A BMX History Library chapter · United Kingdom section

Kelvin Batey

A Warsop kid who raced for twenty-nine years, counted every title he ever won, and got closer to an Olympic Games than almost anyone who never went

Legend Bike Co · BMX heritage series

Ask most long-career racers how many titles they have and you get a shrug and a round number. Ask Kelvin Batey and you get four figures with the cruiser count broken out.

Ten amateur British Championships, three of them on cruiser. Eleven Elite British Championships, three on cruiser. Eleven amateur National titles, four on cruiser. Eight Elite National titles, three on cruiser. He gave those numbers to the British BMX Hall of Fame in 2020 and explained why he knew them: they mean more once you retire, because you cannot win any more of them.

That is forty titles. It is also, on its own, a misleading way to introduce him, because the thing his career keeps circling back to is the races he did not win.

Warsop

Batey was born on 9 May 1981 in Market Warsop, a former colliery town in Nottinghamshire. He started racing in February 1988, at six years old, at Nottingham Outlaws. He still has the trophy.

The local track at Warsop is the thing he talks about most warmly, and he is clear about why. It was walking distance from the house, it produced riders, and it produced them in numbers the results sheets never showed. His own estimate is that another ten or fifteen kids who rode there were good enough for National finals and simply never had the means to get to the races. That sentence is worth more than most title lists in this library. It is what the grassroots actually looked like.

His younger brother Liam raced too. The winter after Batey's first season, their father put him on a training program — track, gates, sprints, circuit work at the local boxing gym — that would not look out of place in a modern academy. He won his first British Championship and his first National title the following year. The two of them raced without peaks on their helmets, initially because a Yes helmet visor kept dropping into Batey's eyeline and they just took it off, and the Superclass pros of the day nicknamed them the Bullet Brothers.

Dale Holmes came down to Warsop regularly through Batey's mid-teens for gate sessions. That is how a Nottinghamshire kid learns to leave a gate.

1991: Slough and Norway

Two second places in one season, at ten years old, in the two biggest events on the calendar.

At the European Championships at Slough in 1991 he could not get across from an outside gate and finished second behind Gareth Bates. At the World Championships in Norway the same year his bottom bracket came loose before his semi-final; he borrowed Stephen Murray's bike, qualified fourth, and then led the final until Benoit Duployer of France came up his inside in the last turn. Second again.

His Wulfsport team — run by Tony Edgworth, with Batey, his brother Liam, Nick Gill, Scott Beaumont, Kerry Edgworth, Scott Edgworth and Claire Rees — finished second in the team standings at that Worlds.

It is also the meet where he watched Christophe Leveque win the Elite final from gate eight and where a teenage Dylan Clayton put in a lap Batey still describes as effortless.

Brighton, 1996

The 1996 UCI BMX World Championships in Brighton is the event a whole generation of British riders names as the best they ever attended, and Batey is one of them. He rode both bikes as the youngest in the 15 to 16 age group. He took third in cruiser, behind Michael Deldycke and George Andrews, having crashed hard in the quarter and taken a knock to the head on the way through. In the 20-inch final he hit the gate and finished fifth.

Turning pro at sixteen

He turned professional in 1997. His first Superclass race was the British Championships at Peterborough, two days after picking up his GCSE results. The final he made included Dale Holmes, Martin Murray, Scott Burston, Dylan Clayton, Stephen Murray and Geth Shooter. He rode 4, 4, 3 across the three laps and finished fourth overall.

1998 broke his collarbone at the World Championships in Australia after being cut off in the quarter. He had an operation, lost the national season, got himself fit enough to race cruiser, and won the cruiser class at the Slough British Championships to finish the year.

In 1999 he went to the Worlds at Vallet in France and came away with fourth in cruiser and third in the Junior 20-inch final — a world bronze, sharing the podium with Dan Shanahan and Steve Larralde. Five riders from the GT world team made that Junior final. He came home and won his home national at Mansfield in August 1999, his first professional win, taking the last main by tracking Dylan Clayton to the final corner, running a wider line for speed, and coming past on the rhythm section to tie on points and take it on count back. British Cycling made him BMX Rider of the Year.

