Brother UK Cycling Podcast – Episode 59
Timothy John
“Hello and welcome to this special edition of the Brother UK Cycling Podcast with me Timothy John and our special guest Marc Etches, organiser of the Sheffield Grand Prix and Monsal Hill Climb, British Cycling-registered commissaire and a volunteer with Yorkshire’s White Rose Youth League, a breeding ground of champions including Tom Pidcock and Connor Swift.
“Marc, thank-you very much indeed for joining us.”
Marc Etches
"Hi, Tim."
INTERLUDE
Timothy John
“Well, Marc, we’re going to get into some detail today about the National Circuit Series. We’re three weeks on now from your event, the Sheffield Grand Prix. I know you’re involved with quite a few of them, but Sheffield is your baby.
“Have you had time to recover and time to reflect on this year’s edition?”
Marc Etches
“It took a fair bit of recovering this year because it’s a big block of time that really does eat away at you; consumes you. As soon as I wake up, my wife’s up early, a quarter to six, and I was getting up with her, in the office at 6.30am, getting on with the task in hand.
“There’s a timeline that I always work to, so I don’t panic about things that don’t need addressing. It’s been nice since. It’s a great relief when it’s over; sad, in some respects, because I enjoy the day, but there’s a few admin things. Even tonight, I’ve sent an email chasing up a missing transponder. A rider hasn’t returned a transponder. Little things that just take five minutes.
in the town centre last week.”
Timothy John
“Wow. Well, there are numerous levels of detail that we can get into, everything from crowd control to sponsorship to a last minute change of race headquarters, all kinds of things.
crash in the women’s race.
“Is there anything on the sporting side that particularly sticks in your mind from this year’s races?”
Marc Etches
“Obviously, front and centre for me, was, unfortunately, the crashes that we had, which were a real shame. At one point, the medics were treating the riders, and it looked like we might not get an Open race. I was really quite anxious at one point. The medics did an amazing job. Even the riders have praised them since. The level of care and the attentiveness and just how they did it. It was brilliant.
“We’re there, ultimately, to safeguard those riders so if anything happens at our event, we need to make sure that whatever happens…The riders come first and everything else is around those.
who’s a UCI commissaire. They were making the right decisions in a timely manner, and it all just fell into place lovely.
“We did get an Open race, so I was thankful for that. We were blessed. Because it was such a nice, bright night, we still got a race. It was reduced. Maybe it altered the outcome of the race, because it was more of a sprint. than a traditional crit. The pace was high. If you ask for a standout moment, it was just the sheer pace of the Open race. It was from the gun, which is good for us because it provides a really good platform of entertainment.
“We got through it. It was good. We’ve been in touch with the riders who did unfortunately crash. They’re on the road to recovery. One raced the following week in Colne, so it wasn’t all bad, but I do feel for the girls who crashed. It’s not just the crit series. It’s the road series and everything else that’s wrapped around it.
provide cover for that next race. Thankfully, we do that.
“I do feel for Jason, the chief commissaire. He had to write out several incident forms, and he was there a long time after. We have to document all the incidents. That’s the job of the commissaires on that night. Normally, it would be me, if I was the commissaire, but thankfully it was all handled by Jason. Again, they’re all volunteers who do a cracking job.”
Timothy John
“What is your role, Marc, as race organiser in that whole situation? As we said, you wear a number of different hats. There were activities that you would have taken charge of yourself in other circumstances, at other races. In this one, however, you were leading a whole range of different professionals, from medics to volunteers, the commissaires; you mentioned Chris and Jason. Is it hard for you to step back and not get involved?”
Marc Etches
board.
“It is a two-way street, and I think that’s how it should be between a commissaire and an organiser. The commissaires aren't the enemy. They’re there just to make sure everything is in place and the riders have a level playing field. The sporting control aspect is managed by the commissaires, so I would never jump in at my event to make a sporting control decision. I’ll leave that to the panel.
there’s a lull in the race.
