Future of cycling racing is looking rosier …

British Cycling president Brian Cookson will lead the UCI for the next four years following a UCI Congress at Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio replete with plot and intrigue the likes of which the historic building has not witnessed since the power struggles of the republican faction and the Medici family at the turn of the 16th Century. He defeated incumbent president by 24 votes to 18, a resounding margin in the light of earlier expectations that the vote would be too close to call.

The events that formed the background to that historical period underpinned Machiavell’s Prince, written 500 years ago this year, and today Cookson acted on advice from the Flornetine statesman, who once had an office in this very building, in that work – “It is better to be impetuous than cautious” – as he cut short arguments between delegates regarding the validity or otherwise of McQuaid’s nomination and suggested they go straight to a vote on the presidency.

Speaking after his victory, Cookson said: “It is a huge honour to have been elected President of the UCI by my peers and I would like to thank them for the trust they have placed in me today.

“I have said throughout my campaign that we must embrace a new style of governance and a collegiate way of working so that a new era of growth and commercial success for the UCI and our sport can begin.

“My first priorities as President will be to make anti-doping procedures in cycling fully independent, sit together with key stakeholders in the sport and work with WADA to ensure a swift investigation into cycling’s doping culture.

“It is by doing these things that we will build a firm platform to restore the reputation of our International Federation with sponsors, broadcasters, funding partners, host cities and the International Olympic Committee.

“Ultimately this is how we grow our sport worldwide and get more riders and fans drawn into cycling.”

By acceding to the top spot at the UCI, Cookson will have to step down as president of British Cycling, the organisation he help rescue from the brink of bankruptcy in 1997.

“My election as President of the world cycling federation – the UCI – means that I can no longer continue as President of British Cycling,” he went on.

“I am sorry to leave an organisation which I have seen make extraordinary progress over the last 16 years, but I am absolutely thrilled to be given the opportunity to bring about the changes that cycling needs worldwide.

“I know that I am moving on from British Cycling with the organisation in fantastic shape, and I am already looking forward to the challenges ahead as President of the UCI.”

Earlier, delegates had voted 21-21 on whether or not to adopt the controversial proposed change to the UCI Constitution that would have allowed a presidential candidate to be nominated by any two national federations.

That amendment, proposed in July by the Malaysian national federation and intended to be backdated to apply to today’s election, would have meant that McQuaid would automatically have been eligible to stand for today’s vote; having had nominations from Cycling Ireland and Swiss Cycling withdrawn, he has since been nominated by the Thai and Moroccan federations.

McQuaid insisted that he is a member of both those federations and that his nominations by each were made before the 29 June deadline and comply with the UCI’s Constitution – or at least, his interpretation of it, backed up by a legal opinion obtained by the UCI from international law firm Baker & McKenzie.

After hearing a lawyer explain why McQuaid’s nomination was believed to be valid, delegates rose to speak for or against it and the issue was due to go to a vote on whether the incumbent president could stand until Cookson made his dramatic intervention and suggested they should go straight to the issue of determining who should be president for the next four years.

It was a gamble, one that paid opff handsomely, and one that Machiavelli, who had in his mind when writing the prince an ideal ruler who could unite an Italy torn apart by factional in-fighting and threats from outside, would have approved of.

What is needed to save the name of cycling: no 1 get rid of the current UCI nincompoop Mc*Quaid

 

British Cycling president Brian Cookson has attacked incumbent UCI president Pat McQuaid over an attempt to change the rules governing the nomination of candidates for the top job at the UCI, world cycling’s governing body.

Cookson, who is standing against McQuaid in the UCI presidential election scheduled for September 27, said: “The efforts to change the nomination and electoral process announced last night on behalf of the UCI director general are a clear sign of desperation from the incumbent President, Pat McQuaid.

“This latest twist appears to be nothing more than a fraught attempt to undemocratically and unconstitutionally impact on the process while it is underway.

McQuaid seeks nomination

McQuaid secured a nomination from the Swiss cycling federation after his own home federation, Ireland, voted not to nominate him. That nomination is being challenged in the Swiss courts. The UCI insists this is permitted, but three Swiss Cycling members, Swiss national coach Kurt Buergi, former Swiss Cycling board member Mattia Galli and ex-pro Patrick Calcagni have filed a complaint which will be heard on August 22.

If their complaint is upheld, then McQuaid’s only hope of nomination is the proposed rule change, which will allow any two federations to nominate a presidential candidate and which will be applied retrospectively if it is accepted at the UCI Congress on September 27.

