In the Words of Yanto Barker

This is a new format for Bike Route Hub and it will be more sporadic than our other interviews. In these interviews I will talk to an experienced member of the peloton and discuss how cycling has changed, the future and their own personal story.

Yanto has been consistently at the top of the British scene since for the past
decade.

Although Yanto Barker and his exploits will be known to most British cycling fans, they are of specific interest to me. I started watching cycling in 1997 at the age of 5 but the first race I saw in the flesh was the 2004 Tour of Britain. By that stage I was fully signed up as a cycling nerd and was aware of most of the teams in the race however, as a Welsh boy, I naturally gravitated towards the Welsh national team of which Yanto was team leader. Now, 11 years later and at the age of 35, Yanto is still winning races and so I started by asking him how his year has gone on the new ONE pro cycling team, a year where he has failed to finish lower than 10th in any Elite Series event; "It's gone very well, as a new team you can never tell before it's started how it's going to go. I think I was one of the lucky ones though because I knew from quite early on in the project who was going to be involved and what positions they would have and that gave me a lot of reassurance. It's gone exceptionally well but part of me isn't surprised at all because they are all very good at their jobs".

Although the ONE pro cycling team are a continental team racing predominantly in British races they appear to be run with the same attention to detail as a pro continental or even World Tour team, something that Yanto can attest to; "that's exactly how I would describe it. We're very focused on the detail and I would describe it like this, if you took a World Tour budget and put it into this team then we operate and run at that level and you would receive the kind of performance and return that you would expect on that investment". Although this sounds perfect there is a huge amount of competition within the team and a lot of expectation from outside as Yanto explains, "sometimes we turn up to some of the smaller races and they're almost harder because everybody is looking at us and we have some big names in the team and that does come with a level of expectation that can be challenging". On a personal level Yanto is currently sitting 3rd in the Elite series rankings, however there's a very good reason why he isn't aiming for overall success; "I tried not to get up there in the Elite Series overall rankings, I won it last year and I've always been a consistent rider and a calculating rider and at 35 I'm able to better make decisions during a race, but, I'm actually getting married this year and the weekend we've chosen for the wedding falls on the weekend of an event so I won't be able to attend it. I did jokingly tell my wife to be that the day after our wedding I'd be up early and gone for a couple of hours, I was just able to avoid the slap".

Very few people could run a successful business or become a pro cyclist, let
alone do both.

Having begun cycling when he was 14, 21 years ago, Yanto has ridden as a pro throughout the British circuit and on a number of teams in France as an amateur. I asked him what the main changes are that he's seen during his career; "it's changed a lot, most significantly the amount of people who participate in cycling. The other thing is that the amount of people who are attracted to cycling has brought with it a huge increase in money and it's like a pyramid which is getting bigger at every level. At the top you have us, the professionals, then the sportives then the recreational cyclists who spend money in the sport and then sponsors will spend more because there are more people to advertise too. I was thinking about it today, I can't really see it slowing down or stopping. If you look around London you see the number of people who are cycling to work and the infrastructure simply can't cope if all those people decide not to cycle and use public transport." Yanto also believes that as the number of people take up cycling for practical reasons, getting to work, saving money, fitness, that interest in cycling at the elite level will also grow. This belief is also backed up by ONE pro cycling's ambition to engage more with their fans, "if you have teams investing into their fan's and member's experiences at races where they can get inspired then that is a good thing and it is central to this team".

His early career was significantly different to that of a modern day British cyclist, he didn't join a British cycling academy and instead served his cycling apprenticeship on the continent, I asked Yanto whether he thinks modern riders, with some exceptions, are missing out by not going to the continent to ride, "no, I don't think they're missing anything. The reason why I say that they're not missing anything is because generally on foreign teams, unless you're exceptional, they would favour the local riders - French pro teams would favour a French rider. Also, 10 years ago, you couldn't earn a living wage riding your bike in this country, you could maybe if you wheeled and dealed a little bit but it was very tricky. The situation now is that you can earn a good living wage, maybe 35/40 riders in this country have mortgages and families that they are fully financing with their pro contracts". On the question of whether there was a hesitancy amongst pro teams to sign British riders, towards the beginning of this century, Yanto has a very interesting answer, "I think it was more just a trend or a fashion. Aussie riders were much more prominent at that time than Brits and that was purely because a couple of them did well and teams thought, 'Aussie riders are doing well we better get some of them in'. Then Bradley or Cavendish come along and do a good job and the trend changes and I think now with Blyth, Swift, Stannard etc we are showing that we are not a sub-standard cycling nation we just hadn't had the opportunities and now we do".