“There are lots of things to manage. There are the remaining riders, who need corralling. There are lots of things going off at that point. I tend not to do too many things. We have a nice pyramid of volunteers, so we kind of flood that down. It did work really well. In previous years, we’ve managed to get a fire appliance across the circuit and into the hotel, for somebody, would you believe, trapped in a lift. We managed not to disrupt the race. We got the fire appliance in, so we’ve proved that our event management plan works.
“That proved again, at the Grand Prix this year, that it does work, and we are ready if it does happen, and, unfortunately, sometimes it does.”
Timothy John
“To take only the women’s race, for example. That was the race that was heavily disrupted by the crash. The race had split just before the crash. Keira Bond was nudging towards the front. The DAS-Hutchinson-Brother UK girls were still very much in the thick of things at that particular moment.
“Then there was the crash, the 25-minute delay. You had to restart the race. How did you ensure the composition of the race, for want of a better phrase?”
Marc Etches
“Yeah, there’s a couple of ways of looking at this. I had to stop the Open race at Ilkley a couple of years ago. An ambulance needed to gain access to the circuit for an emergency. We needed to make sure that the riders crossed the line, so we got a snapshot of the composition of the race.
“I think there were three groups: one group at about 1.10-ish, and another group of lapped riders. We had to split all these riders. I got a print out of all the transponders from Carol at HS Sports, so we got a print out of exactly the true picture of the race.
a group, but we managed that, and that was good.
“Incidentally, in Sheffield, I’ve seen some of the footage of the first crash. In all honesty, looking at it, the split happened after the crash. They crashed, and then it split, you see. It was a little group going off the back of the main group when they did touch wheels and fall, but I think the gap at that point was less than 30 seconds.
“Now, there’s a UCI rule about train crossings etc. If you have a level crossing, and the gap is under 30 seconds, they put the group back, so we try and apply that rule. Now, strictly, that’s not in the regulations, as such, but that’s the only rule that the commissaires could really fall back on, as a guide. Even though the gap was under 30 seconds, we put the group back together.
crash, was on the last lap, so it didn’t stop the race.”
INTERLUDE
Timothy John
“In your role as the race organiser, the impresario, if you will, you have to make sure the show goes on to some degree. The Open race had to follow the women’s race.
who has to make the call about whether the show goes on or does not? How do you factor in all that stuff?”
Marc Etches
“The saving grace was that the road closures were until 11pm, so it wasn’t a tight road closure. That was good. We didn’t have to worry about that. My contact at the council, she was quite happy to push it further out. We had decent light. The circuit was fully barriered. There were not sight lines needed. or anything like that. The circuit’s safe. You’ve just got to think about the level of light.
“Also, the photo finish and the transponders at the end: the judges have still got to do the lap recording. It’s never ideal in the dark, is it? A lot of these crits do finish at dusk, and it has quite a nice feel to it, but it’s not a nocturne. If we’d planned a nocturne, we’d light the circuit.
“My first concern, really, or our first item to cover off was to inform the Open race that we were running late. The riders all corralled, waiting, because they want to go around the circuit to be gridded, so we had to keep those updated. Andy, down in the pit area, Tudor Square, he was informing the guys, keeping them updated. We’re all on radios. I’ve got two radios. Chris has two radios. We’re on a marshals’ channel and a commissaires’ channel. They’re feeding all this information back.
“It’s not just a case of scraping up these riders off the ground. If they have, as we saw, a broken pelvis, it’s a serious injury. It has to be carefully managed, in a timely manner.
“Ultimately, if we’d had to scrap the Open race, unfortunately that would have been the case. You can imagine, all that work that I’ve done, getting the sponsorship in. Bike Box Alan have been great with us for the last three or four years. What do we do? It goes back to Colin and the CiCLE Classic in April. I think it would have driven me to tears. It would have been that devastating, but we got a race, and the show went on, so all good.”
