The Volunteer Diaries: Road Race Special
In the latest of our series of volunteer reports, KWCC Road Race Secretary, Phil Feather, gives us the down low on what it takes to host a Surrey League Road Race… well, actually two road races in a day!
This is the second time I’ve helped organise Dunsfold, having taken it over in 2025 from Gill Thom’s sterling work over the eight years prior. First of all, a big shout out to Alex Joss and Richard Southcott who stepped up to the ‘Road Race Organiser Trainee’ initiative we started at the beginning year. This involved a couple of video calls ahead of the race where we ran over the process for organising events, as well as few more ‘emergency’ calls as we dealt with some last-minute challenges! Thomas Rees is also part of this cohort, helping with the road race we’ll run in August. Pending sign-off from British Cycling, all three are able to go on and organise their own events (with the club’s support) in the future.
Road Races are usually reasonably straightforward to organise until the final few weeks before the event – then the real issues start cropping up. Scrambling around to make sure we’ve got enough volunteers to run the race, assigning people to multiple jobs if we haven’t, and ensuring that the volunteers are aware of their responsibilities before the event so there aren’t any communication bottlenecks on the day.
We also had not one, but two sets of road works crop up in the week preceding the event – one set of temporary traffic lights on the course (which were thankfully removed on Thursday), and then another set of traffic lights turning up on Wrotham Hill on the Friday, two days before the event! Thankfully, as most people saw on the day, we moved the course finish line from Wrotham Hill to somewhere else on the circuit, so the event could still run.
Big shout out to Declan who, thankfully, doesn’t live far from Dunsfold, so did a few recces before the event, spray painting potholes and checking that temporary traffic lights had been removed as promised!
The morning started well with a peaceful drive down to Dunsfold at 6AM on Sunday. Rich, AJ and I opened the hall to dump the kit, and were met shortly afterwards by Richard Turner, who had volunteered to help with course setup. Rich S and Rich T set off to arrange the signs on the course (there are 15 cycle event signs and 3 ‘arrows’ required on the Dunsfold Course, as per the risk assessment approved by British Cycling), whilst AJ and I headed off to find a new finish line, and perform the dynamic risk assessment (an additional requirement from British Cycling that the commissaires check on the day). Thankfully, we found a new finish line fairly quickly, identifying a section of road that had minimal entry points. We left a checkered signpost there so the British Cycling officials could see our plans as they drove the circuit themselves.
We spray painted some more holes, swept a few corners of gravel, and headed back to HQ for 8AM.
At this point, riders and volunteers had arrived for the race, as well as the Surrey League organiser, Glyn. Abby and Maddy helped us set up Sign-On, the drivers for the first race turned up (Tim, Ed, Andy, Jumpei and Declan), the red flag marshalls arrived (George, David and Steve), as did the finish line crew (Jane, James, and Sam).
We discussed the finish line change with the commissaires to ensure they were happy, and before long, the women’s race was underway! We only had 9 riders in the end, which is a little disappointing, but great to get the early season test underway nonetheless!
We let the race roll out and then a few of us headed out to the finish line to watch the race unfold. After a couple of hours racing, LDN Academy’s Esme Wiley claimed the victory, with Georgia Huddleston of Lea Valley CC 2nd and Samantha Fawcett of Spectra Racing 3rd.
After a quick drive back to HQ, we directed the commissaires, accredited marshalls and NEG support teams to the sandwiches and cake so they could refuel.
Once we got back a lot of the men had already started arriving, so the HQ was bustling with racers. Irene had taken over the reigns at HQ and was helping the riders sign-on.
The red flag marshalls handed back their flags, with Jane, Mary Ann and Neil G taking the reigns for the afternoon. We also swapped out a few drivers, with Gill returning to help and Andy L driving one of the vehicles in the afternoon.
After another riders briefing (and a little bit of car-park Tetris), the men’s race rolled out. I drove back out to the finish line with Pete and Rich S to meet up with Patricia and Tony as the race developed.
With a larger field, the men’s race had a few breakaways, with Wheelers representing in several of the moves – great to see so early in the season!
The breakaway finally stuck with a few laps to go. London Dynamo’s Ben Heap took the victory, followed by Patrick Brown from Sigma Sports Masters in 2nd and Toby Seely from Le Col Racing Team in 3rd. Wheelers placed well, with Dec 10th, Adam 11th Andy 14th and Kush 23rd. Chapeau!
We all trundled back to HQ again to close-up shop. Rich and Alex went round and took down all the cycle signs and kit and everyone who’d helped volunteer chipped in to clean up the hall. After a quick sweep of the hall and double-checking we’d turned off all the lights and heaters, we lock up and left.
Thanks again to everyone who volunteered to make the event run. There are plenty of moving variables when it comes to organising road racing but it was fantastic to get two events delivered at the start of the season.
If you’re keen to get involved, then our women’s road race, the Maria Thompson Memorial Race, will take place on Sunday the 30th of August in Leigh, just South of Dorking.