The rule change

The change was explained to UCI Congress members in a letter yesterday from Christophe Hubschmid, director general of the UCI management committee. In that letter, Hubschmid said: “The Malaysian Federation and Asian Continental Confederation state that their aim is to reinforce the independence of future UCI presidents by ensuring they are able to carry out the role based on serving the global interests of cycling, independently from those of any single nominating national federation.”

A press release from the UCI explained:

“As national federations are being informed about this proposal after the original deadline to nominate presidential candidates has passed, as a transitional provision, for the 2013 Presidential elections only, the new amendment also proposes to allow any two national federations to put forward candidates from now until a deadline of Friday 30 August 2013 at 12:00 CEST. These nominations will then become valid if the motion is subsequently approved at Congress.”

Cookson astonished

Brian Cookson expressed astonishment at this development, saying: “It is surely completely out of order to allow a proposal to change an electoral procedure once that procedure is underway. These proposals should never have been permitted onto the agenda.

“In addition to this, which I can only describe as an attempt to change the rules during the game, I note with astonishment that Pat McQuaid is now shown on the election papers as being nominated by three federations.

“The Constitution is quite clear that candidates should be nominated by their own federation. Pat is shown with the designation (IRL) next to his name but, as is well known, Cycling Ireland withdrew his nomination.”

“I have asked the Director General how and why has Pat been given this opportunity?

“It now also appears that any two national federations are to be allowed to make further nominations for the presidency before a new deadline of 30th August, even though under the provisions of the UCI constitution nominations actually closed on 30th June. What sort of organisation attempts to rewrite the rules once an election has actually begun – it smacks of attempted dictatorship.”

Abuse of power

The Swiss case against McQuaid’s nomination is being sponsored by the compression clothing company Skins, whose chairman Jaimie Fuller founded reform group Change Cycling Now and has been one of the most vocal critics of McQuaid and the previous actions of the UCI.

Fuller is not impressed by the attempt to change the UCI rules.

“The latest actions from UCI president Pat McQuaid are those of a desperate man trying to hold onto his dwindling power base,” he said. “This abuse of process and power are unheard of in sports administration circles and his tactics most resemble those of Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe.”

UCI management committee member Mike Plant said he believes that with the intense scrutiny the UCI is currently under, this rule change would further undermine the organisation’s standing.

UCI credibility further destroyed

In a letter to Christophe Hubschmid, Plant wrote: “The timing of this significant change to the Presidential nomination process, less than 60 days from a very contested, globally visible and important election is unconscionable, unethical, dishonest, unprofessional, manipulative and destructive.”

Plant pointed out the level of interest in this election and went on: “Now we are going to change the rules at the 11th hour before this historic election? Does anyone really think the vast majority of our stakeholders, constituencies, fans, media, etc. are going to accept this as a small administrative governance change?

“One month ago, we received the results of the stakeholder study.  Over 7,000 respondents overwhelmingly told us that we must restore the credibility in the UCI and its leadership. For the life of me, I cannot see how making this significant change to the nomination process, on the morning of the election will do anything less than further destroy the current reputation and credibility of how this organisation is currently being governed and managed.”

 

British Road Cycling Championship – quick patch it up

The British road cycling championship takes place next month in Glasgow – 23rd June. I was expecting the roads to be fixed up and true to form the patches are being ironed out – they better make it smooth otherwise there is going to be some blood on Gibson Street.

Sh*t cyclist say

the best of these i have found – maybe why I am not a full roadie yet …

 

We’re uniting a million voices to improve the future of biking. Join us by signing the pledge for better biking at http://www.peopleforbikes.org.

Take the Peopleforbikes.org pledge: “I am for bikes. I’m for long rides and short rides. I’m for commuting to work, weekend rides, racing, riding to school, or just a quick spin around the block. I believe that no matter how I ride, biking makes me happy and is great for my health, my community and the environment we all share. That is why I am pledging my name in support of a better future for bicycling—one that is safe and fun for everyone. By uniting my voice with a million others, I believe that we can make our world a better place to ride.” http://www.peopleforbikes.org/pages/pledge

Starring: Ryan Van Duzer – http://ryanvanduzer.com
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New Olympic velopark gets mixed reception

London Olympic Legacy Velopark – the original plan
From today (Monday) potential users of the planned Olympic Velopark can have their say on the designs for the road, mountain bike and BMX facilities that will form part of London’s 2012 Olympic legacy. road.cc

Last Thursday in what was billed as a pre-consultation event the new designs for the road and mountain bike areas were unveiled at a public meeting in Stratford Town Hall. The meeting was attended by around 30 people with interested parties from cycling groups across the London boroughs represented, as well as British Cycling and the Eastway Users Group (EUG) representatives from all sides that we spoke to agreed that the meeting was positive and constructive even so reaction to the plans was mixed – essentially it boils down to the thorny matter of access, what needs to be decided before the designs go forward for planning permission later this month is where the balance lies between ‘velo’ and ‘park’ in the proposed Olympiic Velopark.

