Since this one's now got to a staggering 147 views and 147 people staring at their shoes and avoiding eye contact (
) I thought I'd bump it back up! We did a stand at the Festival of Cycling a few years back; I suspect we got a few new members from it but more importantly it was great fun - so much fun, in fact, I wrote about it (and the ToB stage finish roadshow) in
Cliftonite at the time...
"It’s about 8am, and the Stray is bathed in sunshine. I can see the crashbarriers and raised seating around the Tour of Britain finish area, and around us an assortment of stands are taking shape. Piers from Cycle Heaven is hammering banner stakes into the grass, and club members are putting up the sail banners and trying not to trip over a large heap of Bromptons. A portable climbing wall arrives and is winched upright next to us. A quick bit of chatting-up later and I’m tied in and admiring the view of the Clifton stand from above.
There’s a real buzz to a big event. Whatever your input into it, it feels like part of something bigger. Clifton’s presence at the 2009 ToB finish wasn’t big bucks – it was all borrowed gazebos and shared space with Cycle Heaven – but the event drew crowds. There were serious cyclists – a lot of familiar faces – but lots of people new to cycle sport, drawn by the big names and the press coverage. We ran Brompton races and got all sorts out there – then-current World Brompton Champion Ali Kay, a former Olympian, lots of enthusiastic youngsters, plus Kit Gilham. And Kit Gilham’s wife. And his dad – almost a family clean sweep.
The stunt team – Scottish squad The Clan featuring Danny Macaskill – has just finished and the kids are roaming Rowntree Park looking for comparable thrills. Willy plonks his bike on his rollers, climbs on board, and after a brief steadying hand on the end of the gazebo he’s confidently away. Slightly to everyone’s amazement, a crowd quickly gathers. Kids, dads, everyone standing with their jaw slightly dropped. After a couple of minutes a few get brave and ask – “How do you do that”?
York Festival of Cycling usually gets plenty of people – especially in recent years with Tour and Olympic success transforming cycling into everyone’s favourite sport. The council brought in all sorts of demo bikes, the stunt squad, various local shops plus, well, us. We printed out a bundle of photos, taped an OS Map of most of Yorkshire over a table, and put our friendly faces on. We got a lot of newcomers – shy blokes being told “go on, it’d be good for you” by girlfriends; parents asking if we did stuff with kids. A fair few of them found their way into our various rides over the next few weeks.
Stacey has been chatting up The Clan. After their final session – and as an excuse to delay packing up their show and facing up to the long drive north, they come over and Danny pops his bike up onto the rollers with a big smile on his face. He’s on; he’s wobbling a bit, but pretty soon he’s looking okay, despite the less-than-perfect fit between rollers and stunt bike. His mate though – last seen balancing along scaffolding poles on two wheels – is making a terrible hash of it. Willy’s feeding him soothing words and trying to help him to the point where he can safely let go of the end of the gazebo, but it’s not going well. Showing all due respect for stardom, we laugh our socks off. I feel so much better about my bike handling.
If there’s one thing I like almost as much as cycling, it’s
talking about cycling. Especially with people who lap up enthusiasm because they’re all fired up about the sport too. We have – especially at the “serious blokes in lycra” end of things – a bit of a reputation for snootiness (you’ve all experienced it – that shunned “mornin’!” when you pass what looks like a kindred spirit on a country lane). Put on an approachable face and your best sense of humour and selling the joys of a club like Clifton becomes great fun. Plus you walk away afterwards reminded of all the reasons why you do this lark. The public don’t even regard us as nutjobs these days – that Wiggins fella has done us all an enormous favour – people actually, for a variety of reasons – want to
be like us. Really.
With over three hundred members, the club has changed greatly from when I first signed up around ten years back – and so has cycling. No longer a secret society, a lunatic minority – we’re all over the papers. The face of Bran Flakes, the man behind The Sun’s stick-on ginger sideburns. Hold on; do we need any more people on board?
Yup, I think so. Partly getting out there and talking to the public about what we do helps them realise we’re people, rather than just an extension of the bikes we ride, and this might – just might – mean at the very least that someone somewhere gives us a few extra inches as they drive past. Perhaps even because someone they know has taken up the sport because of us. And partly because a bigger club means a bigger range of stuff going on, and more people doing it. Even at my specialist end of things the increased numbers have worked in our favour – it’s been quite a long time since we saw eight or nine Clifton jerseys lining up for a road race – until this year.
But the best bit about spending a day telling anyone who asks how wonderful cycling is, and why Clifton provides the best company in which to do it, is that it’s fun. We’re seeing cycling riding into good times at the moment – make the most of it and share your enthusiasm. Next time the show’s on the road – well, for example, if Le Bid gets backed and the Tour de France comes to North Yorkshire you can bet your life there’ll be a Clifton gazebo somewhere – come and spend a couple of hours telling people why your biggest passion is so wonderful. There’s only one better way to spend a day (and you’ll have plenty more chances to get out on your bike…)
A case of wine is dumped into my hands – an unwanted part of somebody’s corporate budget. I stagger back to our gazebo and, pen in hand, start working out a dozen increasingly silly categories for which we can dish out prizes for the Brompton races. Fastest rider with a bus pass. Most stylish ride. Best socks. Whatever. Better still, we’ve got the Lord Mayor, in full regalia, to hand them out – how classy is that. Twelve happy people and – I’ll tell you what – the Lord Mayor looks like he’s having a good time too. Happy days."
C'mon folks - it's committee meeting time next week which gives us just about enough time to reserve a stand if there are a few people happy to take it on. Please post on here if you're one of those people.
