The domestic women’s junior road season opens in earnest on Sunday 5 April, when Alconbury hosts the London Academy Easter Road Race. The race runs as a National B – open to all women riders – with the first round of the Junior Women’s National Road Series embedded within it, meaning juniors and seniors contest the same roads but race for different things
The barriers keeping women out of British road racing aren’t hostile. They’re invisible – and they tend to dissolve the moment someone says: you can do this. Sarah King on governance, start lines, mentoring, and who gets to say it.
As the road season fades, London Academy rider Iona Mitchell continues her season-long journal, tracing the rivalries, rituals and razor-thin margins that define life on and off the bike.
In a weekend of ice-cream mishaps, borrowed kit and back-of-the-van logistics, London Academy’s Iona Mitchell finds herself at the heart of the chaos — and the quiet triumph — of life on the domestic road scene.