The governing body for time trialling in the UK has spelled out in the most explicit terms yet just how important embracing road bikes has been for the sport.
Time trialling had been facing “catastrophic collapse” when the strategy was launched back in 2022, Cycling Time Trials (CTT) wrote in its newly released annual report.
UK time trialling in numbers
37.95%: total entries on road bikes (up from 16.99% in 2022)
19.4%: new riders who are women
76.05%: new riders in open events who choose road bikes
586: total number of events (down from 744 in 2022)
28,784: total number of time trial rides (down from 37,185 in 2022)
1,142: number of clubs affiliated with CTT (down from 1,290 in 2024)
Open events are those that are open to all as opposed to club events which are broadly restricted to those within that club. The number of these had actually risen in 2025, Parish revealed, although those figures were not available at the time of writing.
There was work to be done, said Parish, who plans to take a ‘ground-up’ approach to addressing falling numbers.
“Where I would like to really push the growth is in club events,” she told CW. “Because you can either enter club events and that’s all you do. But that’s also where people are ‘found’. You think about Hayley [Simmonds]. She started off doing club events. People can graduate from that.”
She added: “I would be very happy if the number of open events stabilised and we simply had more clubs who were interested in running club events, because for me, that’s the entry point. That’s where the real base is. I think if you can grow that, it strikes me that the rest might just follow.”
The report also paid homage to off-road and gravel time trials, explaining that while they were already sanctioned by CTT, the organisation was currently finalising an off-road toolkit for clubs who wished to promote them.
The report said this would mean “every club can confidently stage them under the CTT banner. With gravel and off-road cycling booming nationally, this is a readymade, low-cost, high-appeal avenue for clubs to attract new members and riders who may never consider traditional road time trialling.”
This year put time trialling in the UK on a firm footing, Parish said, laying the groundwork for community engagement and reconnecting with clubs – “the bells and whistles” – that she envisaged for 2026.