So what’s changed from the original plan you can see at the top of this story? Well the good news is that the road circuit has actually gotten slightly longer, 1.656Km instead of 1.6Km and the crossing of the River Lea has also been retained from the original design. Both British Cycling and the EUG were very keen to retain such an important element of variation in the circuit from the original design. The eastern third of the circuit around the BMX park is virtually unchanged, the big difference is that the river crossing becomes much more of an out and back affair – freeing up access to more of the riverbank, which is what the OPLC wanted – now, when the circuit comes back over the river after a longish straight it takes in a circuit around the outside of the velodrome.

The Olympic Park road circuit Mk11, slightly longer and now centred on the Olympic Velodrome

The other big advantage claimed for the new road circuit design is it’s flexibility, as well as using it as a full circuit it can be used as either a fast truncated circuit – omitting the loop of the velodrome, or as up to three smaller coaching circuits. The full circuit has 23m of elevation change – the same as the old Eastway.

From what we understand aside from some technical questions about run off areas and fencing around the bailey bridges that take the circuit across and back over the River Lea (oh and slight concerns that the circuit narrows from 6m to 5m on the bridges) people were broadly satisfied.

There was less satisfaction though over the BMX and mountain bike facilities, according to the EUG report on the meeting the point was forcibly made that existing Olympic BMX park is simply too difficult to be left as a legacy provision unchanged. The feeling was that it will need fencing off as a matter of public safety. There were also concerns as to how suitable an Olympic standard course was as a legacy provision for non-Olympic standard riders the point was made that of 400 entrants to the recent SE Championships 120 withdrew when they saw the “gnarliness’ of the course at practice.

Possibly more problematic though are issues surrounding the mountain bike course, this too is bigger than the original plan and now also comes back under the A12 to occupy what appears as an empty rectangle of land to the east of the road and BMX circuits on the original plan – which you can see at the top of this story. The idea from the planners is that the mountain bike circuit ‘reaches out’ from the park to the neighbouring borough of Waltham Forest which is adjacent to the park’s north eastern boundary. The problem is that the boundaries to the MTB area are open and the portion of the circuit that lies south of the A12 is bisected by a diagonal path which to the consternation of the EUG only appeared on the new plan as late as mid-September. While marshalling should prevent problems during actual races the concern is what happens when the circuit is simply being used for training or leisure purposes, that is still a concern for the road circuit too.

“The designers and planners don’t seem to appreciate how disadvantaged any cyclist is by all the things that the general public does in parks. Footballs and dogs are disasters waiting to happen if you get too close,” Michael Humphreys told us and anyone who has used the commuter routes through some of London’s royal parks will know exactly what he means.

While the old Eastway was effectively walled in so riders could race or train secure in the knowledge that a member of the public was not going to wander across their path unexpectedly, or indeed at all accessl to the new Velopark would appear to be largely open. The Velopark itself is a part of the much bigger Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park one of the biggest tasks given to the Olympic planners is integrating the park and all its facilities with the existing local communities to avoid the creation of a gentrified Olympic enclave and spread the benefits of Olympic regeneration out in to the boroughs that border the Olympic site.

The Lea Valley Regional Park Authority intends to have the new cycling facilities up and running by the autumn of 2013, there’s plenty to discuss before then and users, and potential users of the Velopark can have their say this week 7-11 November before the planning application is made on November 30th – once that is done there will be a further statutory period for the public to comment on the planning application.

Adieu to the Kite Surfer: Whisked away by the winds of change . . .

I was compiling a series of links to discuss when the Kite Surfer, whom I believed was heading out the door for some well-earned leave, revealed that destiny had decided that his fate lay elsewhere and that he would not be returning to the desert so with exchanges of “Bon Voyage” and “Keep writing” he was whisked away on the winds of change.

The most poignant piece that I stumbled across this week was Nicholas Roche Vuelta blog. Roche, son of Stephen, is a stalwart rider who maintains a top 20 position across most of the Grand Tours. The Vuelta D’Espana is the last of the 3 grand tours and tends to suffer as a result of exhaustion. Roche describes one of the hieneous mountain stages: stage 15; a stage where, sadly, Bradley Wiggins loses the Red Jersey of the overall leader on CG. Roche has been praised time and again for his easy-going yet engrossing style and it is easy to see why in this piece. The ferocity of the climb is recounted in the ratios that the riders have selected. I will let Roche take up the story . . .

http://www.independent.ie/sport/other-sports/nicolas-roche-i-went-ballistic-at-our-bus-drivers-remark-2866562.html

I had also promised an update on www.myfitnesspal.com

While it is a useful tool to log the perennial calorie input / output equilibrium I must be honest and say that its prediction that I would lose 3lb of French bread, cheese and wine is inaccurate because I have lost no lbs!!! Granted it is very diffiult to accurately estimate the quantities of food but I have cut down drasticallly on my sugar intake (white chocolate cookies) and maintained exercise levels but the needle currently hoovers at 150 lb. I will persevere until the end of this desert stint and then re-evaluate. The key take-away thus far is the monitoring of food stuffs and sugar intake so it can’t be bad.