Titles, and the years the body took

The 2000s are where the domestic tally gets built, and where the injury list gets long.

He was Elite Cruiser National Champion in 2000, then Elite Men and Elite Cruiser National Champion in 2001 — the 20-inch one clinched at Bournemouth. A week later he wrecked his wrist at the opening of the new Harworth track: break, dislocation and a broken scaphoid. Season over.

In May 2002, riding four-cross at the NEC Bike Show for Revell, he crashed over the first jump alongside the downhill racer Steve Peat and broke his femur. He was told six months. He was on rollers at three weeks and racing at Coppull three months later, and in September he won the last national of the year at Peterborough. He calls it one of the most satisfying wins of his career, on the grounds that in May he could not walk.

Then the run: 2003 Elite Men National Champion, Elite Men British Champion and Elite Men No Clips Champion. 2004 Elite Men National Champion and No Clips Champion. 2005 Elite Men National Champion and British Champion. British Champion again in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010, with National titles in 2009.

Elite Cruiser, and the Worlds he could not crack

At the 2005 UCI BMX World Championships in Paris he took silver in Elite Cruiser. The final ran at eleven at night, on a schedule that had the 20-inch racing starting at eight the next morning. He was third going into the last turn when the two riders ahead of him crashed and one of their bikes caught his back wheel. He did not get back to the hotel until half past two, did not sleep, and rode the 20-inch on adrenaline. Not one rider from that cruiser final made the 20-inch semis the following day.

At the 2007 Worlds in Canada he got back on the cruiser and took bronze in Elite Cruiser, off the back of a winter in which he had broken both wrists at the Frejus Supercross and nearly quit.

The one gap he names himself: he never made an Elite 20-inch world final. At Brazil in 2006 he was riding well enough to, and went down with three others on the way to the first jump in the semi.

2008

Between 2005 and 2008, qualifying for Beijing was the whole plan. Great Britain had no automatic place; the country needed points, and Batey's read of the criteria was that it would come down to one day at the 2008 World Championships in China. He rode it. He got the place.

Then British Cycling added a trial.

What followed is documented at length in Batey's own account to the British BMX Hall of Fame, and the short version is ugly. A month of contradictory messages while he was told to say nothing publicly. A confrontation at the velodrome with Shane Sutton over expenses for the China trip, which Batey says left him standing there taking it because Sutton was one of four people deciding whether he went to the Games. A trial in Aigle, Switzerland, against Liam Phillips, Marcus Bloomfield and Laurence Mapp, postponed three times — rain, a crash, and one morning when nobody could find the keys to get the start gate out.

When the trial finally ran, Batey won the time trial. In the first race his front wheel hit a soft patch on a take-off and he was knocked unconscious. Three cracked ribs and a lung contusion. The trial was abandoned mid-way and resumed days later in Manchester-approved form: two time trials, points carried over, Batey needing to win both from behind. Liam Phillips beat his time. Phillips went to Beijing. Batey took the reserve place and did not watch the Games.

Days after the Olympics he raced the British Championships at Peterborough and won. He calls it the most meaningful lap he ever rode.

Ireland

He left the Great Britain squad. The route back to international racing came from an unlikely direction: his mother had been adopted at birth, and in 2006, after her adoptive mother died, she traced her natural parents to Limerick. The reunion did not go well. The ancestry was real all the same.

Batey declared for Ireland, and it landed at the moment a handful of people were trying to restart the sport there. He ran the Route 55 team from 2009 to 2013, brought young Irish riders onto it, and describes it as one of the things he is proudest of — riders who arrived unknown and left as national champions.

He aimed at London 2012 the same way he had aimed at Beijing: points, at the World Championships, which that year were in Birmingham. It came down to his third moto. Fifth would have put him into the quarters and Ireland into the Games. He was fourth, got collected in a coming-together in the second turn, got up for seventh, and finished fifth overall in the moto. The last country to take one of the six available places did it on last-moto count back. He missed by that.

