London Academy: Changing women's cycling for the better

Within the UK, fortunately, there are already some well-established pathways young riders who want to race on the road at a high level can follow, from junior squads such as Liv Halo Films to British Continental women’s teams such as Lifeplus-Wahoo. 

However, an area that has been identified as lacking is support for women entering the sport of competitive road cycling at a later stage in their lives who want to focus on regional and national level events first. According to Scottish Cycling, British Cycling membership in 2023 had only 20% female members. Additionally, in 2022, Scottish Cycling found that British Cycling registered competitive events in Scotland had over three times more male entrants than there were female entrants, a situation which could very well be influenced by a lack of knowledge and support around racing for lower-level riders.

Countries such as Belgium have a great club team system to support more women in racing, with regular events to increase opportunities. That is not necessarily the norm elsewhere, and not knowing where or how to start racing for women is, of course, a massive barrier in the efforts to promote participation. People can’t start racing to then move up and progress within the sport if they don’t know how or where to pursue it.

But Sarah King identified this issue and with her determination to create more opportunities for women starting out in the UK scene, decided to do something about it –n 2023, London Academy was born. 

London Academy is a British domestic women’s road cycling team based in London. The team is run by King, who now works full-time but previously had a successful career within the British domestic road scene. Formerly racing for the likes of Node4 Pro Cycling and Bianchi Dama alongside her studies or work. This has given her a wealth of knowledge and experience of both the good and bad side of racing and how teams should be run in order to support women’s progression and development. 

I learnt about Sarah’s work after seeing a post asking experienced riders to volunteer for the London Academy mentorship programme. After volunteering myself, we had a group call to discuss the programme, and it was at this point that the extent of what was being offered to riders became clear. 

What the team offers is development as a rider on and off the bike, handling skills, race tactics, a supportive environment with other like-minded women, transparency, access to bike fitting, a mentorship programme – which includes support from ex and semi-professional riders for advice –workshops to target weakness areas, race feedback, goal setting, progression up to national level races with a focus on local and regional B races first and then once riders are ready King will suggest they move onto National Series races. 

Chatting with Cyclingnews about her venture into the managerial side of racing, King said that a big driving force was the amount of untapped potential she saw, explaining: “I wanted to give them that experience”, going on to add that: “when I got to London, and kind of saw there was a melting pot of riders here and there's such an untapped amount of talent that just doesn't know how to race.”

Wanting to create a team and environment for such riders who have potential but maybe weren’t sure where, or even how, to enter races was an area where King wanted to provide support for riders. However, even in the early stages, King knew she didn’t just want a team; after all, there, fortunately, are already women’s teams out there trying to push for opportunities for female riders at the highest levels. Instead she had a big focus on building a sense of community for riders to thrive within: “I wanted to create a community. I didn't wanna create just a team, but I wanted to create a team that's a community if that makes sense.”

King expressed that “it's not just about the racing. It's about what sport, in general, gives a human as they grow up. How that can help work and their relationships and friendships and all that”. Carrying on to highlight that: “Everyone celebrates each other. It's one of our values.”

Personally, I’ve found that, at times, a team's foremost focus can often seem to be on the racing element without giving much thought to the team's culture and the relationships between riders. But to King, making this team has been a more holistic affair: “It's bigger than the sport. Bigger than just racing”.

With the team motto “happy head, happy legs”, it’s easy to see why King has put so much emphasis on primarily nurturing riders outside of racing to create a positive environment where they can find their feet and progress within.

However, although she has a positive outlook on things, it’s not always been plain sailing. Opening up about some anxieties surrounding the team, with her age and gender being topics that at times played on her mind, King said: “I thought people might laugh at what I'm doing and how I'm doing things differently, you know. Or just seen as a bit of like, well, you're just a young rider. I'm probably the youngest of the team managers, and I'm female. So yeah, I think that was quite difficult.”

But not only is King’s team doing important work in helping women gain more support and confidence when entering the sport, but it has also helped riders to recognise their potential. 

A good example of this being team rider, Katy Hill. Katy made it to the Zwift Academy finals in 2023 to compete for a professional contract with UCI Continental team Canyon-SRAM Generation. I spoke with Katy who stated that part of her success was due to the help that London Academy gave her: “the team provided me to have big dreams and receive the advice to make inroads towards them”. Carrying on to add that “seeing other women challenge themselves and achieve personal milestones has made me want to do the same”.

As previously mentioned, understanding that there is a wealth of knowledge and support out there from current experienced riders, King decided to set up a mentorship programme, which started in 2023. This programme was to help pair up a rider from the team with someone King knew and trusted to be a great port of call for London Academy members who needed guidance or even just to chat with when struggling with pre-race nerves.

Among these mentors, there’s Hannah Barnes, former National Road Race Champion and retired Women’s WorldTour pro, as well as current international level riders. All of whom want to give something back to the sport and community they too gained so much knowledge and personal growth from. A big push for the mentorship programme was that: “there's so much knowledge of the sport, and so many riders leave the sport, and their knowledge is lost.” Adding on that, “That's where the magic is because we've all experienced it. So we can then help that next generation of riders.”

Not only is helping the next generation of riders an important element of the mentorship programme, but for King, there is also hope that this programme, paired with the positive environment, would maybe also inspire some mentors to stay in the sport post-career, explaining that: “keeping them in this mentor programme means they might say, ‘you know what? I wanna help run a team’ or ‘I wanna do this and be part of it’, and then we can hopefully have more women in the management side of our sport. It's like a full circle thing with the mentoring.”

Although it’s still somewhat early days, I’ve found the mentorship programme really rewarding as a mentor. King specifically matched my mentee, Anna, to me, and it’s been a great pairing. I can’t wait to see Anna’s progression and to help in any way I can to facilitate that.