INTERLUDE
Timothy John
“So many supporting angles. Let’s pick up on that comment about Bike Box Alan. They sponsored the Open race, of course. McLaren sponsored the women’s race.
race in this country at the moment. It sounds like you guys are doing better than most."
Marc Etches
“Yeah. There are lots of other sponsors around, partners, we like to call them, who have really invested in the event. Browns restaurants give us 220 VIP places for the evening. That starts off at 6.30pm We have VIPs there. We had Jon Dutton, the [British Cycling] CEO. Phil normally comes; unfortunately, he couldn’t make it.
"We had some of the leadership team from British Cycling, all the major bods at the council. The Lord Mayor was there. Ed Clancy was there. Ben Swift. They were all having a great time, and that’s supported by a local bar and restaurant
barrier branding and social media around the event that we include.
“Bike Box Alan is great. He’s got a little set up there. He has all these VIPs along, and it’s a night out for them all. Each year, the estate agent Cocker and Carr comes back, and, I guess, to them, to put in this level of funding is quite a bit of money, and it’s great that they see the value, so we call the cobbles, ‘the Cocker and Carr cobbles’ and brand them. It’s nice.
park it up?’ He was just treating it like any other car. That was a nice touch. I didn’t drive it, but that pulling up, it creates quite a bit of interest by itself.
“McLaren aren’t there to sell McLarens. They’re there to try and get people interested in their STEM and apprentice schemes. They’ve got an opportunity. They can be in the centre of Sheffield for the day, explaining to youngsters what they do and how they recruit the next generation of engineers and technicians. They’re on the lookout for local talent, basically, not to sell a McLaren, but it’s nice to be involved with such a blue chip brand. It looks great for us.
“We want to attract those big companies, but we will also take funds from the local estate agent. It’s a case of get it where you can. I didn’t find it too hard this year. It was good, but we’ve got a good product. We’re in a city centre. It comes back to Phil’s, ‘eyes on’. We’ve got a lot of eyes on our event, and you only have to look at it on the night to realise the sheer size of it.
They might say, ‘Daddy, I wouldn’t mind a go at this.’ They can go onto the Sheffield youth squad or race in the White Rose Youth League.
“For me, a big crowd is an opportunity to engage with and inspire the next generation. That’s what we want to do. Chris Lawrence always says this. It’s what he wants to do at his events: to inspire the next generations with his events, and I’m certain that the level of impact the event has, from youth races right up to elite, we’ve got that pathway. We’ve got the community ride now, led by Ed Clancy.
“It’s getting to be a beast. It’s growing and growing and growing. We first started in 2011, 2012, with just two races: two elite races. It was the women’s national championships, won by Lucy Garner, and the men’s elite race. They ran to time, and it was great, but now we've created something that starts at 4pm.
minutes after, the McLaren turned up, so, unfortunately, my coffee went cold, and my bacon sarnie went a little bit stale.”
Timothy John
“A small price to pay! It sounds like an extremely long day but an extremely productive one.
beautiful part of the world.
“What role does the race play, by bringing sport right into the heart of the city, in Sheffield City Council’s wider strategic ambitions?”
Marc Etches
“With Ed involved and the active travel initiatives around South Yorkshire, there’s a big drive now to get people active: running, walking, climbing. Sheffield has now rebranded itself as The Outdoor City; quite rightly so, as well. I’m on the panel for that as well, so I’ve done some talks for The Outdoor City. I’m one of those ambassadors. On Instagram, I’ll tag The Outdoor City. I’m proud of Sheffield and what it provides for cyclists, for runners, for climbers. Stanage Edge: you could mountain bike over it, you could climb up it, you can walk around it. You can ride a road bike around. There’s lots of stuff.
“But that’s out towards the Peak District. What I want to do is bring my race, the Sheffield Grand Prix, in to the heart of the city centre to show off Sheffield; to showcase it. It goes past the Crucible theatre. The world snooker is there. There’s the town hall. There are nice little points where we can really showcase the city, and that’s what we want to do.
that does bring its challenges. If you thought about it, you’d never bring over 300 athletes into the city centre.
