Clancy BriggsBlog

How to get into Road Racing – Youth guide.

At Clancy Briggs, we love Road Racing, but we also know how it can be a bit tricky to know where to get started, so in this blog we've tried to talk you through the process.

Road racing takes place on the open roads or for younger age categories on closed road circuits, races range from 20mins – to 4 hours + depending on age/ability.

How to get started.

Britishcycling has a go-ride racing initiative that they have specifically designed to help get youngsters into racing their bikes. These events are specifically for beginners, they’re easy to enter and a fantastic way to dip your toes into cycle racing – you can find out more about these events here https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/go-rideracing/

Britishcycling membership + racing licence

If you’ve tried it out and decided you like it then getting yourself setup with a British-cycling membership & racing licence is the next step. In addition to ensuring you’re insured to race britishcycling membership & racing licences have a whole host of other member benefits – you can find out all about membership to BC here; https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/membership

Age categories

Now that you’ve got your membership and racing licence sorted it’s time to get your head around the category system. British-cycling puts young riders into the following categories…

Junior (U18)       born 2004 or 2005

Youth A U16    born 2006 or 2007

Youth B U14    born 2008 or 2009

Youth C U12    born 2010 or 2011

Youth D U10    born 2012 or 2013

Youth E U8      born 2014 onwards

Different age categories race for different durations, riders in all the youth categories only race on closed circuits, when they join the junior categories things change and some events take place on the open roads.

Gear Restrictions

The final thing you need to be aware of before you start entering races is the gear restrictions. In British-cycling races riders are limited in their maximum gear size depending on their age category. You can find out the full details of those limits here https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/zuvvi/media/bc_files/volunteer/Youth_Gear_Restrictions_for_Riders.Parents.pdf  

Alternatively, we’ve added the below table with common gear combinations used.

Where to find races?

It’s not been easy but you’ve made it, you’re all ready to race, all that remains is to find suitable races. Fortunately, this last step is fairly straightforward, head over to the British-cycling road events page (https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/events?zuv_bc_discipline_filter_id=21) and start searching for events near you. You can filter by category and location to help narrow down your search.

On race day.

If you’ve pre-entered online all you need to do it turn up, with your licence card and sign on. Details on where to do this should be emailed out to you by the race organiser ahead of the day. Enjoy!

What Next? 

If you like the sound of racing you bike then why not check out our race classes, you can read about them here or if you're interested in improving your fitness on the bike why not check-out some top tips from our coaches on the importance of structured training here.