geocycle wrote: ↑22 Feb 2023, 1:46pm
I enjoyed the town centre races. They brought folk out who wouldn't normally watch cycling for a couple of hours before retreating to the pub or restaurant.
Restaurants and cafes in Peterborough seemed to close when the Tour Series was held there! I suspect those usually closed on Mondays or whenever it was, but it seemed a big missed opportunity, the usual English "can't do" attitude, which must have hurt the return on investment and may be why it's not been there in years. I enjoyed a meal after the Tour Series races in Exeter.
Fakenham Easter Sunday crits are a funny one. Some things are open but some are only doing full roasts, indoors, while the races are on, with no view of the racing!
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk All the above is CC-By-SA and no other implied copyright license to Cycle magazine.
it was never clear how much the councils, without cycling events pedigree behind them, actually understood what they were getting, even though did pay quite a large amount to host these events, though its backed off against budgets promoting tourism/health/fitness and even education when they rope local schools into it and money they tend to spend out whether its hosting cycling events or not.
but it often felt the council would sign up to it, then just sat back and waited for Sweetspot to turn up and promote things, and then wondered why they werent getting that success ROI as they thought they would.
I never went to a round in the south at least and thought theyve really gone the extra mile here to help promote this event, it was always you were there because you already knew it was happening, and yeah maybe it is the English cant do attitude, but I think in most cases alot of these places never knew it was even happening.
consequently the number of councils willing to stump up dries out, sponsors were becoming harder and harder to chase down, even before you had the awkwardness with British Cycling getting in the way, and Im not sure how many UK riders/teams even exist to support it now.
its a shame, but I really dont think it will be simply a rest for a year and back again, its going to take alot of effort & money to revive it.
