Larry Hickmott

Back in March 2011, the third chapter of my work serving the sport of cycling began with VeloUK.net

The first thing I must do is thank everyone at the time who made this possible. From Mary Gill and Jonathan Beckett who helped me through the early stages of learning how to create a Word Press website, to the sponsors many of whom are still with me, to all those who have encouraged me to do this and the well wishers on Twitter and Facebook (far to numerous to mention all by name!).

Since the late 90s, I have been covering the sport of cycle racing in Britain. It all started by accident with me wanting to learn HTML programming for the software company Digita who I worked for at the time. That was EchelonVelo. Those who have been round long enough, remind me that there was a printed version as well! I was then headhunted, always a nice thing for the CV that, by Peter Cossins (former editor of ProCycling and writes books) who at the time in 2011 worked for Rivals.net and EchelonVelo went commercial along with another website inspired by Peter, the Daily Peloton. There, I worked hard and was rewarded by meeting lots of people and built up a large and loyal following, many of whom I am lucky enough to still know today.

Rivals though, for whatever reason, decided to get rid of a lot of niche sports and that included cycling. Before I could really worry about what was going to happen to EchelonVelo though, I was headhunted again, this time, by Stuart Hallam, then a member of the board of British Cycling. A meeting took place at Luton airport, all very grand I thought at the time, and I was soon working for British Cycling part time.

At the time of joining, the following appeared in the UK Sport Magazine (May 2002) which shows the value that British Cycling placed on my arrival at that time. “Another site well worth a visit is the excellent www.britishcycling.org.uk, recently relaunched by British Cycling, which contains a wealth of the up-to-date news from the sport, including a comprehensive results service, photo galleries and interviews.”

So, between 2001 and 2011, I was doing that for the governing body of the sport, British Cycling. However, that organisation changed the moment that Sky became involved and in order to get back to the grass roots and closer to the sport I have the same passion for now that I did when I was 14, I resigned when they wanted to change my contract and take me away from the sport. So many of you had been in touch to say how much they missed the old EchelonVelo and thus, VeloUK was born.

A shorter, snappier name which is quick to type out was given to the site (IE, VeloUK) and after my last job for British Cycling, the Para-Cycling Worlds in Italy 2011 (could not have wanted for a better send off!), I got to work on the website that now sits before you. Since then, I have covered upwards of 50 to 90 race days a year, taking pictures, getting interviews and seeing people who have over the last two decades became friends. The website combined with the  VeloUK social media, sees updates seven days a week, 364 days a year concentrating on the domestic sport but also not forgetting the international racing as well.

Welcome to my world. Enjoy!