Representation matters: why cycling needs to encourage diversity

Rower turned track cyclist Yewande Adesida is determined to help make cycling a more inclusive sport that better represents the diversity in British society at large

As a white man in my 30s, I’m a typical British cyclist. So typical, in fact, that my place in cycling’s demographic profile had never really occurred to me — until now, speaking with up-and-coming track cyclist Yewande Adesida, who knows what it’s like to feel untypical.

“When I rock up to a race and I’m the only black woman there,” she says, “it makes me sad still now.”

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David Bradford
Features editor

David Bradford is features editor of Cycling Weekly (print edition). He has been writing and editing professionally for more than 15 years, and has published work in national newspapers and magazines including the Independent, the Guardian, the Times, the Irish Times, Vice.com and Runner’s World. Alongside his love of cycling, David is a long-distance runner with a marathon PB of two hours 28 minutes. Having been diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa (RP) in 2006, he also writes about sight loss and hosts the podcast Ways of Not Seeing.