STATE OF THE NATION

According to popular wisdom, the Brtish cycling boom began with the 2008 Beijing Olympics and peaked in the summer of 2012, as Bradley Wiggins won the Tour de France. But there has always been more to the sport in the UK than that. Procycling looks at a nation that has always done things a little differently

Writer Richard Moore /// Illustration Neil Stevens

CYCLING IN BRITAIN BEGAN  IN TWO THOUSAND AND EIGHT  (WHICH WAS RATHER  LATE FOR ME)  BETWEEN THE END OF DAVID MILLAR’S BAN  AND BRADLEY WIGGINS’ FIRST TOP THREE

With apologies to Philip Larkin and the opening lines of his famous poem, Annus Mirabilis, which are butchered above. Writing in 1967 about 1963, Larkin was referring not to cycling but to another physical activity. He was not being literal.

But this is 2021 and we are living in the age of no-nuance Twitter, so let’s ignore that, take it at face value, and call 2008 year zero: British cycling’s annus mirabilis, when its cyclists won eight Olympic golds and Mark Cavendish won two stages at the Giro d’Italia and four at the Tour de France.

That was 13 years ago –a full generation and more in sporting terms. It means there’s as much distance between then and now as between Tom Simpson and Robert Millar, or Chris Boardman and Bradley Wiggins.

What should that mean? Perhaps that cycling as a sport, previously marginal, has come of age. Which in turn would mean that the sport was broadly understood and taken seriously, and that British cyclists were consistently successful internationally.

Caveats apply, but cycling is taken seriously. British riders are consistently successful. Moreover, when major races are held on British roads they attract enormous crowds, the equal of just about any race in the world and a lot better than most.

Yet taking the current temperature of cycling in Britain is not easy. Wiggins, who did so much to help the sport hit the mainstream, is long retired. Cavendish is still racing but a diminished force. Chris Froome, who turns 36 in May, talks of a fifth Tour win that few can imagine. Slightly younger, Geraint Thomas might be a slightly better bet for another yellow jersey, though it seems more likely that he has started a gentle descent.

Hugh Carthy and the Yates twins, Simon and Adam, are at the top of their game: solid and frequently spectacular performers, and yet it is easier to imagine them winning grand tours (as Simon has already done) than becoming household names in the UK.

And herein lies one of the caveats. As the case of Simon Yates demonstrates – he was sanctioned for what the UCI described as “non-intentional doping” in 2016, with his team admitting fault – doping stories are bigger news, even when involving relatively unknown riders, than grand tour wins.

For good or ill, this tends not to be the case in countries where cycling’s roots are buried deeper in the sporting landscape. If cycling in Europe is an old oak, in Britain it can seem more like a sapling, in need of care, attention and time if it is to establish itself.

Cavendish’s Tour de France breakthrough came in 2008, when he won four stages

Images:Tim De Waele (Cavendish)

Still, a tree, even a sapling, is at least more robust than a bubble. For five or six years after the explosion of interest that came with the 2008 Olympic Games there was an assumption that this is what the popularity of cycling amounted to. There was a sense of fragility and a lack of permanence, the British cycling boom an edifice built on sand. As everyone knows, bubbles eventually pop and sandcastles collapse.