This is Great British Bosses – the podcast from Anything but Footy speaking to the men and women behind the scenes of British sport.
In this episode, we hear from Ed Clancy and Graham Briggs – a three time Olympic cycling champion and a former British professional road racing cyclist – on their cycling academy for children, based in Doncaster, and their big ambitions…
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Details we all know how the onset of a global pandemic in 2020 led to three National lockdowns in the UK and an interruption to Life As We Knew It one benefit of the Health crisis was a new appreciation of the importance of mental and physical fitness and one Leisure
Activity benefited more than most in June 2020 it was announced during one of the government’s Corona virus briefings that cycling in the UK had increased by as much as 200% bike sales boomed and demand from consumers outstripped supplies this is Great British bosses from anything but footy and in this special edition we
Speak to two men hoping to harness this interest in cycling together they run a cycling Academy for children based in Doncaster and with big Ambitions shortly we’ll hear from British professional road racing cyclist gram Briggs but firstly his partner in the Clancy Briggs Academy the three-time Olympic champion
Ed Clancy has been telling Michael where the idea first came from about 10 years ago I was riding along with graham the other co-owner of the academy and it was literally a decade ago now he’s quite a creative fellow I think Graham’s very right brained as people say he was just
Got talking and he was talking about a fell he knew that had a kids uh football Academy and then we got talking and we were like wow this is there’s an academy for swimming golf Cricket rugby tennis like you name it there’s an academy out
There for kids you know just to go and have fun at the weekends and ride the bikes or whatever and as it happens there wasn’t one for riding bikes so I guess that’s when the the idea was spawned and then really there was a lot
Of talk for about five or six years and not a lot of action but um I guess as Graham’s racing career started coming to a close um you know we started doing more and more and we started having little structured meetings and along with graeme’s wife Sam who’s um much more
Intelligent than both of us put together and she’s a you know successful accountant and she understands business and so on uh the three of us you know really got to work and we launched the clany Bri cycling Academy with the the sole aim really of getting kids on bikes
And having fun you know if one or two of them go off to win the toour of France absolutely fantastic but we’re not about that really we we’re just trying to get kids on bikes you know we’re all of the opinion that it’s probably more ult now than it’s ever
Been yeah there’s more traffic and it’s not that you can just sort of wobble down the the road anymore and go to the playground and yeah we figured it’d be a good thing to do and uh you know we’re aware cycling’s doing really well and you know it’s continued to do really
Well during the pandemic but you know I guess that means there’s more new cyclists new cycling parents so you know we thought it’ be a great idea to launch a cycling Academy for the kids you’re based in Donnie but the work extends sort of Beyond Yorkshire and and and
Nation why tell us a bit about that yeah so it made sense for us to kick off in Doncaster they made this beautiful sort of paved cycle circuit Offroad if that makes sense like a two kilometer circuit right next to the um the Doncaster Dome you know where you can go swimming and
Ice skating and uh we sort of got our we got in there and we asked kindly if we could um you know have some of the track time solely for us and sort of exclusive exclusively for our sessions and uh they were uh you know they were pretty on
Board with the idea right from the gun and they’ve been very helpful to be fair we really started off in one of the best facilities in the world yeah like you said we started in Doncaster and it’s it’s still really based around there we do a couple of schools in the area as
Well but what we’re really doing is we’re just trying to refine this Branch you know so we’ve started doing Zoom coaching across the Across the Nation and we can coach kids across your nation sort of you know online but in terms of like the actual classes we’re just
Trying to get essentially like a little donc cter franchise nailed and you know as soon as we’ve done that we’ve already got requests you know down south in Wales up north um you know for franchises elsewhere but we’ve just got to nail down what works what doesn’t
Work so well and then once we’ve we’ve got that pinned down we’re going to start franchising it across the country hopefully and then um the ultimate goal is to have at clany Briggs franchise in every sort of major town or city across the UK I’m not sure it we like football
You know where every little Hamlet and Village has got a football Academy but for sure I believe there’s enough people there’s enough cyclist out there to make it work in every major town and City and listening to your talk this isn’t just something that Ed Clancy’s put his name
To because he’s got three Olympic gold medals this is something you properly invested in yeah absolutely big time you know um what can I say I’ve always had more ambition than talent but I I just believe in it you know and I’m in there you know I I own half the business along
With Graham and passionate about it and I want it to work and it this isn’t just like a sponsorship deal where you lend your name Sumer in exchange for a few quid you know I put money into this to start it up and you know so far I
Haven’t taken a penny out of it in return you know I just want this to work I want to sort of franchise it across the UK and like I said there’s there’s an academy for everything apart from cycling and you know from what we’ve seen so far in Doncaster there is a want
For it there’s a need for it and um I don’t think cycling is going to go away I think there’s uh there’s all sorts of reasons that cycling’s good not just talking about sport here just commuting and getting out and with Corona virus we’ve really had it rubbed in our faces