Yanto was involved in ex-cricketer Matt Prior's cycling dream from the very
start.

Regarding the issue of races in Britain, I am of the opinion that British Cycling has been slow in capitalising on the popularity of cycling by providing more UCI ranked races, however Yanto is quick to challenge this assertion; "I think it would be really easy to point the finger and criticise but I wouldn't do that. Ultimately the success of cycling and the reason why it's booming now is down to riders like Bradley Wiggins and Geraint Thomas in the Worlds and the Olympics and that is largely down to Dave Brailsford and that is an enormous achievement. To say that they are slow I don't think is fair I just think that there is a lot to do. We're now seeing the trickle down of that investment in road and track cycling and winning the Tour de France can't hurt". But, there is a caveat to this as Yanto explains that if a team such as his were to increase their status from Continental to Pro Continental then they would eliminate themselves from 90% of the British calendar, "that's pointless if you're a British team with a British sponsor looking to do well in British races. There has been a glass ceiling on what team can expect to achieve but, thanks to SweetSpot, thanks to ASO for bringing the Tour de Yorkshire there are now more, and it's ever growing, events that would justify the sponsorship investment at a pro conti level. Also, as a pro conti team you would have a genuine chance at a spot at a Grand Tour which is massive".

He won the Lincoln GP on the British National Championship course last
year. Can he repeat that feat in the Nationals?

The reason why Yanto is such an interesting interviewee is because he approaches the sport from a number of different angles; firstly as an elite level rider but also as a businessman and, more recently, as a pundit. Many riders begin to turn to punditry towards the end of their careers but very few have been able to run a successful business alongside their racing, as Yanto has been able to with Le Col (lecol.net). "I hadn't got to a level that I was satisfied with by the age of 25 and I decide I didn't want to be a professional cyclist anymore if I wasn't going to be at the Tour de France or those races so I quit cycling and I didn't ride my bike for 18 months and I stopped competing for 3 years in total. During that time I was looking for other things and not having any qualifications at all I was trying to find stuff to do with cycling. I researched a number of different things and clothing was something that interested me". Although he started Le Col as something that he could do instead of cycling it has become an integral part of his cycling life, he provides, and races in, Le Col kit for the ONE pro cycling team and he personally tests all new products during his training time, "I truly believe that what we've designed isn't really out there yet and it started with me drawing designs on my kitchen table and then researching product development. Now, I go out training in the morning and testing the kit and then come home have something to eat and have a shower then I head into the office and spend the afternoon looking at spreadsheets and marketing plans which I enjoy". It's undeniable that the demographics of cyclists has changed and that has facilitated the creation of high end cycling equipment suppliers, "In the old days a cyclist was maybe a bit of a geek or a nerd and they liked to make their own components in the shed and they liked to save a couple of pence by patching up their inner tube rather than buying a new one but in general the demographics of cycling has changed and there are now a lot of people who have disposable income and are driven in their jobs and they bring that to cycling and want the best bike and the best kit and that is the market we cater too".

The Tour of Britain has been ever present in Yanto's calendar since 2004 but there's a note of caution when asked if he will be there this year, "If I get selected! This team is special in a number of ways and I have a story about just how competitive it is. In the Tour Series in Aberystwyth there was a 4 minute hill climb effort and we all went out at 30 second intervals and out of 5 of us I did a 4.06 and a personal all time power PB and I came last in the team". It seems that no matter the number of Elite Series victories and extraordinary rides in the Tour of Britain you might have, the ONE pro cycling team and the other British teams are nurturing a new class of Elite British riders that are stronger and faster than we have seen before.

Although that's the end of our time with Yanto Barker it wouldn't be a Bike Route Hub interview without the traditional 3 question cycling quiz to finish .

BRH: When you won the Perfs pedal race this year there were 4 team mates in the top 10, can you name them all?
YB: Yes, George Harper, Martin Bialoblocki, Chris Opie and........George Atkins (1-0 Yanto)

BRH: Who was the last man, other than Wiggins or Dowsett, to win the British National Time Trial championships?
YB: Ermm, is it Hutchinson? (2-0 Yanto!)

BRH: I'll give you a few either way on this one, by pro wins 2013 was Peter Sagan's best year, but how many did he have?
YB: I don't know the number but I'm going to say.....16? (2-1 Unfortunately it was 21 - still, the joint highest ever score though)

BRH: Thanks a lot for your time Yanto.
YB: Thank you!