Will Tao Geoghegan Hart’s Giro d’Italia win get more people in Britain cycling?
Tao Geoghegan Hart’s surprise victory at the Giro d’Italia on Sunday was just the latest success story in a golden era for British cycling.
Coinciding with the unprecedented Olympic medal tallies of Team GB and the Grand Tours won by Sir Bradley Wiggins, Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas has been a surge in people picking up bikes for both recreation and travel.
So can Geohgan Hart’s first major title attract even more people to cycling? Is there even room for more of a bike boom in Britain? And what exactly is the relationship between elite glory and grassroots national participation?
Unquestionably, British domination of Olympic track cycling and a gradual takeover of the most prestigious road races has raised the profile of the sport to new levels since the turn of the century.
At the same time, the number of people taking part in cycling has rocketed. A Sport England study months after the London 2012 Olympics found that the number of people cycling regularly increased by 200,000 that year. It passed 2m in 2016, according to British Cycling.
And there were encouraging signs among commuters, too. Those who sometimes cycled for travel increased their annual mileage by 55 per cent between 2002 and 2019, a government report found.
Sky, Cycle To Work and Boardman
Of course, there were other factors besides the now-regular Olympic golds and Tour de France wins.
Sky’s investment in British Cycling, which it sponsored for eight years from 2008, and later its all-conquering road team not only helped fund elite success but included targeted efforts at encouraging mass participation.
Questions may continue to be asked about the legitimacy of some methods employed at British Cycling and Team Sky, but that has likely had little bearing on the casual cyclist.
The government’s Cycle To Work scheme, meanwhile, made commuting by bike more affordable when it was launched in 1999.
Others trace the upsurge of cycling back to Chris Boardman’s Olympic gold at Barcelona in 1992 and the London Underground and bus bombings of 2005.
Cycling ‘needs riders like Geoghegan Hart’
Everyone can agree, at the very least, that unassuming Hackney 25-year-old Geoghegan Hart’s Giro triumph is a fillip for the sport domestically.
“Tao’s victory is yet another incredible moment that the sport has had over the last 20-30 years,” says Nick Chamberlin, policy manager at British Cycling.
“People love watching sport. It makes us feel good about ourselves.
“This is just another remarkable moment showing how wonderful it is to have elite sport back for people to enjoy and forget about some of the problems of life for the short while they watch it.”
“You need riders,” says Richard Barker, co-managing director at M&C Saatchi Sport and Entertainment.
“Sure, Ineos is a big team. But cycling teams, like motorsport teams, are quite transient entities. It’s really the drivers or riders who give the teams their reach and relevance.
“Your everyday casual cycling fans — which, frankly, is what precipitates these booms — are fans of a rider, and that’s what you need to maintain it.”
Does elite success translate into particpation?
Boardman’s gold at Barcelona ‘92 triggered the investment that led to Olympic domination, although Barker hesitates to attribute greater participation to Team GB and Wiggins.
“As soon as you’ve got national heroes you’ve got this huge new sport — in the same way snooker became big in the ‘90s and darts in the ‘00s.
“If you expose people to the protagonists of any sport, they can get behind it. Whether that leads to participation… there’s a big leap there.”
British Cycling, however, says there is evidence that elite success encourages amateurs to keep riding, which has a trickle-down effect on those using bikes for travel.
“It gives those who are already riding reasons to want to get out on their bikes,” says Chamberlin.
“Broader than that, there’s a very strong correlation between how much cycling people do recreationally and the likelihood of them considering cycling for transport.
“We know it’s only when people get up to a weekly recreational habit that it is much more likely they’ll consider cycling for transport.”
Have we reached Peak Cycling?
We may have already reached Peak Cycling in the UK, says Barker: “I don’t think cycling in itself is going to get any bigger. But I think it could get back to where it was in 2012.”
This year’s unique circumstances — lockdowns and a rearranged sporting calendar — make it harder to predict whether participation will boom again.
“We see a strong correlation between those big sporting events, with 2012 absolutely being the pinnacle of the sport and participation numbers,” says Chamberlin.
“It’s no coincidence that spikes in participation are linked around major sporting success in the summer.
“With this rejigged sporting calendar and the Giro as an October event, will we get the same spike in six months’ time when we’re looking at participation this winter? We’ll see.”
Sport England’s latest figures offer grounds for optimism.
In the first three months of lockdown, the number of people cycling for leisure or sport hit 7.2m, compared to 6.1m for the same period in 2019.
“When our roads were quieter, one of the very few positives of a truly awful time, all sorts of people felt more confident about getting out and riding,” says Chamberlin.
“That just shows it is absolutely worth persevering with trying to improve the conditions for people to ride bikes.
“If we can, we know people do want to ride their bikes, and that’s got to be a good thing for the health and wellbeing of the country.”
And as for the Geoghegan Hart factor, Chamberlain says: “This victory will inspire those people already riding to keep riding.”