He has said it was the closest he ever came to quitting.

Masters: the four-year plan

What pulled him back was watching a video of the 2012 Worlds in Birmingham and seeing Javier Colombo cross the line first in the Masters class looking as pleased as he had when he won the Elite title. Batey made a four-year plan: win three Masters world titles, then take one more run at Olympic qualification in 2016, at thirty-five.

In 2013, at the UCI BMX World Championships in Auckland, New Zealand, he won three qualifying rounds, came through the quarter and semi, and won the Masters final ahead of Dorus Brink of the Netherlands and Luke Pretlove of Australia. It was Ireland's first BMX world title, and he had funded the trip himself as the country's only rider at the event. His line afterward: it had taken twenty-five years, and it was worth the wait.

He took Masters silver in 2014, and in 2015 at Zolder, Belgium he won the Masters title again. Cycling Ireland gave him a lifetime achievement award in November 2014.

The last goal was the one that got away. After Zolder in 2015 he set out to finish the season as UK Elite National Champion, which would have made him the oldest rider to do it and taken Dale Holmes' record. He needed two finals finishes at the closing rounds in Birmingham. On day one he was third in the main when he went up to avoid a rider ahead of him, came down on his knee, and tore his posterior cruciate ligament. Season over, record gone. He never got the strength back, went to the 2016 Worlds in Colombia chasing Rio anyway, rode 4-4-5, and did not qualify.

The last lap

He raced once in 2017: the British Championships. In the main he crashed with a young Kye Whyte, got up, and finished the lap to a reception he still talks about. It was the only time his daughter Evie saw him race.

He had been racing since February 1988. That is twenty-nine seasons.

He worked as a PE teacher at Winterhill School in Rotherham, and now works with young people in schools, colleges and universities and runs BMX coaching sessions. His brother Liam Batey, once a top British rider himself, went on to a career as a poker player.

Where the record runs thin

Timeline

• 9 May 1981 — born in Market Warsop, Nottinghamshire.
• February 1988 — first race, Nottingham Outlaws, age six.
• 1990 to 1992 — rides for Wulfsport with brother Liam. Team second at the 1991 Worlds in Norway.
• 1991 — second at the European Championships, Slough, behind Gareth Bates. Second at the World Championships in Norway, on Stephen Murray's borrowed bike.
• 1993 to 1999 — Dyno, then GT UK, then Giant, then GT Europe.
• 1996 — third in cruiser and fifth on 20-inch at the World Championships in Brighton.
• 1997 — turns professional at sixteen. Fourth in the Superclass final at the British Championships, Peterborough.
• 1998 — broken collarbone at the Worlds in Australia; comes back to win cruiser at the Slough British Championships.
• 1999 — world bronze, Junior 20-inch, and fourth in cruiser at Vallet. First professional win at Mansfield in August. British Cycling BMX Rider of the Year.
• 2000 to 2002 — rides for Haro UK. Elite Cruiser National Champion 2000. Elite Men and Elite Cruiser National Champion 2001, then a wrist break at Harworth.
• May 2002 — breaks his femur in a four-cross crash at the NEC Bike Show. Wins the Peterborough national in September.
• 2003 to 2005 — rides for One Bicycles. National, British and No Clips titles across those seasons.
• 2005 — silver, Elite Cruiser, UCI BMX World Championships, Paris.
• 2007 — bronze, Elite Cruiser, UCI BMX World Championships, Canada. South Yorkshire Sports Personality of the Year; runner-up, BBC North Male Sports Personality of the Year.
• May to July 2008 — secures the Great Britain Olympic place at the Worlds in China, then loses the internal trial in Aigle to Liam Phillips after being knocked unconscious. Takes the reserve slot.
• August 2008 — wins the British Championships at Peterborough days after the Beijing Games.
• 2009 to 2013 — runs the Route 55 team. Declares for Ireland.
• 2012 — misses London Olympic qualification on last-moto count back at the World Championships in Birmingham.
• 2013 — Masters world champion, Auckland, New Zealand. Ireland's first BMX world title.
• November 2014 — Masters world silver; Cycling Ireland lifetime achievement award.
• 2015 — Masters world champion, Zolder, Belgium. Tears his PCL at Birmingham in August chasing the Elite National title and Dale Holmes' age record.
• 2016 — final Olympic attempt at the Worlds in Colombia. Rides 4-4-5. Does not qualify.
• 2017 — last race, the British Championships. Crashes with Kye Whyte in the main and finishes the lap.

