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As Wiggo Foundation winds down questions arise over £150k bill for Ride With Brad sportives

Tour de France champion covered event losses from own pocket

The Bradley Wiggins Foundation is being wound down, it was recently announced, but questions remain about the costs of two of the organisation's three major fund-raising events, which left Wiggins himself making up the shortfall.

Two Ride With Brad sportives, staged in 2012 and 2013, brought in almost £120,000 but cost nearly £150,000 to put on, according to the foundation's accounts. Only the Yellow Ball, celebrating Wiggins' Tour de France victory, and his own donations were significant sources of funding for the foundation.

The blink-and-you'll-miss-it announcement of end of the Foundation came in a release from British Cycling detailing five Go-Ride clubs that were to receive grants of £1,000 each from the foundation.

Wiggins said: “I’m in the process of winding down my Foundation now as I concentrate on preparations for Rio 2016. I’m a racer not a fund raiser you know.

"I’ll always support the grass roots and encourage young people to take up healthy sports like cycling and I want to thank everyone who’s helped me raise funds for the Foundation over the last couple of years.”

The Wiggins Foundation was set up in May 2012, before Wiggins became the first British rider to win the Tour de France, with the broad aims of "encouraging participation in sport" and "the provision of facilities and equipment to individuals, clubs, local communities or schools".

The foundation put its name to the Ride With Brad sportives in 2012 and 2013, organised by Pennine Events, and held the 'Yellow Ball' in 2012, a fundraiser that celebrated Wiggins's Tour de France victory.

According the foundation's accounts for the period October 4 2012 to April 4 2014 those three events brought in £238,364. In that period the foundation made grants of £57,965.

The foundation spent £158,751 to raise that money: £148,080 on the Ride With Brad sportives and £10,671 on the Yellow Ball. The Yellow Ball generated £76,485, but the sportives earned just £119,301.

Wiggins himself made up the shortfall between the cost and income of the sportives, but riders who took part thinking that some of their entry fees were going to develop sport will probably be disappointed that it was swallowed up in event costs.

Figures are not available for the first Ride With Brad sportive, but organisers said the second attracted "just shy of 1,000 cyclists", who paid £40 per head for the 160km and 100km rides, and £35 for the 50km route.

The annual report sums up the costs and incomes:

During the period, donations of £42,578 were received, a majority of which were from Sir Bradley Wiggins.

Two main fundraising events took place during the period. Firstly, Ride with Brad - this event took place in both 2012 and 2013 respectively, but unfortunately resulted in an overall loss of £28,779, which Sir Bradley Wiggins covered personally to ensure there was no loss to the charity.

The second event was the Yellow Ball, which resulted in a surplus of £65,814. A majority of these funds were used to make grants to individuals.

Overall, there is a surplus of £19,248 for the period.

Pennine Events has not responded to a request to speak about the Ride With Brad sportives, and there appears to be no way of contacting the foundation. Emailling the address on the foundation's website generates an automatic response that appears to have been used since 2013 and there's no trace of its Twitter account and Facebook page.

Almost £150,000 would on the face of it a seem like a very large amount of money to stage two sportives. One event organiser told road.cc he was confident he'd be able to run a series of seven or eight events for that cost. Only closed roads would account for costs that high, he said. According to participants, the Ride With Brad events were run on open roads.

According to Pennine Event's website, the event included an accompanying "large sports festival" which may account for some of the additional costs. The event website is no longer available, but according to a version archived in October 2013 sports featured included kids' cycling, fencing, rugby, and a range of others provided by Pendle Leisure Trust and local clubs.

With donations to clubs and athletes and its support of the Wiggle Honda women's team, there's no doubt that the Bradley Wiggins Foundation did some good work in its short existence. But riders who took part in the Ride With Brad sportives may well feel they deserve an explanation of why none of their entry fees made it into the foundation's coffers.

John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.

He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.

Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.

John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.

He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.

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15 comments

Avatar
TomTom10 | 9 years ago
1 like

I was a volunteer at the Chipping feed station on the 2012 event, got my photo taken with Sir Brad, great atmosphere, great day. Entered the 2013 event; another great day. Both events had lots of spectators and adults & children at the cycling festival The bloke had a go, got lots of people involved; Chapeau Wiggo  3

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jollygoodvelo | 9 years ago
0 likes

I would assume that the donation was tax-deductible. I'd far rather £30k of Wiggo's taxes went into subsidising cycling events than the Treasury's black hole.

