THE HIP NEW BRITISH CYCLING SCENE

While the traditional clubs and shops continue to be a backbone of the sport, a new generation is enjoying cycling in a whole different way

- Adam Becket

While we love the UK cycling scene, it can sometimes feels a little staid, a little too tradition-bound. Cycling Weekly has been going for over 130 years, and there are clubs and shops with similarly long heritages around the country. They are the foundation of what makes the sport great, but for new riders the weight of that tradition can feel like a barrier to entry. It’s understandable some crave something different, something fresh; to take cycling in a different direction, and involve new people.

Bristol is, like many other English cities with cycling traditions, the home to institutions that have been there for decades – Bristol South CC, its largest club, has been around since 1893 – but it has a perfect case study for how people are trying to mix up the world of cycling.

David McMillan, a local illustrator, was inspired to start up a new cycling club, Newtown Park CC, with James Diggle and Michael McKelvaney, after they all found the choice of groups in the city lacking. Unlike a ‘traditional’ club, NPCC is not affiliated to British Cycling, does not have a membership fee, and was instead associated with Newtown Park, a Bristol-based brewery, which has since closed.

“My partner had been going to the Left Handed Giant [another Bristol brewery] running club, and people there had been talking about a cycling club, so it seemed like a natural progression,” McMillan tells CW. “I had been finishing my rides at Newtown Park for a while, and we realised we should start a cycling club through that. So last year we made it official, but it had been something that we’d been talking about for a long time.