I LISTENED intently to Hannah Dines, a Scottish T2 trike rider who competed at the 2016 Summer Paralympics, speak about the issues she has faced with bike access, ever since she was a young girl.
Hannah was part of the panel discussing the power of sport for sustainable development at COP26 in Glasgow. Cycling was obviously high on the agenda as a sustainable form of travel – but let’s be honest, we are not yet set up to encourage cycling as a mode of transport in this country.
Listening to Hannah re-confirmed that we need to always listen to people with lived experience, not necessarily the experts, but those who have experience and can talk from the heart.
We have some great female role models in cycling in Scotland, with Katie Archibald, Neah Evans, Jenny Holl, and Aileen McGlynn all participating at a high level in sport, all with a love of cycling, so we are not short of inspirational figures to encourage others to “get on yer bike”.
Scottish Cycling runs programmes for women and men to get into cycling and, given the upsurge in the purchase of bikes during lockdown, it’s worth checking out its website for your nearest club.
With the UCI 2023 event scheduled for Glasgow, I believe this should be enough of an incentive to encourage those in authority to make the changes required to ensure our roads are bike-ready. It is billed as the biggest single cycling event in history as it will bring together 13 existing individual world championship cycling disciplines into one major event for the first time.
The good news is that you don’t have to wait till 2023 for some high-level competition, because Glasgow will host the opening round of the Tissot UCI Track Nations Cup in April 2022 at the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome.
This event will bring together the very best international riders and will give them an opportunity to fine-tune preparations for future tournaments.
Glasgow is making a name for hosting major sporting events and with all events that hit the spotlight, it encourages people to take up the sport. We must be cycle-ready for this and give people a reason to dust down that pandemic purchase that perhaps has never seen the light of day.
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