Where this sits in the bigger story

British BMX has a habit of remembering the riders who got the one big result and forgetting the ones who were there every single year. Batey was there every single year, from Thatcher-era Warsop to the season Kye Whyte turned up in an elite main. He raced Stephen Murray and Geth Shooter and Dylan Clayton in Superclass in 1997, trained in Huntington Beach alongside Neal Wood, Brian Foster, Robbie Miranda and Christophe Leveque, sat in the first Great Britain Olympic squad with Shanaze Reade and Liam Phillips, and finished up on the same start hill as the generation that finally won Britain an Olympic BMX medal.

He did most of the second half of it while working full time, with no federation support, and still won British Championships. That is the part of the record worth keeping.

Sources

British BMX Hall of Fame, "Interview — Kelvin Batey," britishbmxhalloffame.com, 1 May 2020 — the February 1988 start at Nottingham Outlaws, the four title totals with cruiser broken out, the Warsop scene and the riders who never made it to nationals, his father's winter training program, the Bullet Brothers nickname and the missing helmet peaks, Wulfsport under Tony Edgworth and the team's second place at the 1991 Worlds, second at Slough behind Gareth Bates, second in Norway on Stephen Murray's borrowed bike, third in cruiser and fifth on 20-inch at Brighton 1996, the 1997 Peterborough Superclass final and the riders in it, the 1998 collarbone in Australia and the Slough cruiser win, the 1999 Vallet results and the Mansfield count-back win, the 2001 Bournemouth title and the Harworth wrist, the 2002 femur break with Steve Peat and the Peterborough comeback win, the Fox No-Clips series and its prize money, the Paris 2005 cruiser silver and the eleven o'clock final, the 2006 Brazil semi-final crash, the 2007 Canada cruiser bronze, the full 2008 Olympic qualification and trial account including Aigle, the switch to Ireland and the Limerick ancestry, the Route 55 team, the 2012 Birmingham count back, the Masters four-year plan and the Javier Colombo moment, the 2015 PCL injury and the Dale Holmes record attempt, the 2016 Colombia Worlds, and the 2017 final race with Kye Whyte. Sticky Bottle, "More than two decades in the making, Ireland's Kelvin Batey takes BMX World Champs gold," 2013 — the Auckland Masters final ahead of Dorus Brink and Luke Pretlove, Ireland's first BMX world title, the self-financed trip, and his own quote about the twenty-five-year wait. Sticky Bottle, 2015 report on the Zolder Worlds — the second Masters title and the note that he declared for Ireland in 2010. Wikipedia, "Kelvin Batey" — date and place of birth, the sponsor and team chronology from Invert Magazine and Wulfsport through to GET Racing, the year-by-year list of British Cycling BMX national and British titles from 2000 to 2010, the 1998 Junior Men European title, the 1999 junior world bronze, the Elite Cruiser world medals, the 2013 and 2015 Masters world titles and 2014 silver, the injury list, the British Cycling BMX Rider of the Year award for 1999, the 2007 South Yorkshire and BBC North awards, the Cycling Ireland lifetime achievement award of November 2014, and the teaching post at Winterhill School.

Attempted and unreachable at the time of research: the British BMX Hall of Fame rankings archive at britishbmxhalloffame.com/rankings/, which carries UKBMX, NBMXA, BBMXA, EBA and BCF national rankings from 1981 to 2005 and would itemize the amateur titles counted above. It timed out repeatedly.

Last reviewed: August 2026. Kelvin Batey is living. He was interviewed at length in May 2020 and no source consulted records otherwise.