“Now, there are a lot of car parks. There’s a bus gate that I’ve had to battle with to save some fines because people drove down the bus gates and got a £35 fine. It’s just logistically very hard. I provide a race manual that goes into a lot of detail about how to get exactly where they need to be. The team managers get a pass, a guide; all the instructions are there.
we have to plan everything in advance. We can’t just let it be a free-for-all, because if we did, the council would drop us like a stone.
“We work in partnership. If we don’t work together and make sure everything is planned down to the finest point that people will never really see when they’re there at the barriers, watching the race fly past: that the journey for those riders has been as easy as possible into the city centre. I’m really conscious that Sheffield is not an easy place to get to. We’ve got a nice ring road, it’s great, but on race day, there are buses all over, diversions, and it’s not an easy place to come to. We have to keep that in mind. We’re not rolling out a red carpet for people to come straight into the city centre.
“There are 47 volunteers who come as part of the event as well, so we provide a parking permit, a pass and allocate a space in A1, A10, A3. I draw up a map, and we work it all out. It's down to where people park.
"Every year, I send Larry a parking pass: ‘Right, Larry. This is where you park this year.’ And he appreciates that. It then means they’re not paying to park in the city centre. I appreciate that’s not cheap as well. It’s just a challenge.”
INTERLUDE
Timothy John
“It sounds like you’re covering every conceivable base.
race is now attracting. You have literally thousands of people pouring into the city centre to watch this bike race. Give us a sense of the challenges that creates.”
Marc Etches
“Yeah, we have volunteers. We have a circuit that blocks in two major hotels. Howden House, which is the council’s main office in Sheffield, that gets blocked in as well. They all get an e-shot. They all get a letter. They all know now, ten years in, how it works.
like to manage those with four volunteers. If one wants to go off to the toilet or grab a drink, they can leave their station, and it can still operate.
“But, of course, you get to 6pm or 7pm, when people might come back off the train from the station and want to cross the circuit. We’ve got an accredited marshal on one point, stopping traffic, so people can get across. But if there isn’t a break in the race, we can’t allow people across. We can’t risk anyone crossing the circuit and endangering riders.
make sure that the race continues.
“We know that riders fall off in bike races. Most of them bounce straight back up. If someone sees a crash, they’re not panicking straight away to say, ‘Stop the race. There’s been a crash,’ when, really, we need to know, ‘Is the course clear?’ So those crossing points have to be carefully managed by…they are volunteers. We give them free drinks afterwards in Browns and bucket loads of pasta, but I’m really conscious that they are volunteers, getting there for four or five o’clock, or even earlier, to help with a bike race.
for anybody to be jumping over any barriers at any point. If we have some roaming stewards who can generally keep an eye on things, it’s good.
“There’s a famous pub, the Brown Bear. It’s a Samuel Smiths pub, so the beer’s a little bit cheaper. it does attract a lot of people to the cobbled section there. I walked around, just to take in what’s going on, on the night. I like to just take myself off. The event's running. I can take myself off. I’m on radio, just to make sure that what I’d planned in my head is working. I might look at a corner or ride around are corner myself and think, ‘Yeah, that’s fine,’ but I like to watch the riders going round it.
"There are guys there with pints of lager, and they’re all glass. I said: ‘Guys, you might want to push back a little because we don’t want glass on the circuit.’ Little things like that you just pick up on when you’re walking ground on race day. You’ve not got a dress rehearsal for any of this. You might get a bit of build-up in the youth race or support race, but you get one bite of the cherry with the elites. We have to make sure that what we’ve planned and what we understand is right on the night.”
Timothy John
“Absolutely fascinating insight, Marc: walking around the circuit. while the evening is underway, having planned every last detail for months and months and months. That’s a wonderful picture.
