Britain has gone cycling crazy in the past month with the success of Bradley Wiggins in the Tour de France and yesterday becoming the nation’s most successful Olympian with his Gold in the individual time trial at the Olympics.
He is an engaging character, lethal on the bike and humble off it.  All in all a great ambassador for the sport and for his Sky sponsors that have lifted the sport to being among the most talked about and participated in from Lands End to John O’Groats.
Figures published this week show that July was the biggest month ever in terms of new registered members of British Cycling with a five per cent increase in membership bringing numbers through 51,000.  Better still, participation numbers released by Sport England show that more than 160,000 people are now cycling than was the case six months ago.
Nicholas Roche’s transfer to the Saxo Bank team and both his and other Irish rider’s strong performances in the big events suggests a similar lift in interest is possible in Ireland and the popularity of the An Post Rás and other cycling initiatives give a great base to build on.
There are still two events to go in the An Post Cycle series, in Waterford and Cork and it will be interesting to see how many more than last year’s 13,000 will have participated.  The series provides free training plans and a sense of camaraderie that has proved a real winner in participation sport lately.
The government’s Bike to Work Scheme has proven effective in getting people active and is likely to be extended while the Dublin Bike scheme is also to expand from 500 blue bikes currently to 1,500 in the short term and 5,000 over a five year period.
An Post, Skoda, Subway and FBD are already involved in cycling sponsorship and it is a sport that is likely to see greater commercial involvement in the near future.
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