Article courtesy of Oliver Haines, Sports Reporter at Newbury Weekly News, Published 20 March 2025
In their 100th year of existence, Newbury Road Club will spend plenty of time honouring their prestigious history. But the club is also aware of the need to look to the future.
The club’s Junior Cycling Development Plan aims to increase the number of young people within the club. Alastair Masson has been leading this effort, as Head of the Junior Division.
An accomplished road cyclist, Masson has been involved with the club for many years. “I was first involved around 1990 when I was about 16-years-old,” he said. “I’d watched some Tour de France highlights and that was the spark for me. I started competing in time trials and road racing and progressed to race in France and Belgium. I was a full-time cyclist, but then had to get a proper job! I had a period away from the club, but re-joined about ten years ago.”
Masson was inspired to lead the club’s junior efforts after noticing a concerning trend within its membership.
“A couple of years ago I was reading the minutes of the club’s AGM,” he recalled. “There was a table at the back, showing the age demographic. The number of juniors was very, very low. It triggered quite a feeling inside me. I thought about when I was first in the club. There was a strong junior section, and cycling is far more popular than it was then. I felt that as a club we had a duty to address it. The club agreed to do something about it, so I set off and spoke to schools and young people. That developed into the plan that we’re moving forward with.”
This strategy aims to increase the opportunities for young members, as well as raising awareness of the club’s junior division more generally.
“The club has a fairly rich offering in terms of rides and racing opportunities,” he explained. “We have qualified coaches in the club, and we want to have proactive coaching for juniors. We need to give young people awareness of what they can do with the club. There are all sorts of perceived barriers to entry, but it doesn’t matter what kind of bike you’ve got. There are opportunities to ride with other young people. Juniors will become seniors, and many will move away, so there is quite a high churn-rate. We’ve got to constantly replenish that junior membership.”
“We have qualified coaches in the club, and we want to have proactive coaching for juniors.
The club has started to work with local schools, bringing cycling directly to young people, rather than waiting to be found.
“This week we’re trialling our one-kilometre dash,” he said. We’ll be at Trinity School with a static bike. Young people can come and have a go, and we’ll have a Top Gear-style lap board. The head of PE there has twenty pupils lined up to do it. They’ve really leaned into it. If that goes well, we’ll start replicating it in other schools. We’ll then try and nurture some of those riders towards the Summer Cyclocross Series, run by Newbury Velo. We’ve also explored the concept of a cycle-maintenance course with St. Bart’s. They’re always looking for alternative curriculum options and it could be a step towards something more vocational. If the trial goes well we can package that up and replicate it. We’ll invest with the school to get that off the ground, along with providing volunteer time.”
Young cyclists can get out and experience the club more directly, with a number of events planned once the weather becomes slightly brighter.
“We’ll be running a series of weekend rides, specifically for young people,” he said. Those will be on quiet roads, around ten to fifteen miles. It’s a way to introduce young people to it all. And when it comes to the racing calendar, we’ve agreed as a committee to meet the cost of entry fees for juniors. We want to remove that barrier completely.”
Those interested in learning more should contact junior.newburyroadclub@gmail.com or visit newburyroadclub.co.uk
We’ll be running a series of weekend rides, specifically for young people
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