News & Features

The launch of the new road bike category in time trialling in 2023 proved a big success, with entry numbers growing massively as riders were given another way to get into the sport.

Road bike entries were up 42 per cent on the previous season, and of riders entering time trials for the first time a huge 82 per cent of them were exclusively on a road bike.

The popularity of sporting courses grew, and riders had an easier and cheaper way of progressing from club events into open time trials.

The National Road Bikes Championship proved just as popular as the genre as a whole, and we spoke to some of the most successful road bike riders to gauge their reactions.

Veteran rider Celia Brown (Elevate RT) has been riding time trials on her road bike for the last three seasons.

She said: “It’s a massive improvement to when we were being considered against time trial bikes.

“The development of it is brilliant and the road bike category will continue to get more people riding time trials. It puts people more on a level footing as you don’t need specialist equipment to ride it or a bike you wouldn’t ride on a day-to-day basis.

“Generally what you ride every day you can use to race which helps those new to the sport who perhaps don’t have a time trial bike. I always like to see how many time trial bikes I can beat, so there is that element of competition as well.

“You don’t have to travel huge distances for time trials and having more open events that people can be competitive in on a road bike will encourage more people and more women in particular.”

Brown won the Merlin Cycles Classic Series event the ‘Little Mountain Time Trial’, hosted by Beacon RCC. Her winning time of 1-57-59 was also the quickest of any women on the day, including those on time trial machines.

“The Little Mountain, especially for the men, has more entries for road bikes than time trial bikes,” she added.

“That’s because on a sporting course time trial bikes’ advantage is less so anyway. Riding a sporting course is more of a challenge, it doesn’t matter what time you do as you’re really just racing yourself.

“The Little Mountain time trial is probably one of my favourite races of the whole year. It’s so tough and you feel destroyed at the end but know that you’ve given it everything.”

Father and daughter duo Howard and Sophie Heighton are both regular road bike category competitors for different reasons.

“It takes me back to how riding a time trial used to be when you did road races and time trials on the same bike,” said Howard.

“It’s old school, I ride the same bike to work as I race at weekends. It’s also more of a balanced playing field, you can spend a monumental amount of money on a time trial bike and on wind tunnel testing.

“There’s not as much to gain on a road bike. On hilly courses you don’t get such a big advantage on a time trial bike and road bikes are a bit safer.

“On a road bike you can hold the bars in a better position when descending. My daughter rides the Merlin Classic Series on her road bike and others on her time trial bike.

“That is so she can show people that she’s got the skills to ride both bikes.”

* All reports and features are copyright of Cycling Time Trials/Snowdon Sports. Not to be used without permission.