falling off bikes since 1975

So says a kid on 2001: A Clockwork Orange by Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine.

Not a World Champion track cyclist. Not a world champion roadie. A world champion mountain biker.

In amongst all the fuss over the selection of the British Team for the Fort William World Championships the British Cycling apologists have made plenty of play of their remit being to win medals and that poor performances will lose them funding even if the riders weren’t sent by the BCF. What they have not told people is that only 50% of their remit is to win medals. The other 50% is to increase the number of cyclists. Leaving our best women at home was hardly ever going to set a fine example to young girls coming into the sport, or their parents who must provide them with support.

The BCF are not just so apathetic towards mountain biking, but actively against it - well how else do you account for them repeating the mistakes they made with the womens selection at the Commonwealth games unless you excuse it by sheer stupidity - that I can’t see them meeting their remit. Caving in to public opinion and then being all sanctimonious as if they’ve achieved something special doesn’t cut it. Frankly their behaviour is down at the level of the office twat who pushes you at the top of the stairs only to grab you and claim he saved you.

When the BCF swallowed the British Mountain Biking Federation there were those of us afraid that the men in blazers would not understand our sport. They have proved me right.

…but only men on skinny tyres get BCF approval

A year after the BCF swallowed the BMBF I let my racing licence lapse. In 2002 I rejoined on acount of my wife who, in a fit of keenness I’ve never understood and she has never repeated, decided she wanted to race. The BCF was hopeless. Could the point us at a fitness coach who understood mountain biking? No. Could they direct us towards a technical skills coach? No. It was apparent that they didn’t understand mountain biking. They have now made it clear that they still don’t. And this comes on top of their too late realisation that mountain biking had been shat upon by the Olympic Delivery Authority. Everyone else had been shouting about this for months - just how big are the BCF blinkers?

The time has come for all those mountain bikers who have been angered by the BCF Fort William selection policy to infiltrate the BCF and effect change from within. The current committee that fails to understand our sport must be replaced by one that does. There are people in Manchester who understand our sport - we must elevate them to positions of power. And if it comes to it we must find other people from outside the BCF prepared to replace the likes of Brian Cookson who have let this farce happen. He may argue that it was all the fault of committees and sub-committees and nothing to do with him. But the buck stops with him.

Brian Cookson needs to get a spine and either take some responsibility or kick some arse.

Update

I have just spoken to Paul West at British Cycling about membership.

Apparently it’s jobs for the boys at BCF headquarters not one man one vote. The National Committee are not voted for directly by BCF members, as they are in other sports organisations of which I am a member, but by their mates on the Regional Committees. The general membership is thus one step removed from voting these people off.

Paul West wasn’t prepared to discuss how this might be seen by the general public in an adult fashion. When I started to question the fairness of this system and explain how this looked undemocratic to me as a member of other organisations that exercise one member one vote he hung up the phone. I hope that sticking your fingers in their ears and singing “la la la” until problems go away is only Pauls problem, not an organisation wide issue. Sadly I fear the latter.

Maybe the time has come for a breakaway organisation instead.

There are precedents.