“You need a billionaire to say ‘I’ll save the sport’. But that won’t happen”: Matt Holmes on why British cycling needs a reset and his journey from WorldTour pro to the “world’s most reluctant YouTuber”

“I’m probably the world's most reluctant YouTuber,” Matt Holmes laughs. “It’s not easy, but if you want to get sponsors and you want to keep them happy, and you want to get new sponsors, it’s the most powerful tool you’ve got really.”

The 31-year-old climber from Wigan – who spent those weird, turbulent first three years of the 2020s racing at the highest level for WorldTour team Lotto-Soudal before retiring, “cooked”, at the end of 2022 – has found himself an unlikely active presence on the world’s biggest video sharing site after making a successful return to racing in May this year, both on the road and over gravel.

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(Zac Williams/SWpix.com)

That’s because, as part of his comeback, Holmes has eschewed the old world of team campervans and contract negotiations for life as a fully-fledged, unattached privateer. Which means he now races on his own, in mostly plain kit, with no teammates, and limited support (his dad Roy, the organiser of the Lancaster GP, has been spotted handing out bottles from the roadside).

Riding as a privateer also means Holmes has been forced to seek out his own sponsors, in the form of wrapper-free snack manufacturers OGT, ride on equipment donated by Factor, and plan out his own calendar, as well as getting used to marketing and pitching himself to people who have the funds to keep him on the road. Hence, the newfound YouTubing abilities.

It may be a far cry from a stunning debut victory over Richie Porte on his home turf of Willunga Hill at the Tour Down Under (denying Porte his seventh consecutive win on the famous climb), or battling for stages at the Giro and the Vuelta, with all the trappings of WorldTour life – but Holmes’ DIY approach to racing has certainly paid dividends in 2024.

Holmes in the polka-dot climber’s jersey at the 2022 edition of Paris-Nice, a classification he also led at the 2021 Critérium du Dauphiné (Alex Broadway/SWpix.com)

At the Rapha Lincoln Grand Prix in May, his first road race since the Japan Cup in October 2022, Holmes won, before following that up with victory a week later at the Gralloch UCI Gravel World Series race in Scotland. In September, he captained a young GB team at the Tour of Britain, where he was caught, alongside Ben Swift, with 500m to go on stage five into Northampton.

And next year, after dipping his toe in the brave new world of gravel racing at Gralloch and the world championships in Leuven, he plans to dive in headfirst off-road, as he sketches out an international calendar which could include Unbound and Traka.

The former Lotto-Soudal pro will also continue to hone his track racing capabilities, with an eye on LA ’28, following a brief, aborted attempt to make Great Britain’s team pursuit squad for Paris, which included what he described as a “week-long mental breakdown” during his baptism of fire at the UCI Track Nations Cup in Hong Kong in March.

(Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com)

So, how has Holmes found life as a solo rider, and all the marketing – or “selling your soul”, as he jokingly put it – that comes with racing for yourself?

“It’s stressful in other ways, compared to racing with a team,” the 31-year-old tells the road.cc Podcast. “But I’m not afraid to pick up the phone. And because I was a pro cyclist, people are interested.

“You’re valuable when you put yourself out there. It’s a funny one, because you find that people care about what you’ve done in the past.

(Zac Williams/SWpix.com)

“But it's not easy, even for me having won a really big race back in the day, because you constantly have to compromise, and really get out there, spending time doing Zoom calls, speaking to people, trying to write your own sales pitch.

“It’s just marketing, but it’s pretty normal for other sports,” he notes. “Triathletes, they’ve all got YouTube channels. Mountain bikers the same. It’s really road cyclists who don’t vlog. They’re all on their team buses doing the job and that’s it.

“That’s why it’s a good move for Remco [Evenepoel] doing his videos, it’s good for his profile – and that’s what I’ve learned as well. I don’t like to stand in front of a camera, but you just have to do it. Professional sport is just marketing.”

Winning the 2024 Lincoln GP, his first race in 19 months (Olly Hassell/SWpix.com)

Of course, Holmes’ alternative, solo comeback to racing in Britain comes as the domestic scene’s traditional team-based model appears under increasing threat, following the recent demise of the two remaining British men’s UCI Continental teams, Trinity and Saint Piran, due to financial troubles, leaving the UK with no Conti squads for the first time since 2004.

The British domestic scene is one Holmes knows intimately, having raced for eight years on UK roads at Conti level, first for Raleigh and then with Madison-Genesis, before turning pro at the age of 26 with Lotto-Soudal in 2020, while his father Roy organises the Lancaster GP.

With the benefit of hindsight, and now detached from the relentless, “desperate” drive to turn pro in Europe, Holmes describes his early years on the domestic scene as “so much fun”, noting that the “process of getting to the WorldTour was the good bit”.

Racing the 2018 Tour of Britain for Madison-Genesis (Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com)

However, with teams falling by the wayside, and race organisers struggling under increasing financial pressures, those heady, healthy days of the 2010s now appear a distant memory.

To paraphrase Bruce Springsteen’s 1992 song ‘The Big Muddy’, sooner or later it all comes down to money. Which is something that has been made extremely clear to Holmes, as he negotiates with potential backers on his own.

“I’ve got Factor Bikes, and I was speaking to them about potentially doing a team of three or four riders – but the backing you need, especially for gravel, because it’s international, you’re talking half a million quid at least for four riders and staff and mechanics, just to cover salaries and expenses,” he explains.

In Team GB colours at the 2024 Tour of Britain (Will Palmer/SWpix.com)

“So I don’t know how any of the five UCI teams ever set up, because there were 13, 14 riders, campervans, cars, mechanics’ trucks, and permanent staff. It was insane.

“There’s a reason it got to that point. I’m not saying it won’t get back to that, but for the moment, with everyone being YouTubers, it’s hell of a lot easier to just sponsor one person who can make really good content and win races. That’s what I’d be doing if I was in charge of marketing at some company.”

However, despite the doom and gloom surrounding the British racing scene at the moment, Holmes is cautiously optimistic about the future of the sport in the UK, which he says could benefit from the reset forced upon it in recent years.

“I think the whole UK scene will get back to where it was, because it’s just people being competitive. That’s how it ended up,” he says.

“But the problem, I think, is that there just aren’t enough riders worthy of being paid to race in the UK anymore. What we need are a few generations of Under 23s who are almost WorldTour, who really keep trying but don’t quite make it, but keep racing. Then it will be really competitive, and really fun again.

“The last time there were no UCI teams was 2004 – that’s not that long ago. To see the progress from 2004 to 2020, when it basically ended, was mad, how professional and how good it got. So I think it will come back again.”

(Mathew Wells/SWpix.com)

So, what would Holmes suggest if he was asked to be part of British Cycling’s road racing task force?

“It’s all about money, isn’t it?” he says. “The problem is money. Ideally you just need some billionaire to say, ‘look, I’ll save the sport’. But that’s not going to happen.

“There’s no easy solution – but I just think everything will come back naturally.”

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