The anatomy of a British cycling crowd

The picture above was selected entirely at random from TV coverage of the Tour of Britain stage on Monday when the route tackled the Honister Pass (from the easy side) in Cumbria. Selected entirely at random by me, it serendipitously captures the full, rich spectrum of cycling enthusiasts who bless this sceptred isle.
You could take any still from the media coverage and find the following people represented. Interesting stuff.

1. Wet cyclists wishing they were in Spain
2. Chorlton Velo member (IvdB) complete with old skool trainers
3. The bloke off The Crystal Maze
4. A woman
5. Numb-faced enthusiast
6. Man dressed as chicken
7. Hatless hardman
8. Lost souls
9. Bewildered mountaineers
10. Tier four broadcaster
11. Lollipop man
12. Accountant
13. Future Olympic champion
14. Annoying iphone user
15. 4x4 owner
16. Aldi shopper
17. Rain

Britons roll on...

After a few days away from the computerised world in North Wales, I return to find cycling in Britain has had yet more successes to report.
First off Jonathan Teirnan-Locke has become the first Brit to win the Tour of Britain and then, Elinor Barker mullered the field to become the junior women's world time trial champion.
What a superb performance!

Wiggins adds gloss to Tour of Britain

The organisers of the Tour of Britain must be absolutely cock-a-hoop that Mr Wiggins has agreed to ride this year's event.
It is a huge PR scoop to have the main man of the moment taking part and it's a move which should add some badly needed impetus to the levels of public interest to the event.
I remember watching the Milk Race as a lad on one of its many visits to Liverpool in '87.  There was a huge crowd at the finishing line on the cobbles of William Brown Street to watch local lad Joey McLoughlin win a group sprint against a field which included Stephen Roche.
I'm sure the daily stages were shown on Channel 4 as a highlights package - the race was really in the public eye.
Since then the Tour of Britain has fallen off the radar somewhat and of course ceased to exists for five years at the turn of the 21st century.
Wiggings' inclusion will draw crowds from outside of cycling to roadsides up and down the country - there are many other good riders taking part too, of course.
He's a PR dream at the moment is the sideburned one - his Mr 20 per cent must be getting offers and request left right and centre.
It's a bit of a shame that the route does not include visits to the major centres of population: stage two skirting Manchester and Liverpool in favour of Knutsford and Knowsley Safari Park.  Both wonderful places in their own right but on a Monday afternoon, I'm not sure how successful it'll be in terms of visitors.  I hope I'm wrong and besides, what do I know about organising a major sporting event?

Sky. Why?

I find Sky's association with cycling in the UK a fascinating conundrum.
Sky is the trading name of British Sky Broadcasting which came into being with the merger of News International's Sky TV and BSB in the early 1990s when they were both haemorrhaging cash. 20 years later, with Premiership football rights sewn up, the company now has a revenue of £6.5bn.
So, what's this got to do with cycling?  Well, that's a good question.
Why would a company which wants to sell us television subscription channels, actively promote a sport in which it has little or no broadcast interest? An activity which, by definition, takes you out of your home and away from your TV?  Just what is the motivation?
It seems to me that there are three plausible explanations:
1. What's clear is that Sky has tried to take ownership of the sport in the way that Red Bull for example try to own 'extreme' sports like base jumping, flying planes through hoops and stuff.  Maybe Sky simply took a flyer at cycling hoping that it would turn out to be successful and that millions more people would get involved.  This would reflect well on the company and hopefully help them sell more HD boxes.  If this was the case, why didn't they outbid the competition for Tour de France coverage, the spring classics or even the Tour of Britain? Maybe they did but I can't imagine ITV4 and Eurosport could have outbid Sky if Sky really wanted an event to concentrate on.
2. So, probably something else is at play.  Sky's involvement in Cycling really consists of two things:  sponsoring the pro team and being the principal partner to British Cycling.  Sky's first involvement dates back to 2008 with the sponsorship of the British track team based in Manchester, the establishment of the pro team came a year later. The pro team sponsorship provides them with the marketing cut through to promote the brand on a national level.  Think about how much more commercial the riders are these days: Mark Cavendish's embarrassing shampoo advert for example.
Their other strand is centred on public activity such as the sky rides - closed road city centre cycling events for all comers.  There's a clearly a corporate responsibility function being played here for Sky.  They altruistically set up these events to get people off their couches and out on their bikes in return for a high viz bib.

3. The final explanation is what a former colleague described to me as 'Chairman syndrome'.  That being when the chair or other senior party of an organisation decides they are doing something without reference to any kind of marketing strategy. So could Sky's involvement be down to a whim of one senior executive?  Or a result of a relationship between senior Sky and British Cycling people?  Well, possibly.
If I were a betting man, I'd put my money on a mixture of two and three.  I think somebody in British Cycling has done a superb sales job on Sky and that Sky can see how they benefit from it.
I must state that I'm not against Sky's involvement in cycling, I just find it curious.
Ride safe