There's much to celebrate as cycling takes to Scotland's streets again...but dwindling exposure is cause for concern

For cycling fans in Scotland, these are certainly exciting times to be living in. The Lloyds Tour of Britain Women will make its long overdue debut visit north of the Border this weekend.

In the 11 years since the star-studded stage race began — growing to become one of the biggest in the UK calendar — it has never before ventured onto Scottish soil.

Defying the old adage that lightning doesn’t strike twice, Scotland will welcome not one, but two stages of the four-day event. It will also mark the first time that a UCI World Tour race has taken place here.

That’s a lot of inaugural action and while hugely thrilling, it begs the question: why has it taken so long?

And does this, hot on the heels of the recent announcement that Scotland will host both the prestigious Grand Depart of the Tour de France and a stage of the Tour de France Femmes in 2027, mean we are ushering in a new golden era for cycling?

The short answer: yes and no. The blunt truth is that cycling, at present, finds itself facing a tricky catch-22. The soaring popularity it has enjoyed since the halcyon summer of 2012 — when Tour de France and Olympic fever caught the public imagination — is under threat big time.

The root cause? A major upheaval of broadcasting rights. When Eurosport ceased airing in the UK back in February, its coverage — including key races such as the Giro d’Italia, Vuelta a Espana and Spring Classics — was absorbed into TNT Sports, part of the Discovery+ streaming portfolio. Many aggrieved cycling fans have flooded online forums to say that subsequent price hikes — with monthly subscriptions widely cited as rising from £6.99 to £30.99, a 343-per-cent increase — have meant following their beloved sport is now prohibitively expensive.

The Tour de France will be shown exclusively on TNT Sports from next year, with ITV having lost the rights it has held since 2001, bringing an end to free-to-air coverage in the UK.

Dwindling exposure isn’t good for any sport. With this in mind, there is a strong argument that we need to see high-profile cycling races here in Scotland, in the flesh so to speak, now more than ever.

Granted, not everyone agrees. The concept of ‘legacy’ has become a thorny subject.

A Trojan horse in the sense that for every future Olympic or world medallist who talks about a flame being lit watching top cyclists whizzing round the velodrome or racing through the city streets, there are countless others for whom the promised doors simply failed to open.

The Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games — as well as the 2018 European Championships and 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships, both also held in Glasgow — were touted as a platform for Scotland to harness the power of sport to motivate a sedentary nation.

That didn’t quite come to pass — something which, at this juncture, has been well documented. It isn’t enough to merely cite the merits of ‘inspiration’. There has to be a tangible trickle-down effect.

To that end, there is much to be celebrated in the coup of Scotland hosting two stages of the Lloyds Tour of Britain Women. This is an event that, from its outset in 2014, has championed parity, seeking to level the playing field among male and female cyclists competing at top level.

The total pot for the 2025 edition is just shy of 60,000 euros (£50,500). It has carved a stellar reputation for being one of the few races that pays equal prize money — relative to the number of stages — on par with the equivalent men’s tour.

The event hasn’t been without its troubles, though. It was rescued by British Cycling last year after being cancelled in 2023 due to funding issues that saw its original organiser, the now defunct SweetSpot, collapse into liquidation.

This year’s race will get under way today, with a stage from Dalby Forest to Redcar, followed by Hartlepool to Saltburn-by-the-Sea tomorrow, before heading to Scotland.

Stage three on Saturday will traverse the challenging roads of the Scottish Borders, starting and finishing in Kelso, with the fourth and final stage on Sunday a 10-lap circuit around Glasgow city centre.

In total, 19 teams and 114 riders will compete — a record field. Among the glittering line-up are a raft of Olympic, world and European medallists, including big guns Lizzie Deignan, Kristen Faulkner, Elisa Balsamo, Anna Henderson and Lorena Wiebes.

So, why hasn’t Scotland featured in the route until now? Because, even with the best will, putting on a multi-stage cycling race is markedly more complex than sticking a pin in the map and saying: “Right, let’s go there”.

It involves an eye-wateringly intricate, multi-tiered structure of logistics and moving parts, not least when it comes to the brass tacks of funding.

The latter typically ranges from traditional sponsorships — with brand names emblazoned on rider jerseys and advertising hoardings around the course — to the rather more dull-sounding stakeholder partnerships, relying largely on local councils stumping up money to host stages.

All in, this can prove a precarious tightrope balancing act, one which the parable of the erstwhile SweetSpot serves as stark testament to. Let’s swivel the spotlight to Scotland’s current crop of cycling talent. There will certainly be some names to watch in the mix at the 2025 Lloyds Tour of Britain Women, with a strong contingent from Handsling Alba Development Road Team.

They include Glaswegian Kate Richardson, who claimed her first UCI win and overall victory at the Tour de Feminin in May, and Lasswade native Lauren Dickson, who will race fresh from her podium finish against a world-class field at the Tour of Norway last weekend.

This impressive clutch of results are among several dazzling performances from Handsling Alba which, as the first-ever women’s UCI Continental team based out of Scotland, is determinedly blazing a trail on the international scene.

Over the past decade or so, it has been predominantly track cycling medal hauls that have elevated homegrown stars — from Sir Chris Hoy to Katie Archibald — to household names. Interestingly, though, it is in road racing that a new generation of Scots riders are gaining a foothold.

Among them is Erin Boothman from Netherlee, East Renfrewshire. She lit up the boards at the 2024 UCI Junior Track World Championships, with gold in the team pursuit and Madison, yet is also proving a head-turning prospect on the road, finishing first at Gent-Wevelgem Women Juniors in May.

Making ripples among the men’s WorldTour peloton is Kelso rider Oscar Onley, who races for Team Picnic-PostNL and made his Tour de France debut last year. His Edinburgh-born team-mate Sean Flynn competed in the 2023 Vuelta a Espana.

Callum Thornley, who hails from Peebles, is part of the Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe Rookies squad. His team have confirmed that from 2026, he too will make the leap to the big leagues, stepping up to race in the WorldTour.

Given this burgeoning momentum, it strikes me as a tad short-sighted that there will be no road cycling at the slimmed-down Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games next summer, removed from the programme due to what has been stated as ‘cost-cutting measures’.

Talk about poking a stick in the spokes of budding success.