If you weren’t paying full attention to the comings and goings of the British cycling scene, you would be forgiven for believing that it was currently thriving.
Squint from a distance – one that’s quite far away, preferably on another continent – and you’ll see signs of a thriving system, producing incredible results in the World Tour and enjoying a celebratory atmosphere, following the recent confirmation that the 2027 Tour de France Grand Départ for both men and women will take place in Great Britain. Even INEOS Grenadiers, who are admittedly troubled in terms of the upper echelons of their management, are answering their critics with their legs so far this season, showing a fighting spirit and attacking racing style on the road that’s a far cry from the bemoaned Sky train days.
Is everything all good in the British cycling hood then? Should we assume the future is in capable hands, and not stress too much about what’s going on behind the scenes? Well, not really. But because I’m a glass half full kinda girl, I’m going to start with the positives, and then go on to wonder exactly HOW we're still managing to produce such promising talent, despite the shortcomings of a nation that has ultimately fallen out of love with cycling...
Young riders flourish
Whether you live in the UK or not, you’d have to have been living in an underground bunker for the past few weeks to have missed the news of the successes of a raft of young British talent rising through the ranks. (Well, assuming you’re a cycling fan that is, and do on occasion watch some races or read some news). Who are these kids making the world sit up and take notice? Here are just some of the names you’ll be seeing at the top of a lot of results lists, for years to come:
Matthew Brennan
The 19-year-old from Darlington already had a buzz around him coming into this season. Supported by the Rayner Foundation (more on them later), he signed for Visma-Lease A Bike's development team in 2024 and was promoted to the World team this season. 2025 began well for Brennan, with a hattrick of three victories in a row, progressing from two .2 level races, to the 1.1 level GP Denain, where he announced his presence on the senior racing scene, beating a strong field of sprinters and classics men. All of which had his team paying very close attention, along with the rest of the cycling world.
Last week he was called up to the World Tour team as a last minute replacement for Jonas Vingegaard following the Dane’s accident in Paris-Nice, and his impact was immediate, and incredible. He won the first stage of the race in stunning style, somehow managing to both solo and sprint to take stage 1, before he underscored his sprinting prowess with a second place on stage 2 and another victory on stage 5. Job done, he packed his bags and headed back to the low countries, where it’s rumoured he may ride some of the Belgian classics season with the team.
Brennan is clearly the real deal. His almost painfully modest yet startlingly mature post-race interviews reveal a rider who is comfortable in his own skin, despite the fact he is still learning about what kind of rider he may become. It's an exciting prospect, as a British fan, to be along for the ride.
Cat Ferguson
No rider in the women’s peloton has made such a dramatic and immediate impact at such a young age as Cat Ferguson. Riding as a stagiaire for Movistar in the latter part of 2024, Ferguson took a shock victory at the one-day classic Binche-Chimay-Binche in October, hot on the heels of her double World Championship victory at junior level in Zurich the previous week.
After a winter mostly spent on the cyclocross field, Ferguson made her World Tour debut at Trofeo Alfredo Binda, where she once again stunned the cycling world by finishing third, her first World Tour podium at the first time of asking, only behind Elisa Balsamo and Blanka Vas, and one place ahead of Marianne Vos, with a raft of other top talent in her wake.
While she’s yet to record a win this year she was active at Milano-Sanremo and instigated a late solo attack at Brugge-de Panne, proving she’s not content to sit among the pack and learn her trade – Ferguson is ready now, and it seems only a matter of time before she takes a World Tour victory to hammer home her incredible potential.
Ben Tulett
While Tulett is a little older than Brennan and Ferguson, he’s had a stilted beginning to his World tour career, suffering injury and illness in 2024 after he moved to Visma-Lease A Bike.
The Dutch team stuck with their man however, who they signed from INEOS Grenadiers where he had looked promising, but had not yet had a real chance to shine. This season, he’s come good on his promise. He raced aggressively at Clasica Jaen, missing the final split only due to a communication error between himself and his team, before playing an active role in the finals at the Faun Drome Classic, where he finished third, and Milano-Torino, where he just missed out on victory.
The win looked imminent, and it came last week at Coppi e Bartali, where Tulett won stage 4, and was strong enough to take the overall GC too, a well-deserved reward for the hard work and spirit he’s shown so far this season. Plenty more to come from the young man from Kent.
Josh Tarling
Including Josh on this list feels a bit like cheating. It feels like he’s been around for ages already, probably because he managed to get himself on the World Championship ITT podium over a year and a half ago in Glasgow, and it felt by that point as if he’d already arrived on the world stage.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves though. Tarling is still not even 21 years old, and his potential is still unfolding. While he’s clearly a machine against the clock – and that baseline talent isn’t going anywhere fast – his ability to animate races has been a pleasure to watch so far this season, and there’s no doubt that he has a Paris-Roubaix performance in him that could be one to remember in future years. I can't wait to see what he's capable of.
Imogen Wolff
While Wolff may seem a little out of place when compared with the exploits of the previous three, there’s no denying she is set for a big future, too. Also just 19 years old, Wolff was visible in Milano-Sanremo working for Marianne Vos until the final stages of the race. She’s also been active at the Vuelta Extremadura Féminas where she won a stage, and she finished a creditable 20th at Gent-Wevelgem on Sunday.
