Reade was primarily raised by her grandparents after her mother gave birth to her at the age of 17. She has credited her grandfather with giving her the self-confidence to achieve success in her cycling career.[4] Reade began racing in 1998 at the age of 10, at Tipkinder Park in Crewe. A local track operator named Bob Field, whose son also raced at the time, became her mentor.[5] She was previously a Track & Field enthusiast but apparently got bored with 100-metre sprint running and the Shot Put after five years in those sports before discovering BMX.[6][7]
BMX career to 2007
In 2005, she raced the National series with the men all year, despite being only 17 years old.[8][9] She commented on racing against men in a Descent World interview:
I am usually always top 3 when racing the guys. I have been racing them now for 2 years and I was almost the National Champion last year though had to settle for the No 2 spot. The boys in BMX are all cool, some spit their dummies out but I just let them get on with it! It's really quite fun to watch when I kick their booties..[10]
Reade fractured her knee two weeks before the UCI World Championships in July 2005 at a national event in England. She raced the World Championships with her knee wrapped up and on pain killers but crashed in the quarter-finals.[11]
Known for her power, she developed her strength racing against boys and older amateurs, including men up to the present time. She won her first professional race in the Girls Pro at the American Bicycle Association (ABA) Winternationals in Phoenix, Arizona on 1 April 2006. She also won the following day.[12] In 2006, she became British National No.1 in 19 & Over Elite Men after racing the National series with men all year, despite being only 17 at the time, 1.72 metres tall and 76 kg.
In June 2006, Reade broke a metatarsal bone in practice. Her first race back was the 2006 European Championships where she competed only in the last two race events before the final Event. The cast came off four days before the European Championships Final Event.[13]
She won the World Championships in Brazil in August 2006 despite an earlier injury to her foot.
Her BMX victories at junior level include three World, eight European and five British BMX championships. Reade is also a champion track racer, riding on Velodromes. In July 2007 she became the Women's Senior UCI BMX World Champion and at the 2007 UCI Track World Championships,[14] she won the gold in the women's team sprint with Victoria Pendleton. It was only her second track race ever.[15] Not only was she the first ever to win a track championship in her rookie year, she completed the feat after only six weeks of training.[16] She had originally taken up the sport to keep her fit for BMX competition.
Track racing
Reade started track racing on 24 February 2007, her first ever competition on the velodrome was in the Manchester round of the 2006–2007 UCI Track Cycling World Cup Classics. She took second place with Anna Blyth in the Team Sprint in a time of 34.294 seconds. The Gold Medal-winning Dutch team of Yvonne Hijgenaar and Willy Kanis' time was 33.966 seconds. Like Reade, Kanis is also a champion BMX racer. Reade and Blyth's qualifying time was the fastest of the event at 33.802 seconds. In the final round, the Dutch team made a false start, however, Reade didn't notice the call back to the start and completed a lap at full sprint. In a post race interview, Reade said:
"...The first run in the final (the false start) definitely took a lot out of me because I got halfway down the back straight the second time and my legs were burning bad. I could never have dreamed I'd come away with a Silver medal in my first World Cup though."[17]
A month later, on 29 March, Reade went on to take first place in Team Sprint at the UCI Track Cycling World Championships in Palma de Mallorca along with Victoria Pendleton.[18] It was also the first ever Women's Team Sprint Gold Medal title in that event. Their winning time was 33.631 seconds.[19] Reade was a last minute replacement for Anna Blyth,[20] Reade's partner at her first track racing event a month prior.
This success in Velodrome racing follows the example of the former professional BMX racer, Jamie Staff, who had a successful career both in Velodrome track racing and BMX racing. At the 2008 UCI Track Cycling World Championships in Manchester, she again won the gold in the women's team sprint with Pendleton. On 20 November 2007 Reade was named The Sunday Times Young Sportswoman of the Year.[21]
Olympic Games
Reade is still active in track racing but concentrated on BMX for the event's first inclusion in the Olympic Games in 2008. Having successfully defended her crown at the 2008 world championships,[22] Reade was named the sole woman member of the United Kingdom BMX Olympic team by British Cycling on 9 July 2008.[23] She was the favourite to win the gold medal in the women's BMX event.
She crashed in the first qualifying heat time trial, but the second heat saw Reade set second fastest time. As the best of both times was counted; she advanced to the semi-finals. They were run in three heats, with riders accumulating points dependent on placings. Despite crashing in the first heat, Reade gained enough points to put her through to the final. The final round saw Reade ride slightly more conservatively conceding the lead to Anne-Caroline Chausson on the first berm. She crashed again on the final berm when she clipped Chausson's rear wheel, conceding the chance of a medal. She did not finish the race.[24][25]
In April 2015 it was announced that Reade was re-joining the Great Britain track squad after a period based in the United States competing in BMX.[28] Subsequently, in August 2015 the Madison Genesis team announced that Reade would ride for them during the 2015–16 track cycling season as part of her preparation for the 2016 Summer Olympics.[29]
Olympics 2012
Reade again represented Great Britain in the women's BMX event for the London 2012 Olympics. Having placed second, first and second in the three heat semi-final she finished a disappointing sixth in the final.[30]
Retirement and comeback
In April 2017 Reade announced her retirement from competition,[31] after she had been dropped from British Cycling's elite squad: in a 2021 interview she said this had forced her into retirement as British Cycling's medical team believed that she would not be able to compete at the Tokyo Olympics as she had had her shoulder operated on five times.[4]
After her retirement she became a fitness coach. However, the period after her retirement was marked by a bout of alcoholism and weight gain, which she was able to recover from after joining Alcoholics Anonymous.[4] In August 2018 she returned to training at British Cycling, after being invited several times by performance director Stephen Park. In a January 2019 interview, Reade explained that she was returning to competition for "closure" after feeling that her physical and mental condition were sub-optimal at the time of her retirement, adding that she was now treating the sport as a hobby and not accepting funding for her cycling.[32] That month she won the British National Team Sprint Championships alongside Blaine Ridge-Davis - her first national title in any discipline.[33] However, a few days afterwards she was ruled out of selection for the 2019 UCI Track Cycling World Championships due to a rule changed which required competitors at the world championships to have competed in that season's World Cup: the team sprint squad that Team GB sent to the world championships was unable to secure qualification for the Olympics in the event. Reade subsequently retired from competition for a second time. She has stated that she was subsequently approached by the British Bobsleigh and Skeleton Association to enquire whether she would consider competing in bobsleigh with a view to being part of the British squad at the 2022 Winter Olympics, but that she had turned them down.[4]
Aside from fitness coaching, she also serves as West Midlands cycling and walking ambassador, and also acts as a brand ambassador for a number of companies including HSBC.[4] In 2020 she was appointed as a co-opted member of the board of directors for the 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships in Glasgow[34] and in June 2021 she was also announced as an ambassador for the 2023 Worlds.[35]
Elite Women Supercross World Cup Champion – This was the "Good Luck, Beijing" race held on 22 August 2007 on the Olympic track in Beijing, China exactly 362 days before BMX Olympic competition started in Beijing.[36]
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