Roland Bell was meant to be stepping back at Kettering Cycling Club, before the pandemic struck. Four years on, he’s still there, plugging away. “Just before Covid we were getting to the point where I was hoping I could do a handover and step back,” the 63-year-old tells me over the phone from his home. “But because cycling was still permitted, we started a summer holiday school. All the children turned up. So we carried on going.”
His stepping back soon became stepping up. “I was effectively left holding the baby,” he says. “Rather than give it up, I decided to keep it going and reinvigorate it. You keep it going because you know it makes a difference.”
The IT consultant turned off-road secretary at Kettering CC has coached at the club for almost a decade. Typifying the type of volunteer who is committed to their role and goes above and beyond, Bell has earned the honour of CW’s local hero of the year 2024.
Having joined the club in 2015, he originally helped out with general organisation and teaching bike maintenance to parents through the club’s Cyclones organisation for young people. He gained his BC coaching qualification in 2016, and now helps out every Monday night. His role has many parts, including coaching the Cyclones, looking after the club’s fleet of 25 bikes, loaned to those who need a ride, as well as setting up cyclo-cross events in Kettering.
“I took it on, running coaching sessions, doing events, the group grew to between 40 to 50 kids every Monday before lockdown. We were very successful,” Bell explains. “The original remit was to give children something to do, off the streets, so we try to keep cycling accessible to children who don’t necessarily cycle.”
Cycling ecosystem
The role of the club goes further than facilitating a hobby, in Bell’s view. “I took very strongly to the idea that cycling is a sport for life. If you look at the pyramid, a small number of these kids could wind up going professional, but a huge part of it is people [at grassroots level], the whole cycling ecosystem really needs these people.”
Kettering CC and its Cyclones have avoided stretching themselves too thinly, instead focusing on getting people into cycling. The club takes seriously its role in the community, giving the young people of Kettering something to do. It’s not all racing, either, with some youngsters going on to become coaches or volunteers too.
“Rather than trying to do everything, we decided to become a feeder club,” Bell says. “We’d get the kids in the children at five or six, when they can just about ride, and bring them on and build up their skills. If they showed an interest in racing or wanting to do more serious competition, then we’d say, actually, your best bet is to go somewhere else.”
It has worked. The winner of this year’s junior Gent-Wevelgem, Amelia Cebak, came through the Kettering system before moving to Tofauti Everyone Active, the same squad as developed Carys Lloyd and Seb Grindley. Cebak will ride for Smurfit Westrock next year.
Bell is evangelical about volunteering, encouraging more people to get involved. “This is me giving back, it’s my turn,” he says. “I want people to come to youth cycling, because you can develop here. Become a coach, coach the children, the five- to eight-year-olds, it’s basically herding cats. It’s an experience, but having done it, it gives you some fairly fundamental people skills.”
He is acutely conscious that volunteers are a finite resource. “We need to constantly keep nurturing the new members coming in,” he adds. “All cycling clubs are getting older, so we need to keep the youth groups going, and then keep those riders in contact with the sport, so when they settle down again [in the local area], they rock up and get involved.” The people of Kettering, and its cycling club, must be very glad that Roland Bell put his stepping down plan on hold.
This feature originally appeared in Cycling Weekly magazine on 5th December 2024. Subscribe now and never miss an issue.
