Brother UK Neutral Service supports the 2021 Tour of Britain

The return of the Tour of Britain this Sunday after a Covid-enforced hiatus of nearly two years excites me as a fan of the sport. More importantly, it reassures me as an event sponsor and encourages me as a citizen keen to see our towns and cities recover from lockdown.?

Brother UK began sponsoring the Tour of Britain in 2014. In 2016, we became the Official Print and Results partner. This year, at the request of Sweetspot Group, the race organisers, our Neutral Service p/b Brother UK in-race support crews will form a critical part of the race convoy.

Our association with Britain’s most prestigious bike race is part of a broader partnership with SweetSpot that includes The Women’s Tour and The Tour Series. More significantly, it is part of a deeper commitment to British road racing that places us at the side of rising stars and tireless volunteers.?

Put simply, few other sporting events come close to matching its impact. Far from being enclosed in a stadium or even confined to rural backwaters, The Tour of Britain boldly claims centre stage in our towns and cities: Warrington, Gateshead, Edinburgh and Aberdeen this year, to name just a few.?

The branding opportunities are vast.

The opportunity to embed our name and motto in the imagination of the hundreds of thousands of spectators who line the route and fill the start and finish towns is extremely valuable. Brother becomes indelibly linked in their memories with the excitement of the race.?

Put simply, The Tour of Britain is a genuine spectacle. It reaches the broadest demographic, from school children to pensioners. People come out in their droves, glimpse the peloton and become intoxicated by its speed of colour. The good times roll alongside the riders, and Brother is at their side.?

The final stage of the 2019 Tour of Britain (incredibly, its most recent stage, despite being held almost exactly two years ago) delivered an unforgettable finish on Manchester’s Deansgate, having passed through the city’s ten boroughs. Cityscapes, however, offer only one canvas, and the live audience is only one demographic.?

This year’s Grand Départ in Penzance takes the riders along the stunning Cornish Riviera. Stage five includes the Peak District. Stage six passes through the Lake District and the Pennines. As a moving postcard, the daily national television coverage on ITV4 takes some beating. The brand exposure is powerful too.?

Typically, the television audience for a bike race is more engaged with the sport than the crowds at the roadside. Rather than being drawn by the spectacle and the prospect of an enjoyable day out, they are die-hard fans of the racing: knowledgeable, passionate and likely also to be cyclists.

This demographic is key to Brother UK. Our detailed research tells us that this audience is comprised largely of senior professionals. In the case of those who work as business managers in large-scale public organisations and, more specifically, as decision makers and business owners, are exactly the people we aim to reach.??

Our commitment to ‘their’ sport is made real by our sponsorship of The Tour of Britain. This year, that connection will be clearer than ever with the presence in the convoy of our Neutral Service p/b Brother UK in-race crews and their distinctive vehicles, smartly liveried in black and white.?

My goal in beginning our cycle sponsorship nearly a decade ago by revolutionising the standard of neutral service provision at top-tier domestic road races was to create the ultimate moving metaphor. The connection between our At Your Side motto and the rapid, technical interventions of our support crews is unmistakable.

Stepping up to support the eighteen professional teams competing in this year’s Tour of Britain has been no small task. Working closely with Tony Barry, our vastly experienced neutral service manager, we've created a highly detailed spreadsheet listing every technical permutation that we are likely to encounter supporting such a prestigous race.

The task has been complicated by the supply chain issues rife in the bicycle industry since lockdown and the vast array of proprietary standards. From disc brake rotors to cassettes, the permutations can seem endless, but with detailed pre-planning, we’ve anticipated almost every challenge that might come our way.

Note my use of the word “almost”. Professional sport is gloriously unpredictable. Who could have imagined Chris Froome jogging up the Mont Ventoux at the 2016 Tour de France? Or Primoz Roglic losing what had seemed an almost certain victory in the same race on the penultimate stage last year?

Of course, our neutral service crews will face pressure at this year’s Tour of Britain, especially if called upon to support one of the peloton’s superstars at a critical moment of the race. But with the most detailed planning and by providing the best equipment, we minimise the risk.?

We do so knowing that the benefits of The Tour of Britain extend beyond our marketing goals. As a responsible business, we play an active role in our local and regional communities. As a company headquartered in Manchester for more than 50 years, we’ve seen the effects of lockdown first-hand.

Now, more than ever, local authorities are desperate to kickstart their local economies. Stage five of this year’s Tour of Britain will bring its economic impact home to me, almost literally. As a resident of Cheshire, I’m keenly aware of the recent multi-million-pound investments made in nearby Warrington.?

How better to celebrate the local authority’s investment than with a stage finish in front of Warrington’s famous golden gates? The economic benefits are likely to extend beyond the town centre to the businesses that line a route through Cheshire’s ‘golden triangle’, into the Peak District, and back into Warrington.

The Tour of Britain is more than a bike race. It is a sporting spectacle, economic engine and brand awareness tool. Brother UK will be at its side again this year - literally, in the case of our Neutral Service p/b Brother UK support crews. I couldn’t be more excited.?

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