We really want to see our sport return sooner rather than later here in Wales and we are working with British and Scottish Cycling as well as Sport Wales, Welsh Sports Association (WSA) and the Welsh Government to help with the recovery of sport in the country.

Welsh Cycling Chief-Executive, Anne Adams-King said: “We welcome British Cycling’s update around the suspension of cycling sanctioned activity. It provides direction and clear review timelines for getting the sport back up and running across the UK.

“But closer to home we wanted to update our membership about developments, relating to our Welsh Cycling events and series.

“Our focus remains the health and wellbeing of our membership and volunteers and we are working with all parties to ensure that when our great sport returns it is safe to do so in line with Welsh Government regulations and guidance.”

The message that we have been promoting and sharing with our clubs and members remains the same:

• Ride on your own or with one other household
• Your ride has to start/finish at home (From the 6 July, 2020 as some outdoor attractions start to open up, you will be able to travel to exercise)
• Keep social distancing measure of two metres apart
• Ride responsibly and within your ability.

Although British Cycling have today issued an update around events coupled with Welsh Government lifting the five mile travel arrangement, and the easing of extended households this still means that our recent updates around events and series in Wales still apply and we will update you as soon as Welsh Government make further announcements.

Update on Welsh Cycling events

We can further update you on news around some of our Welsh Cycling events. Due to the extension of the suspension to regional racing until August 1, there won’t be any events before this date. But looking further ahead we have been in communication with our commission chairs about our Welsh Cycling events and series which were due to take place in the coming weeks and months.

MTB

We have regrettably decided that the 2020 XC Welsh Mountain Bike series will now be cancelled. We were looking forward to the 2020 series, a lot of hard work behind the scenes with event organisers had gone on to make what would have been a successful series.

We are currently working with those organisers who had event dates for this year and we will be looking to come back when it is safe to do so with another Welsh XC Mountain Bike series in 2021.

Road

The 2020 Welsh Road & TT Championships were due to take place this weekend over the 6 &7th June. We hadn’t officially announced the location of this year’s event prior to COVID-19 – but we have now taken the decision to cancel this year’s event and will begin planning for next year’s event.

We are working to support organisers to put on some regional road and circuit events after August 1st, including the possibility of holding Welsh Circuit Championships across all categories, once we can return to action safely. We are working to see how these will need to look to reflect government guidelines, and nearer the time we will update you with any developments.

Track

Regarding future track events we are continually monitoring the situation around guidance for indoor and outdoor facilities and how events within these spaces may look, but we are currently working with our commission chairs to look ahead to the end of 2020 and into 2021.

Cyclo-cross

Our proposed Welsh Cycling Cyclo-cross season is due to take place in September. We have decided to push the series back to mid-November with the aim of carrying on into 2021. We are working with event organisers and will issue an update as and when we have more information.

We are working with event organisers, commissaires and all those who help put on our Welsh Cycling events. We will issue an update to all parties when we have more information around how our events will take shape in the coming weeks.

Next stages

With the upcoming Welsh Government review taking place at the end of this week we’ll have more information about what it means for returning to sport in Wales and we will update the membership as soon as possible.

We have been working closely with British and Scottish Cycling on how the return to cycling will look across the UK, next month our colleagues at British Cycling plan to publish guidelines on what a staged return to all forms of activity might look like. This is a changing situation but we are committed to updating all those who care for our sport as often as we can and with as much information as we can.

You can read the Welsh version of our statement here.