Wolff’s multi-discipline background is similar to that of her teammate Vos, and the two rode together during cyclocross season for a short while after Vos’ return, though Wolff put in a strong season, achieving two podiums, and finishing 9th in the U23 women’s World Champ in her first year riding at that level.
And there’s plenty more where they came from…
SAM WATSON! (INEOS Grenadiers) who has scored no less than 7 top ten finishes so far this season, including 5th at Omloop Nieuwsblad and a podium spot at Paris-Nice. CARYS LLOYD! (Movistar) who like her teammate Ferguson at just 18 has already achieved a podium finish this season, at the Vuelta Extremadura! MAX WALKER! (EF Education-EasyPost) formed part of the breakaway group at Gent-Wevelgem! And THOMAS GLOAG! (Visma-Lease A Bike) who at 23 has suffered through injury and definitely hasn’t shown us what he’s capable of yet, though a top-5 finish at the Tour Down Under hinted at what he may be capable of in the future. And of course, ZOE BACKSTEDT! (Canyon//SRAM zondacrypto), double cyclocross world champion at under-23 level, and busy building a road career around her off-road commitments at the age of just 20, and OSCAR ONLEY! (Team Picnic PostNL) who announced himself on the world stage in 2024 at the age of 2021, winning his first World Tour level race at the Tour Down Under.
So what’s the problem?
It’s pretty incredible to see the level that young British talent is reaching in the current era, especially given the insane amount of talent that they’re up against from all around the world. It’s even more astonishing when you consider the state of the British cycling scene currently: no men’s continental level road teams are left, and just a few women’s teams. Just a handful of domestic races left for riders to compete in. And even our sole World Tour team, the INEOS Grenadiers, who should be leading the way in terms of a pathway for top junior talent at least on the men’s side (the less said about their brief and unsuccessful foray into women’s cycling, the better) have chosen to invest their capital in a development team on the continent.
While a rich vein of talent still comes up through British Cycling’s Olympic ‘pedal potential’ pathways, that’s very much dependent on track ability, leaving riders from other disciplines out in the cold. So it’s possibly fair to say that riders such as Brennan and Ferguson are succeeding in spite of their circumstances, rather than because of them. They have been lucky enough to find places in European teams – the likes of Movistar, Lidl-Trek, Groupama-FDJ and Visma-Lease A Bike have all signed British juniors who are thriving – and those still coming through the ranks are reliant on finding teams on the continent to support their development – as there’s scant possibility to do so in the UK currently. Thanks to the hard work of the Rayner Foundation, a number of riders are supported each year independently of British Cycling, including Brennan, Watson and many more. But many other riders must fend for themselves, and who knows how many will slip between the gaps; talents that could have been were it not for a more rigorous development system.
Come the much-lauded Tour de France Grand Départ in 2027, all eyes will be on Great Britain as we host cycling’s greatest show on earth. But from where we stand right now – with no free-to-air broadcast rights for the Tour (from 2026) or any other race (from now), no continental men’s teams, no World Tour women’s team and barely any domestic races – we are likely to come up very short indeed, when it comes to showing the rest of the world what a healthy cycling infrastructure looks like. We will inevitably fall back on our ability to put on a good show – Brits are nothing if not excellent at putting on major sporting events, and turning out for them – but is it enough to secure the long-term future of the sport in a nation divided over a life on two wheels - one where simply being on a bike can earn you at the very least disdain, at most attempts on your life?
While the teenagers – born in 2005 and 2006 – may not have clear memories of the 2012 wave of inspiration that swept through the nation off the back of the London Olympics and more specifically, Mark Cavendish in rainbow bands and Bradley Wiggins’ Tour de France win, those influences can certainly be felt in the older riders mentioned here such as Tulett and Watson, who would have been around 11, and not only felt the inspiration but enjoyed the funding and opportunities that came off the back of them. Plus the sheer fact that these riders were just about able to cling to the last vestiges of the domestic scene, before it completely collapsed, perhaps give us a false sense of security - if there's still plenty of talent around now, why wouldn't there be in 5, 10 20 years? The answer is simply: opportunity.
There’s no doubt that the last wave of national sporting pride spawned a whole new generation of enthusiasts – can the Tour de France arriving on British shores once again instigate a new one? While it will create a buzz, the excitement generated around Bradley Wiggins' Tour win in 2012 was amplified by the Olympics - an event with a far broader appeal - and the fact that he and Cavendish were both track riders prior to their road success must surely have aided their rise into the hearts of the nation. 'Gold medal on the track' is a far more marketable prospect, from a media perspective at least, than 'third place at the Exact Cross in Loenhout.' Yet it doesn't mean any less effort has gone into an athlete reaching the top level of their sport. With the lack of support offered to riders from other disciplines, it arguably shows even more in the way of resilience and determination to succeed.
It remains to be seen how the national governing body for the sport will use the next year and a half, in order to maximise the impact of the Grand Départ and to leverage the hype towards future success. It can tentatively be viewed as a blessing, in any case, as without this much-needed injection of interest and excitement, the future of British cycling could be a very bleak one indeed.
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