“The National Circuit Series took up a significant part of the recommendations from British Cycling’s Elite Road Racing Task Force. We have a particular interest in that, of course, because Phil Jones, Brother UK’s Managing Director and this podcast’s co-host, was one of the panellists. You mentioned Ed Clancy earlier, of course, and Ed chaired the things.
phrase that leapt out of the report at me. Can you talk a little about that? I guess you’ve got the council in there promoting active travel initiatives.
“What sort of community engagement activities are going on around the race?”
Marc Etches
“We’ve got food vendors there. We’ve got the local bike shops there, who pay to come, so that’s an income for us, which then allows us to monetise the area that we have during the day. The traders arrive at 9am. Coffee shops. There was a bar. Nice food. We’re not selling burgers or anything. There’s a Greek place. Italian. Really nice, classy food. That’s great, because people can grab a bite to eat, a drink, look around some nice bikes from JE James, Trek Sheffield, all that sort of stuff. They’re all there. That creates a bit of a buzz because there's not always people flying around the circuit, so people just wander around and see what’s going on.
hotels get booked up. It’s a no-brainer for the economy of Sheffield, so that’s great.
“But, again, I come back to the community ride. Graham Briggs was there with his kids. Ben Swift was there with his kids, led off by Ed Clancy. Oliver Coppard, the South Yorkshire mayor, he was there, all riding around. They’re all becoming stakeholders in this event, so if anything happens in the next year, they can help. They become partners. That’s great for me.
“The council, I couldn’t sing their praises any more. They go over and above every single year. They really do. The little bit of tarmac that drops down from the pedestrianised section onto the road costs £1300 for some temporary tarmac, and the council foot that bill. There are two anti-terrorism barriers, and they're £900 just for a guy to turn up in a cherry picker to turn up and move them six feet. Nine hundred pounds, which, again, [the council] pays for, so there are lots of costs that they cover, and we don’t see, which is great: traffic management, road closures. They’re all internal invoices which cost.
deprived in their city centres, so it’s nice to bring some life to it, and I’m proud that we can do that.
“Cycle sport is a massive box ticker, because it’s so much fun. If you go to watch the Tour of Britain or the Tour de France, and it’s gone in two or three minutes. The caravan will come, and they’ll see the lead cars and get really excited, and in thirty seconds, the peloton's passed. We’ve got constant action for a full evening.
it pretty hard when Graham Briggs is on the front, giving it full gas, bless him. It’s nice. With stuff like that, it’s a really good event.
"Going forwards, I’m on part of the team now that is making sure that Phil’s work, and, of course, Ed’s work, from the Elite Task Force, is being implemented. I’m now working with Anthony from British Cycling, with Heather Bamforth, who’s the chair of the Road Commission, and Scott Taylor, a UCI commissaire and a British Cycling board member, we’re looking now and we're making sure that at those points….
panel and generating those recommendations without it…We don’t want to see them getting blown out of the window.
“It could easily slip away, and I for one…Chris Lawrence, I know what he went through. I know the amount of hours they put in, and in respect to all the guys on that panel, we need to make sure that going forwards, we formulate a plan to roll out those recommendations.
“We weren't just going to roll them out in March, April time. It was never going to roll out straight away. We know that. Some might be three to five years. Some might be easy fixes, and we can address that. Going forwards, I’m quite confident that we can build on this.
figures, they're up on last year. We’ve seen a lot of National B events struggling for entries, and it can be quite worrying, but the circuit series this year really did tick a box.
“The circuit series is in a really good place. The women’s race has just come on. The teams now, the level of professionalism. The racing reflects that. We’ve seen some amazing racing this year. Kiera [Bond] going off the front at Sheffield. She lives in Sheffield. She works at Trek Sheffield, or her partner, so it was just brilliant for us to see her do that. She won a bike box as an added bonus, so that was great. Overall, our interest in elite races were up this year by ten or 12 per cent, so that was good.
