it, cycle racing is not a good-news sport, but that does not stop its participants pouring on to the roads every Sunday morning like brightly coloured insects. There are weeks when it seems that there is a race, a time-trial or at least an organised ride taking place in every town in Britain. One such event convened on Sunday in the Somerset village of Long Sutton.

This was a 61-mile road race promoted by the 1st Chard Wheelers club, whose name nobody can satisfactorily explain because, with only 25 active members, there is certainly no call for a 2nd. Long Sutton had barely cleared up from the previous night’s Summer Hog Roast (“Pete’s Swinging Disco and Hilarious Revue”) when 36 riders set off for 11 circuits around such sleepily evocative villages as Huish Episcopi.

Britain wins medals at cycling, but there were no Olympians on show in a race classified as Regional A — a bit like decent non-League football. Still, they would be travelling at speeds of up to 40mph and were subject to the mandatory pre-race briefing and policing by volunteer marshals, motorcycle outriders and two qualified referees. Before leaping into their cars with warning flags and whistles, the “commissaires”, Ray Pollard and Andy Walker, mused on image problems and how they will inevitably impair recruitment.

Pollard’s concern was the traffic hazard. “Parents are very worried about their kids taking up cycling with all the safety issues.” Walker cited the Floyd Landis drug scandal. “You get the Tour de France winner testing positive and parents don’t want to put their little Tommy into that environment.” Endorsement came from Chard Wheeler’s Dave Moffett, a father of two and a former policeman.

“My kids are 11 and 9 and I wouldn’t let them go into cycling without me being present,” he said. “It scares me to hear the way people talk about drugs in the sport, even at lower levels.” Another competitor, Dan Coast, of Bristol, offered a fresh perspective. Coast, strikingly clad in all white down to drop-dead trendy Nike cycling boots, works for British Cycling on “Go-Ride”, a development scheme aimed at introducing youngsters to “all areas of the sport”.

He said that the big issue is simply overcoming parental reluctance to have a bike-rack on their cars. A quite different worry confronted Brandon Ellis, the race organiser. No sooner had the riders streamed away from the village hall than an estate car screeched to a halt two feet from his toes and a wild-eyed driver — telling T-shirt slogan, “Can’t Handle Criticism” — launched an incandescent rant against the conduct of cyclists on public roads.

Here, as if planted for the purpose, was a snapshot of the eternal problem for British road racing. “Cyclists get hot under the collar because they are treated as second-class road users,” Ellis said. “Cars aren’t prepared to wait. A couple of our Commonwealth Games medallists were brought down on the roads recently and everybody in cycling knows somebody who has been killed on their bike.

Although the health benefits of cycling should be obvious, it all helps to put parents off.” Further evidence of the malaise was provided midway through the race. As the peloton approached a turn into the hamlet of Upton, a car carrying two children overtook at speed, horn blaring, and almost took out an irate marshal. Watching on a roadside bank was Sid Ellis, Brandon’s father and the organiser of cycle races in his native Sheffield “for most of my life”.

Sid explained how cycling developed as a working-class sport in industrial areas such as his own but how it suffers from “people like Jeremy Clarkson promoting the idea that cyclists are a menace”. In truth, this physically demanding sport is up against much more than that. If the drugs image takes permanent root and the traffic hotheads cause yet more accidents,

Brandon Ellis may soon struggle to raise a quorum for the annual Chard Wheelers race.

NEED TO KNOW

The sport?

Cycle racing began in Britain in about 1880 and more than 1,000 official events are held annually

Who takes part?

People of all ages and both sexes

Who watches? In Britain, relatively few. In continental Europe, many thousands

Big event?

Tour of Britain, starts in Glasgow a week today

Weblink?

www.britishcycling.org.uk