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Al__S | 9 years ago
0 likes

It lacks chip timing, but the Cambridge News Big Bike Ride (50/100 mile) covers its running costs from corporate sponsors so the entry fee goes 100% to charity

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Alan Tullett replied to Al__S | 9 years ago
0 likes
Al__S wrote:

It lacks chip timing, but the Cambridge News Big Bike Ride (50/100 mile) covers its running costs from corporate sponsors so the entry fee goes 100% to charity

Yes, I did the Olympic ride (the only sportive I've done) and will probably do the one this year as well. I was talking to the News guys who organised it last summer and they said it was a lot of work putting up and taking down the signs and they weren't going to do a long one again just the one around town but it seems they changed their mind. Going to do the UCI Tour of Cambridgeshire TT and sportive as I've never done a closed road event, pricey though.

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Al__S | 9 years ago
0 likes

Story about a sportive comment thread bingo card possible squares:
"ride along the same roads for free"
"I love audaxes"
"who'd want to ride with that many other people?"
"they're a con"

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a.jumper | 9 years ago
0 likes

Wiggins discovers that putting on rides isn't a big money spinner - gets new appreciation for cycling club volunteers?

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antonio | 9 years ago
0 likes

Rumbled this lot yonks ago, long live Audax uk!

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antonio | 9 years ago
0 likes

Rumbled this lot yonks ago, long live Audax uk!

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NatJoyrideCycles | 9 years ago
0 likes

Sounds like a standard "charity" to me. Cost a fortune to run with little to nothing left over for the actual charitable cause.

In the mean time, Joe Public feels all warm and fuzzy because they think they are making the world a better place.

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pdf500 replied to NatJoyrideCycles | 9 years ago
0 likes

Nat's right. The best thing you could do is join a cycling club and ride with a big bunch of friends, and still have loads left to give to an effective charity.

https://www.againstmalaria.com/Donation.aspx
http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/schisto/donate
http://www.evidenceaction.org/give/

There's three of the most effective and efficient charities in the world. (See www.givewell.org or https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/top-charities for the research on effective giving.)

Enjoy your bike, good company, and enjoy knowing you're not paying for traffic cones, adverts and temporary signs.

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ianrobo replied to NatJoyrideCycles | 9 years ago
0 likes
NatJoyrideCycles wrote:

Sounds like a standard "charity" to me. Cost a fortune to run with little to nothing left over for the actual charitable cause.

In the mean time, Joe Public feels all warm and fuzzy because they think they are making the world a better place.

Any charity event I take part in it is clear to me that none of the entry money goes to charity. the last one I did like this I paid a sum on top (can not raise money for every event I take part in !! ).

Lets face it we take part in events usually because the course attracts us and we like to ride in large numbers. If you do not like what the entry money is for then simply do the ride by yourself.

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mtm_01 replied to ianrobo | 9 years ago
0 likes
ianrobo wrote:

Any charity event I take part in it is clear to me that none of the entry money goes to charity. the last one I did like this I paid a sum on top (can not raise money for every event I take part in !! ).

The only exception I'm personally aware of is the MacRide in Stratford - the guys who run and organise it are actually MacMillan guys rather than a sportive company.

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Sam1 | 9 years ago
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'One event organiser told road.cc he was confident he'd be able to run a series of seven or eight events for that cost'

Really? Really? I think that organiser may be talking out of his saddle. The UK has lost races and sportives repeatedly because of costs, with organisers fed up of making up shortfalls from their own pockets/ What's missing from this piece is that Lancashire police were present on the day of each of the two Ride with Brad sportives - and the high costs of paying police forces for the attendence of their staff at sporting events ain't cheap.

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bendertherobot replied to Sam1 | 9 years ago
0 likes
Sam1 wrote:

'One event organiser told road.cc he was confident he'd be able to run a series of seven or eight events for that cost'

Really? Really? I think that organiser may be talking out of his saddle. The UK has lost races and sportives repeatedly because of costs, with organisers fed up of making up shortfalls from their own pockets/ What's missing from this piece is that Lancashire police were present on the day of each of the two Ride with Brad sportives - and the high costs of paying police forces for the attendence of their staff at sporting events ain't cheap.

How much does coppers on bikes cost, on average?

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mtm_01 | 9 years ago
0 likes

There was a feature a while back about how most charity sportives run by event companies tend to swallow up the entry fee and rely on actual fundraising by participants.

The Norwich 100 for the BHF is an example - the BHF it turns out doesn't receive much if anything from the entry fee but this isn't made explicit to riders.

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