“We did have to leave entries open a bit longer, so the genera. entry fee was boosted by a fiver for late entries, so hopefully riders who entered late this year might think…But then again, does five pounds put anybody off? I’m not quite sure. It’s in place. We were able to leave entries open a bit longer because we need income. We need every £30 or £35 to come in to balance the books, and that’s what comes with a city centre race and with all races, because the barriers have gone up again this year. We’re fighting against financial markets, and nothing has ever got cheaper, not in the ten times that I’ve run it!”
INTERLUDE
Timothy John
put a bit of context around that. This year, we lost Newark, unfortunately, but Beverley came back. Colne held its first women’s race, another positive development.
“When you look ahead, Marc, to the National Circuit Series next year, 2025, are you filled with optimism, or are there still challenges to overcome?”
Marc Etches
“City centres and town centres are always facing challenges. Budgets might be stretched. We don’t know what’s going to happen. I want to be planning this….As soon as Monsal finishes in October, I’m straight on with planning for Sheffield; even before then. I’ve got emails now from sponsors who want to be involved already, so that’s great. I will touch base with the current partners to set things up for next year.
“I think the circuit series is in a great place. It’s funny that you should say that because we’ve got a bit of homework to do for our meeting next Monday night for the Task Force recommendations, which is, basically, ‘What do we think is good?’
"If you were given a blank sheet of paper, with a blank calendar for the year, and said, ‘Let’s roll out a road series for both Open and women, what would be good? How would see that? How would a UCI race fit? How would the Tour of Britain fit?’ We know when the national championships are - they can’t be moved - but does that necessarily mean we should run the national circuit championships on the same weekend?’ As we saw this year, the WorldTour riders come, give it a go, and the jersey goes off onto shoulders that will never race the UK scene, so it is a little bit….For me, it would be great to see the national champion at Sheffield, so where does the national championships fit?
got some fantastic athletes coming through the system, so it’s working for me.
“The road, the National Road Series, still needs a bit of a look at. We need to address the situation of geographical balance. We need to get out. Why can’t we have a crit in Truro or a road race up in Scotland? Who knows? But it’s up to the regions to flush out these volunteers. I’m sure in years to come, we’ll see a Yomp Bonk National A race somewhere, because I’m always sat with James when we're going up to Yorkshire board meetings. He’s always thinking of ideas: ‘What can we do? Where can we put a race?’
“The Tour of Britain helps because it visits towns and cities that then become inspired and might want to put on a round of the National Road Series. And that’s what I think the long-term vision is. We saw at Darlington: the national crit championships. Could we go back there next year for a round of the National Circuit Series? Who knows? But we’ve planted a seed with the local council, with the local residents, and we get people used to cycle sport.
they’re in such a rush to get to their bus or train, that it’s an inconvenience. But if it was a regular inconvenience, it would become the norm. As we said earlier, that’s not a quick fix. That will be something over three to five to ten years, and, hopefully, bear fruit.
“I think we're in a nice place at the moment with British Cycling in charge of the Tour of Britain. They can sign post local authorities back to National A events. maybe. Fingers crossed. It would be a travesty if the work that the Elite Road Racing Task Force did were to be swept under the carpet. On my page, it’s not going to do that. I can look Phil or Chris or Ed in the eye and say, ‘Yes, we’re doing our very best.’
golden nuggets which we hope are on the horizon.”
INTERLUDE
Timothy John
“Marc, thank-you very much for your time this evening. We’ve covered a whole range of topics, quite beyond what actually happens during the races; all of the background detail, which, of course, is so important for the long-term health of the sport.
"All the very best, Marc, for Monsal..."
Marc Etches
“I scared the living daylights out of all the riders yesterday by putting a post on Instagram today, ‘It’s two months away.’ Even Simon Warren from 100 Climbs. He’s in Italy eating pizza. I think that gave him a little bit of a reality check.”
Timothy John
“He’ll be dusting off his sign, no doubt, ready to get himself up to Monsal!”
Marc Etches
"He will, he will!"
Timothy John
“Marc, thanks again, and all the very best going forwards.”
Marc Etches
"Thank-you, Tim."
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OUTRO
Phil Jones
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