{"id":446868,"date":"2026-02-26T15:25:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T15:25:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/446868\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T15:25:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T15:25:13","slug":"they-took-me-on-a-gamble-meet-the-british-cycling-team-fighting-to-make-junior-racing-more-accessible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/446868\/","title":{"rendered":"‘They took me on a gamble’ – meet the British cycling team fighting to make junior racing more accessible"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cFor any young cyclist dreaming of one day turning professional, competing in the [British] Junior National Series is the starting line on their journey to success,\u201d Ned Boulting<\/a> recites over a montage of junior riders flashing past fields, triumphantly crossing the finish line or crashing out track-side, head in hands.<\/p>\n

The music turns dramatic: drums and electric guitars. \u201cAs they follow in the tyre tracks of their heroes, they must face gruelling courses, extreme physical and mental demands and the danger of racing on open roads,<\/a>\u201d Boulting continues.<\/p>\n

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\u201cBut for many young cyclists, the biggest challenge isn\u2019t on the roads. It is the financial barriers<\/a> of taking part at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The trailer for Team PAU\u2019s series of films charting the highs and lows of a summer of junior racing is suitably dramatic. It even pipped HSBC and P&O Cruises to a silver Lens Award for Best Documentary Style Video.<\/p>\n

But the heart of the Team PAU series – and the heart of the team itself – is a determination to make cycling as accessible to as many children as possible.<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s precursor, Project PAU, was started three years ago out of a bike shop in Stoke, in the English Midlands, run by Paul Ball. As his own son got interested in cycling, Ball started to notice the realities of racing as a junior.<\/p>\n

He saw kids racing with passion and commitment, but he also saw young riders with teams and many without, a whirlwind of hurried drop-offs and rushed runs back before school started the next day. He noticed the tired parents, and the absent ones too, whose children would never get the chance to compete due to one frustrating, heart-breaking block: finances<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe first barrier that stood out to me was the financial side of it<\/a>,\u201d Ball told Cycling Weekly. \u201cFrom the outset, you’re talking a few thousand to buy a bike to race on<\/a>. Then you start looking at the travel; just to get around the country is an expense.<\/p>\n

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\"Boy\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Gary Main)<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving stood on the side and watched the races, there\u2019s no real guidance,\u201d he continued. \u201cYou see a kid rock up with mum and dad to a race, they do the race then they put the bike back in the car and go home. There\u2019s no guidance for the child on how to become better. Some kids that have come to us with bikes that are too big; they just don\u2019t work for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

And so Project PAU began, starting first as a series of online seminars kids could log onto and chat to a coach, learn how to set up their bikes and the world of racing and training. A year later, and the shop had assembled its first flesh-and-blood squad: eight kids from all over the UK, supported with bikes, coaches and race entries for 2025.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThey took me on a gamble,\u201d one of the team\u2019s first cohort, Huw Cressey-Rodgers said of the team. \u201cIt’s incredibly hard in cycling, because a lot of the time it’s who you know, that’s just how it is. They say it\u2019s all about results, but it’s not always.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cressey-Rodgers\u2019 frustration with elements of the race scene were clear, but so was his appreciation of the culture Team PAU has brought to the sport: he stresses, time and time again during our conversation, that everyone at Team PAU is really, really nice.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m not going to be around the bush and say it’s the fastest team out there. It’s not,\u201d Cressey-Rodgers continued. \u201cIf you look at some other teams, they\u2019ve got some incredibly fast riders, but they’re just not as friendly and not as nice. It’s almost like they treat you as if you’re 20 years old at 16. You’ve got to have a little bit of understanding, especially when a race goes badly.\u201d<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s not hard to imagine that a squad built by Ball and his team is an inspiring, supportive and ambitious one. Ball is a man who chases life\u2019s fullest experiences: he built a business providing outdoor experiences for underprivileged kids, taking them out mountaineering and climbing and mountain biking; he\u2019s a father to six children who spent his younger years backpacking Africa, South East Asia and living in Australia and New Zealand. Now he’s got riders like Bradley Wiggins <\/a>stepping in to support his junior race team.<\/p>\n

I ask Ball what his dreams are for the team he\u2019s helping build. He says they\u2019re swapping some home races in favour of lining up more often in Belgium to give their riders more continental exposure. They\u2019re also aiming to develop tighter links with sponsors, so the team is less financially dependent on the shop. He says too that developing a women\u2019s team is at the forefront of their minds. But the mission Ball first began Team PAU with remains his driving force:<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully we inspire some young people to get on the bike,\u201d he said. \u201cI think if you want to inspire young people, it’s not necessarily about showing the race, it’s showing them the people that are involved, how racing affects those people, and what inspires them to get on a bike.\u201d<\/p>\n

Team Pau\u2019s series of films, \u2018Closing the Gap\u2019 <\/a>will go live on Thursday February 25.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cFor any young cyclist dreaming of one day turning professional, competing in the [British] Junior National Series is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446869,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-446868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}