Just how important physical and mental health is you know you know I get so many people coming up to me these days that you know during lockdown the one thing people have been out to do is get out on the bike for a little pedal and
You know people enjoy it it’s not just good for fighting illness and staying healthy and so on it’s good for people’s mental health whether you’re young or old and I’m proud to be supporting that in some small way more from Ed Clancy shortly whilst Ed and his partner Gran
Briggs are now business partners in the Clancy Briggs cycling Academy the professional relationship came about after the two developed a firm friendship originally as teammates I’ve been on teams just to say with’ had since on and off since 2010 roughly cycling teams on the same cycling team
So I’ve always got on really well with a and um yeah it was uh it was my roommate like we always and we always got on well and uh yeah yeah went from there really and then we created a really good friendship and uh started speaking about
Doing some kind of a cycling Academy where we could introduce kids to um having fun riding bikes so trying to get them off of iPads and and things like that um yeah just to get out get outside and enjoy the fresh air like me and Ed
Did and uh as we when we were younger enjoying the freedom what bicycle did you because football clubs Havey rugby clubs county cricket lots of sports have cies but this is a fairly unique thing in terms of cycling isn’t it yeah definitely yeah yeah a lot of people
When we when we started off with saying uh said it was difficult to like get into cycling clubs it was like kind of a quite closed community and hard to find out so we’re yeah we’re trying to break down those barriers and make it as easy
As possible for people to get into yeah whether it’s um getting kids on bikes just having fun or kids racing what of the the users what have the young people been saying to you about the opportunity to get out on their bikes when for so long we’ve been told to stay indoors and
And been locked inside because we’ve had to be during lockdown we moved a lot of the sessions online and tried to uh encourage the children to keep active and um yeah we’ve done um like stretching workshops and um exercise classes just to keep them just to keep them engaged really and um so
When we did start back with the um face to face sessions that we could hit the ground running again and back coaching face to face and uh yeah the numbers uh have been incredible compared to when we started at the beginning so yeah there’s two or three new faces each classes and
Um we did holiday holiday camps morning and afternoons and they were fully book so it’s uh yeah it’s really taking shape you know we all know about people going walking people going running and people going cycling have been so important for not just physical well-being but mental
Well-being as well is your kind of research your background suggested that that getting on your bike is is a good thing for people to be doing yeah definitely uh yeah it’s great for for your physical physical health and mental health a lot of the time when I go out
On my bike that’s where I do a lot of my thinking time and uh think of sessions that we could use use for the kids and yeah it’s just nice to get out get out in the fresh air and uh yeah free your mind tell us a little bit about yourself
Then where did you start you had a a prestigious professional cycling career as well which will come on to but where did it it start for you um funnily enough I was playing football um for uh like local clubs and I got scouted for donc cter Rovers and I was I was just
Getting into that and then um I started I was started to go out cycling changed from football to cycling and um started working in a local bike shop and they pointed in me in the direction of doing some races and yeah it went from there
And in terms of your career what kind of heights did you reach what were the the best fits the highlights for you grah probably going to the World Championships is under 23 that’s one of the biggest Racers that I was part of and yeah I was fairly new to Cy and I’d
Only been cycling two or three years when I got uh the chance to represent yeah my country so yeah I was a little bit of a duck out of water but yeah I uh didn’t turn down the opportunities and was it always Road cycling for you did
You look at track BMX mountain bike there’s so many disciplines now I started off by doing Cy Crossing mountain bike races so I um saw all these people in L care and thinking I don’t want to do that and I want to to do some M biking so I didn’t I started
Off by doing some um CYO crosses which is um it’s like on a road bike but you’ve got nobly tires so uh yeah started off by doing that and then did some mountain bike and then uh the country was hit with foot and mouth so we couldn’t do like any off-road cycling
So that’s when I turned to Road really doing some local evening League cycling and one a few of those and then started doing some national stuff and then I got third in the um Junior national championships and then never really went back to my on biking after that and then
Just carried on with Road and went from there when did you first meet Ed Clancy and what did you think of him um yeah he’s a yeah great guy very down to earth you yeah you w think that he’s um yeah he’s not big edit at all he’s got three
Three gold medals uh I try we try and meet up once a week on the bike he lives over at home first so yeah it’s about a two-hour ride for me but it’s good to uh get over his way in into the hills and suffer a little bit yeah we yeah can
Chat about the academy and ask him how things are going so that’s pretty good obviously Yorkshire is such a a county synonymous with with cycling the grand depart in leads in 2014 was huge we’ve had subsequent additions of the tour to Yorkshire as well so in terms of the
Geography of where you’re based in Donnie you couldn’t be in a in a better County for for harnessing the power of getting on the bike could you no not for the not not for the kids that want to race um yeah there’s such a massive cycling community in Doncaster yeah the
Group rides that I grew up with and the people that took me under the wing and um I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for the community in Doncaster you’ve got you’ve got group rides go that go out on a Tuesday a Thursday a
