Am I out of touch or are we out of time?
I've been pondering over what to write about this issue for about two weeks now. At first, I thought I might talk a little bit about time trials and how much I miss the culture of open time trials back in Britain. That led me down a bit of a rabbit hole around cycling culture in general, and what I've come to learn about cycling in Sweden (of course there's a lot more to learn ahead of me, given my short stint so far back on two wheels..). For the purposes of this issue, I'm going to focus mostly on bicycle racing (road & track) - else this will become very long indeed...
The Awesome
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| Bikepaths FTW |
I can do an entire cafe ride length ride without ever cycling on a road. Around Stockholm the cycle path network is extensive and much of the cycle path system in Sweden connects to a wider European network (if you're into bikepacking especially, head to https://eurovelo.com/ for more info!). You could legitimately ride for days, if not weeks at a time and never have to share your space with a car. Granted, you may want to opt for a gravel ride if you're doing that as these pathways are not always paved.
The barrier to entry to join and ride with clubs and social rides is low. There are so many clubs in Sweden, and in and around Stockholm. I always recommend joining a club but even if you choose not to, it's easy to find "club runs" either organised by a club or by local passionate folks - you'll never be short of company during the road season and I believe thats key to strengthening culture and awareness for cycling and cyclists.
There's a velodrome! Now there's lots of those in the UK but being from the Isle of Man that meant a lot of coordination to access them, travelling by boat and joining group sessions etc. Here, one can pop on a train and for most folks be at the town (Falun, in almost the centre of the country) within 4-5 hours. For me in Stockholm, it's a fraction of that time to get there and the velodrome itself is very easy to book with as an individual. This is amazing, and it's also really close to a ski slope for maximising your winter weekends.
Finally as you might expect, as this is a very European country, there's loads of people using bicycles for transport in the cities. This ties in with two things, the accessibility with the cycle path network and secondly the very Swedish/Scandic culture of simply getting out and about into the fresh air. Being active is pretty well baked into society here, and I haven't touched on it at all but there could be a whole series of blogs around the off-road cycling scene because that is incredibly rich.
The Tricky
Sweden is a pretty car-centric place. Cycle path & public transport networks or not, this country is fucking gigantic and almost 70% of it is forested. It's pretty tough to get around that fact and that can often remove a layer of accessibility for folks who want to take advantage of cycling opportunities. I don't drive, because I have a bicycle, but this means it's nigh on impossible for me to access many competitive events without carpooling or finding some alternative. Unfortunately the rail networks are highly unsupportive of bike accessibility, but I'll get to that later.
Sweden is, whether we like it or not, a pretty expensive place to be. While generally the average household income is in line with living costs (perhaps not so much in recent years) - this can often mean that luxury goods like fancy bicycles become even more of a luxury. In such a wealthy market, the wealthiest are still the benefactors. Cycling is now, since post-pandemic inflation, one of the most inaccessible sports out there barring motorsports unfortunately.
Joining up the size of the country and the price of luxury goods, you get a fairly sparse second-hand market. When you see bicycles for sale that are only a year old being sold for nigh-on the highest resale price possible - it's hard to see how anyone, especially younger folks, can possibly engage with the sport to the degree that they might wish to compete.
In cities most of us live in apartments. Getting into cycling as a sport, especially as a more competitive sport, can take up a bunch of space. Most of us simply don't have a good amount of room to create the environment we need to engage with it. I live in a 53sqm apartment and have my road bike set up on a turbo in the middle of the living room almost permanently - my partner is a very forgiving human. Now in a lot of countries that might not be an issue, but Sweden gets cold. Indoor training is a must for anyone who wants to retain any semblance of fitness over the winter if they're not engaging with other sports.
The Not So Awesome
Perhaps I've been a bit spoiled by my former surroundings, having the support frameworks of the Manx and British cycling scenes it's hard not to have a shade of bias when assessing the state of cycling in a new country. In the British Isles, cycling is a big part of the DNA of how our culture has grown. As a staple of the working classes ability to find autonomy in the hard industrial era to the bastion of support for youth development programmes - cycling in the British Isles is truly something special. While I try to shed that bias and look at this with perspective, though these are areas that could be game-changers in building a richer culture for cycling in this country.