The season is almost over. A quick check of the British Cycling website reveals that there are no races within striking distance for me when I get back to the UK in mid-Sep. I may look for a sportif just to keep the miles up but I have almost resigned myself to getting into winter routine of long steady zone 1/2 rides to keep the base fitness steady. So, on current predictions, it looks like I will finish the season as a Cat 3 having begun as a Cat 4 and the next challenge will be deciding if I want / can put the work in over the winter to challenge for a Cat 2 promotion. My initial feelings are that I would have to make a very determined effort as my build and record point towards longer, hillier races but there are far more criteriums than there are hills so I would need to generate a stack more power to challenge for the flat sprints. Set against this challenge is the march of time . . . .

Shifting, quite literately, to the technology side of the debate I notice that Wiggle are offering a pre-order of the new Ultegra Di2. I do like Wiggle; they are fast and friendly and their returns services are always no quibble. Having been really disappointed with the Saris Bones they refunded the entire cost and the postage. This piece, however, is not about Wiggle per se, but Ultegra Di2. I expect that it will be very popular as it reaches a large audience given its pricing and spec. To top it off it gets a 4 1/2 star rating from Bikeradar: http://www.bikeradar.com/gear/category/components/groupset/road/product/review-shimano-ultegra-di2-transmission-11-45107 so this will definitely be on the list for roadies this Christmas and to help make that decision, Shimano have distributed 1000 try-before-you-buy bikes around their distributors so that you can have some fun before the season starts in earnest!

The last piece of news before I wrap up is the switch-round of teams as the season closes. It looks like Radio Shack and Team Leopard will joins forces for 2012 allowing Bruyneel to take the Shlek brothers under his sizeable wing and get them ready for Le Boucle 2012: http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/leopard-trek-confirms-merger-with-radioshack

So with 9 days to push before I join the Kite-Surfer in the land of wind and rain it is back on the LeMond spin bikes with no immediate races to worry about it will be nice to dream about what difference that Di2 will make and get very jealous of Mrs C riding the coastal paths of Glamorgan in the Sunday morning sunshine!! Bon chance to the Kite Surfer in his forthcoming 100 miler and wherever the winds of change may take him.

What cycling does for the UK economy

From ROAD.CC

Dr Alexander Grous, a productivity and innovation specialist in the Centre of Economic Performance (CEP) at the London School of Economics has published a report that shows cycling produces £2.9bn every year in total benefit to the UK economy.

Titled The British Cycling Economy ‘Gross Cycling Product’ Report the 17 page document shows how the the growth of cycling over the last five years, with high profile sporting success in Beijing besides, is continuing to effectively pump real money into UK plc’s bank balance.

The report is sponsored by Sky and British Cycling with Sky’s Group Director of Corporate Affairs Graham McWilliam starting off plainly in his welcome, “We believe this is the first-ever attempt to chart the full extent of cycling’s contribution to the British economy” with Dr Grous continuing in the introduction that having attempted to quantify the contribution of all aspects of cycling, he’s calculated that each individual cyclist’s personal contribution as a result of their riding is £230 per year.

Key points:

•   £2.9b total contribution to UK economy

•   28 per cent increase in volume of cycle sales in 2010, generating £1.62b

•   £853m further contribution to the UK economy through the purchase of cycling accessories and bicycle maintenance, resulting in total retail sector sales of £2.47bn

•   Over £500m generated in wages and £100m in taxes from 23,000 employed directly in bicycle sales, distribution and the maintenanceof cycling infrastructure

•   Health benefits save the economy £128m per year in absenteeism
Even more significant, though:

•   Frequent and regular cyclists could further save the economy £2b over a ten-year period in terms of reduced absenteeism

•   A 20 per cent increase in current cycling levels by 2015 could save the economy £207m in terms of reduced traffic congestion and £71m in terms of lower pollution levels

•   Latent demand for cycling could amount to around £516m of untapped economic potential for the UK

Certainly sections like “more cyclists equals less time off work’ should see this report zinging into the inboxes of bosses and human resources departments across the country this morning – in fact, why don’t we do that right now?