Saturday a Sunday morning and evening so yeah that’s what um kept me getting out on the door out of the in uh in a morning meeting those groups um when motivation wasn’t when I was a professional cyclist motivation wasn’t always high but when you get out and
Have a chat with your friends that’s the uh I think that’s the biggest thing about C you you have such a laugh and but keeping fit as well and from Donnie to global domination and franchises of the fancy Brig cycling Academy right across the world yeah definitely that’s
The uh that’s the vision for the CL of Briggs Academy is to franchise it across the uh across the UK and we’ve had plenty of Interest so far so yeah we’ll keep taking baby steps but that’s that’s definitely the vision gram Briggs one of the founders of the Clancy Briggs
Cycling Academy let’s hear more from his partner Ed Clancy now who told Michael about what it is he loves about getting out on his bike I just love it I don’t know what keeps me coming back you know it’s what got me into scyon in the first
Place I just like being outside on two wheels and you know when uh when we’re allowed and you get a few mates along for the ride it’s great you know there’s I like the teamwork I like the camaraderie of it I like the fact that you can all sort of suffer together and
Have a laugh and a joke and yeah I mean obviously the racing is a completely different dimension but you know I’ll still go out on my mountain bike at the weekend and have a laugh with my mates I just um I guess it’s Freedom you know it’s Freedom you can kind of express
Yourself on two wheels and um I like it yeah there was obviously no Clancy Briggs cycling Academy when you started but how did it begin for you yeah pure accident really I guess um so I grew up around Demi Dale Huddersfield sort of area and um I always had bikes as a kid
Usually just terrible hand-me-downs off my big brother that would just kind of holding together and uh I wasn’t from a cycling family my brother wasn’t into cycling I don’t know why I took to it I enjoyed other sports I enjoyed sort of you know hitting a ball with a cricket
Bat and kicking a football around randomly as well but cycling was my thing it always was I enjoyed playing on my BMX and mountain bikes and when I got a paper around I used to spend every penny I made sort of like you know getting a new set of brakes or a new
Tire from a mountain bike and I just enjoyed it I didn’t have any ambition I didn’t want to be somebody or do anything I just it was just fun you know in many ways as a kid I didn’t know what where I was going or what I was doing
But um I was lucky enough that my stepdad bought me a racing bike and he was the one that really encouraged me to have a got racing and perhaps take it a little bit more seriously and even think about some sort of future in it and I
Guess as soon as he planted that idea yeah it just grew and grew and I wouldn’t say I had an abundance of talent as a teenager but I enjoyed the race and I got stuck in and again another happy coincidence really there was a fellow called Peter root from the
Home Valley wheelers and he he sort of recommended that I went to British cycling and uh applied for their talent team it was called which was I guess like the national under 16 program but long story short we got on the the program and we sort of hit the targets
You’ve got to pass a little little interview test Sprint test an endurance test and we take the boxes and I guess once you’re on that conveyor belt you know we’ve seen how successful British cycling is and all the support that UK Sports done and I owe those guys a lot
Really because you know without that we wouldn’t be sat three gold medals later and you timed it perfectly didn’t you really because you arrived on the scene just as British cycling was was going super sonic absolutely yeah I remember like it was yesterday being sat in the
Living room um in the old house in home F which is just up the hill and uh Jason quy got his gold medal in the year 2000 and at the time I obviously I was inspired by that you know and I was lucky enough to to do a bit of comp
Competition and you know riding with Jason himself but I had no idea of the consequences really but what happened there when Jason got that first gold medal is the funding came in and then four years later you know I was part of the program and then Chris oy and the
Team Sprint sort of went on to win another handful of gold medals and then again we get more money and the whole program snowballs once again but um who knows where we would have been or wouldn’t have been without that goal medal from Jason in the first place you
Know there wouldn’t have been well there potentially wouldn’t have been the money for the sort of talents counting schemes that I was um lucky enough to catch a ride on so uh yeah it’s funny how things happen how proud is that boy from Huddersfield to have been part of that
British cycling success hey you know I’m I’m proud to have done my best you know I I feel like looking back you know particularly for the big ones I have committed myself well and I’ve I’ve done a good job but I know we’ve spoke before I don’t consider myself anything other
Than a normal bloke you know that’s likes riding his bike let’s go back to the academy and let’s talk a little bit about Yorkshire and cycling because with the toury Yorkshire obviously Grande Park was in in leads back in 2014 are you are you hoping to tap into that real
Feelgood Factor there is about your sport in your in the white rose County I hope so you know and um the the tour of Yorkshire for sure was a great thing I know it’s been put on hold uh the last year or so but hopefully that’ll be back you know
There’s no point me telling them how great I am what those kids need to hear is how great they can be you know whether it’s the weekend Warriors enjoying riding their bikes whether they’re Olympians totto France Stars whatever I just want to sort of hold up
A shining light for cycling and we wish Ed Clancy every success with the Clancy Briggs cycling Academy after his retirement from competitive cycling following the delayed Tokyo Olympics Sports social podcast Network hello it is Ryan and we could all use an extra bright spot in our day
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