It may be my language barrier, but I do not see the same level of interconnection between "regular cycling" such as commuting and cycling as a general hobby or activity and the Swedish Cycling Association as I had seen with British Cycling. SweCycling is highly competition oriented, which is no bad thing of course. However when I draw the comparison with British Cycling - whom frequently lobbied and engaged in healthier relationships with Transport Administrations and the like - I see a large gap in the overall cultural aspect of "cycling" as a whole and cultural unit. This includes, again, youth programmes and active engagement with marginalised communities to get folks on bikes and feeling safe. I'd love to see more of this from SweCycling, and again perhaps I am missing some key information here so if you're reading and you disagree please do comment and I'll follow up!
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| Marshalling back in t'day |
In my mind, the youth category at least should be one of the largest fields. Of the mens field, the average age was certainly high enough that at least half the field would have kids, grandkids or have some connection to family with children - but where is the support? I have not quite figured out the reason for this, but if this is the norm it's devastating for the future of the sport.
Racing bicycles can be a bit intimidating (understatement) and I can see why sometimes fields can be small. A big part of this is building an, let's say it again, accessible and culture-driven infrastructure around it. Club runs are a part of it, road races and criteriums are a part of it - but it's the in between bits that make the big differences..and this is where I finally get to talking about time trials (tempo in Swedish). So far I've found one organisation that runs open time trials in the region of Stockholm, the region of Stockholm is gigantic and these are run far outside of the city. It would take me a ride of 80km each way to get to and from these and they begin right after work on a weeknight. Did I mention the train & bike situation?
The in-between-bits
The in-between-bits of culture are things that we can all help to improve, bit by bit. Time trials are often the most accessible type of racing, for either new cyclists or folks who like to "athlon" to competitive riders time trials are a phenomenally healthy way of getting folks of all walks of life together to enjoy pushing themselves, engaging with community and tasting a sample of racing without the intimidation of being in a bunch.
Cycling organisations such as the association or clubs should look at cyclists as one unit, not racers and not-racers. Club riders may simply see racing as something "elite" athletes engage with and that can put folks off - this is especially important in women's racing, having a safe and supportive community that advocates for having fun and trying things out. A Club is not just a weekend cafe ride, it's a centre for engagement for building that culture where associations cannot. Lowering that perceived barrier to competition is a huge part of this.
Associations need to advocate for cycling as a derivative of a countries' overall lifestyle & wellbeing and they absolutely need to represent the cyclist as, again, one unit - not "racers" vs "non racers". Lobbying and working with transport organisations, politicians and organisations overall to build safety, awareness, advocacy, accessibility and funding is key to maintaining the longevity of a sport.
Cycle organisations (both shops and clubs) need to cater to the forgotten market. Not everyone is a finance bro switching his Zipps out for Enves because that's what Pogi's using. While the sport can be expensive, there is always a circular need - those Zipps could be sold to replace some FFWDs and those FFWDs could be sold to replace Mavics.. you get my point. Bolstering a cyclical (badumtshh) economy in an otherwise unattainable market is the only way we'll get more folks on bikes and more young people racing. Same goes for clothing! Speedsuit doesn't fit you any more? Give it away, for the love of all that is holy (and yes I'm talking about myself here there is absolutely no way in hell I am fitting back into that thing again..).
Solutions? Suggestions? Salami?
I could go on and on about so much more in this space but let's break it down to a TL;DR and hopefully this issue can provoke some thoughts, ideas, conversations for this community here in Sweden and hopefully beyond. Here's 5 to start with;
1. We need more timetrials and open races available within towns and cities and the associations need to support the clubs in doing this
2. Associations need to work with the transport organisations to make cycle-travel much easier to do without a car (again, think of the kids!)
3. We all need to buy (and sell) more second hand, the planet will thank us
4. Clubs need to build more support & training for youth, junior & womens categories both for safety & general skills but for racing predominantly
5. Clubs need to lower the barriers to new types of engagement such as velodrome group trips, team time trials, not only the big sportive rides
I am absolutely sure I have a very naive view on this so far and I would love to hear from more folks in the both the cycling and the racing scene in Sweden on what they see. I'd also love to hear from anyone who might have thoughts on some of these topics.
I also highly acknowledge that I lean on open time trials as a source to solving almost everything - and that is a hill(climb) I am happy to die on.
Over 'n' out.
Laura
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