Born in Rossington, Doncaster, South Yorkshire, Briggs initially played football as a youngster before switching to cycling, initially off-road as a cyclo-cross rider and then the discipline of mountain biking, until the foot and mouth crisis of 2001. He competed for Great Britain in the Under-23 road race at the 2003 UCI Road World Championships in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The majority of his road racing career has been spent in city centre competitions leading to successes in the Elite Circuit Race Series in recent years.