More Welsh school children are cycling than ever before

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Published: 20 October 2015

More Welsh school children are now taking part in cycling than ever before, as the third official School Sports Survey is launched by Sport Wales.

The new figures, which form part of a survey of over 116,000 Welsh school children making it the biggest survey of children carried out in the UK to date, show an increase in sports participation across the board with significant increases being reported for those pupils less likely to be hooked. In cycling, the survey revealed:

The number of pupils taking part in cycling in the last year has increased from 30.8% in 2013 to 40.2% in 2015
Cycling is now the fourth most popular activity amongst Welsh school children
Competitive cycling delivered within the curriculum in secondary schools has increased from 6.4% in 2013 to 11.3%
The latent demand for cycling increased from 26.98& in 2013 to 37.14% in 2015, with 37.34% of girls indicating they want to ride their bikes

National Development Manager, Georgina Harper is delighted with the increase in participation across Wales: “It’s fantastic to see that the enthusiasm for cycling is growing rapidly among young people, with it now ranking above Rugby for participation in Wales. We are now seeing 40.2% of youngsters participating in cycling across settings. Not only this, but latent demand to participate in cycling is higher than ever at 37% of young people. Cycling is unique among sports, in that it is a life skill, bringing together opportunities for sport, recreation and also transport.

Welsh Cycling can now look at fulfilling the demand to provide those opportunities for school children to take part in cycling working with local authorities and extending our Go Ride for Schools programme in to all corners of Wales. It is also fantastic to see that more girls want to take part in cycling, and as part of our SheCycles Wales programme and working with our partners we can get more girls hooked on cycling for life.”