NEWS: The Pedal Club Lunch — September with Jez Cox

The Pedal Club’s speaker for September was Jez Cox, a former competitor in cycling and duathlon, who is now a commentator and presenter. He is freelance and has worked for all the leading sports channels including GCN, Eurosport and ASO.

NEWS: The Pedal Club Lunch — September with Jez Cox
by Chris Lovibond

Chris writes …. The club’s speaker for September was Jez Cox, a former competitor in cycling and duathlon, who is now a commentator and presenter. He is freelance and has worked for all the leading sports channels including GCN, Eurosport and ASO.

Jez’s cycling career started at the age of thirteen with the Twickenham CC where he came under the wing of Graham Macnamee and the Pedal Club’s former president Doug Collins. Starting in cyclo cross, he moved on to road racing and by 1998 he was racing in France with the CO Chamalieres, an elite team, where he achieved good results.

By 2003, he had returned to Britain to compete in duathlons (bike and run), a discipline which suited him very well since he had many victories over the next decade, including being ranked as the top British duathlete in 2007.

But no one can be a professional athlete until reaching pension age and by good fortune Jez found a new metier at the Rebourne (Hertfordshire) fete where, in the absence of any other speaker, he was handed the microphone and discovered that he was a natural as a presenter; his commentating career developed from this moment.

Alongside his journalism, in 2015 he set up a cycling academy in St Albans (Oaklands Wolves Cycling Academy). When he suggested this project to British Cycling he was told it was doomed to failure and this made him determined to prove them wrong. Perhaps BC didn’t know that he already had his foot in the door at Oaklands College, having done some consultancy work for them, but it is impressive that the academy is now flourishing nine years after its foundation.

Unlike many other speakers (with the exception of John Dutton!) Jez was relatively optimistic about the current state of British Cycling. He feels that the departure of Team Sky has benefited the organisation, that the strong growth of women’s racing is an important advance and he believes it will be possible to bring at least some of the middle aged ‘mamils’ into cycling proper. Another hope is that facilities already existing in schools could be better used by the cycling world.

Perhaps the most encouraging point for the Pedal Club is that this career started from an ‘old fashioned’ local club (the Twickenham CC, founded 1893 has produced many stars in the past). The great majority of Pedal Club members started in this way, and I’m sure we were all pleased to hear that this path can still lead to success in the twenty-first century.

The Lunch was again held at the Civil Service Club in Whitehall and was attended by 34 members and guests.

Chris Lovibond, September 2024.