Graham Briggs column: Cycling academy has exited lockdown with whole new outlook

Coronavirus has changed our outlook on life, it’s changed our daily routines, it’s changed the way we work and it’s changed how we communicate with each other.
Ed Clancy and Graham Briggs of the Clancy Briggs Cycling AcademcyEd Clancy and Graham Briggs of the Clancy Briggs Cycling Academcy
Ed Clancy and Graham Briggs of the Clancy Briggs Cycling Academcy

A lot has changed over the last eight or nine months!

And here at the Clancy Briggs Cycling Academy we’re no different.

Businesses have had to evolve to get through this pandemic.

And adapting has actually made us realise something – that we have got even more to offer than we originally thought!

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We’re actually coming out of the latest lockdown with a whole new outlook and way of working.

We’ve got so much more to give than seeing our members for an hour on a cycle track.

When you’re delivering a class to about 20 kids there’s only so much you can do in that amount of time.

So when we launched our Clancy Briggs Live programme in time for the latest lockdown – our very own online learning academy – it did not take long for us to realise that it will become integral to the way we work in the future.

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We hoped we wouldn’t go into a second lockdown but when we did we had to change how we are delivering things to keep the kids engaged.

There’s been plenty going off on Zoom over the last few weeks! Monday was a classroom session, Wednesday was bike maintenance and on Saturday we’d do exercises, games and talk about nutrition.

On Sundays we also did a Q&A with Ed Clancy and it was great to see the kids getting involved with that and the type of questions they were asking Ed. They’re all really keen to learn.

There was nothing like this when I was a lad! It’s such a great opportunity for the kids to speak to an Olympic champion every week.

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It also helped us realise that there’s going to be a place for the Clancy Briggs Live programme coming out of the other side of lockdown.

The online sessions are great because you can give the kids more feedback on how they are riding and how they can improve.

Any of our members – the kids or their parents – can arrange to have a one-to-one Zoom throughout the week with the coach. So the parents can ask questions like ‘How do I repair a puncture? Do you think my child’s ready for this size bike yet? Where’s best to buy a bike?’

We’re becoming a go-to place for the parents. They don’t have all the answers but we’re creating a forum to educate the parents as well.

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And we’re teaching the kids things for life, things they can pass on to their kids in the future.

*It’s obviously disappointing that the Tour de Yorkshire won’t take place next year.

I hope it does come back in 2022. It just makes me wonder a little bit. I’ve seen it before where they put the race off and then that’s just the end of it.

I sincerely hope it does come back because of the number of people who support it and then get into cycling on the back of it. It’s been such a special event for Yorkshire and it’s brought the best out of people.

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