Popular Sheffield Bank View Cafe honoured with award by cyclist customers

Pete Sparks outside the Bank View Cafe in Langsett, which doubles up as a polling station during elections

Bank View Cafe in Langsett, near Stocksbridge, has received a lifetime achievement award in Cycling UK’s Cyclist Cafe of the Year awards.

The awards, now in their second year, invite cyclists in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales to choose their favourite haunts for their pre, mid and post-ride coffee and cake.

Cafes which have been serving cyclists for longer than 20 years are also considered for a lifetime achievement award.

Bank View Cafe more has been serving South Yorkshire’s cyclists since its doors opened back in 1900, initially to serve the nearby reservoir’s workers.

The cafe is located at one end of the Strines and is popular with both road and mountain bikers.

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You can’t miss the cafe, as the outside is painted in red polka dots in honour of the King of the Mountains jersey awarded to the best riders up the hills and mountains in the Tour de France.

Owner Pete Sparks painted them on using a dustbin lid as a template in preparation for when the Tour passed his doors in 2014.

Several cafes were nominated for the award, but for Cycling UK’s competition judges, which included TV presenter and former Celebrity Masterchef winner Angellica Bell, there could be only one winner.

Angellica visited the cafe to present the award and in the process was taught how to make parkin.

She said: “For everything you do for the community and for making this an amazing cycling hub, I want to say a massive congratulations to Pete and everyone at Bank View Cafe!”

Pete Sparks is keen that all visitors feel at home at Bank View.

“It’s a space where everyone can relax,” he said. “We’re a little bit scruffy around the edges because we do get dogs shaking themselves off in the doorway, cyclists coming in the middle of winter draping their clothes on the radiators to dry, and it’s the countryside so we do get muddy boots!

“We don’t turn anyone around. We’re not fussy like that. We try to make it a warm, welcoming space.

“I think it’s great we get so many cyclists coming out no matter the weather.”