Guardian article about the collapse of the British Cycling Boom

[Cycleops]

Studies have found that playing video games improves a surgeons skills considerably, so it may not be quite so accurate to claim that table top games have no benefits to health.

When I was younger my parents thought I would become a surgeon as I loved to build Airfix kits.

 

[Andy in Germany]

When I was younger my parents thought I would become a surgeon as I loved to build Airfix kits.

The trouble with that is inevitably when you've finished an Airfix kit you find a part left over.

 

[wiggydiggy]

The trouble with that is inevitably when you've finished an Airfix kit you find a part left over.

Its the same with most surgeries

 

[Jameshow]

It's the Grauniad of course trying to be a little too clever for itself. The description is interchangeable with a review of the latest best budget Pinot Noir at Waitrose.. At least they chose cycling, it could just as easily have been to rise and fall of The John Lewis Partnership.

Never been right since I left tbh!

 

[lazybloke]

The trouble with that is inevitably when you've finished an Airfix kit you find a part left over.

Its the same with most surgeries

Occasionally a surgeon leaves something extra inside.

 

[oldwheels]

It does not really come under sport but I lived in Helensburgh a commuter town west of Glasgow in the late 1940's and at weekends thousands [ or so it seemed ] of club cyclists streamed past our front windows every Sunday and the same happened on Loch Lomondside. They caused massive traffic tail backs and the police had cars with loudspeakers encouraging the pelotons to single out for a bit or even stop briefly to allow the tailback of motor traffic to get moving.
This does not happen nowadays so there has been a dip in that kind of cycling and in any case the cyclepath onLoch Lomond could not cope.
I have heard reports that that path is now infested by youths on motorbikes anyway.

 

[Dogtrousers]

If ASO, with all their experience, couldn't make the TdY work it's probably not viable. Shame, but there you go. The ToB looks like it may go the same way. Harsh but these races have to turn a buck.

Cycling as a sport is a niche minority sport in the UK. It will only break onto the sports pages for some small articles during the TdF, and even then only if there is a Brit somewhere in the story. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan and I watch all kinds of obscure stuff on Discovery. But I'm aware how far it is from the public consciousness.

Institutional support for active transport - essentially a good thing - shouldn't be confused with institutional support for failing professional road races. Their reason for being is to turn a profit. That's what being professional is all about

 

[AndyRM]

I have to confess that I've never really understood this sort of thing, possibly because of my utter loathing of sport at school, but the writer seems to think that "institutional support" should be given because... why exactly?

I don't really understand why sport, any sport, qualifies for special "institutional support" not given to things like say crochet, cat shows, tabletop gaming, or pottery. Understand I'm not criticising participants in sports, and I certainly admire the feats of sports cyclist here, but I don't really understand why sports should get preferential treatment above other, let's fact it, leisure pursuits.

To pick on my own in that list; tabletop gaming doesn't get a lot of "institutional support" and I'm not saying it should, but then why should other people's choices of activity? I understand that organising events for cycling will be expensive, and that facilities will be expensive and specialised so not suitable for other activities, but I don't see that as an argument; a lot of leisure pursuits require expensive facilities but that doesn't mean they all get them.

Surely it would make sense to look at the benefits of an activity to a local community, economically or culturally, when making the decisions for funding, rather than assuming "I think this is a good thing and should be supported" often by people who have no interest in it.

You may find this of interest if you're looking for institutional support of pottery:

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-great-pottery-throw-down

(I think it's fab by the way, some of the stuff made is absolutely incredible).

As for the article, I don't really understand the purpose of it, but then I don't really get a lot of Liew's journalism.

 

[Slick]

It does not really come under sport but I lived in Helensburgh a commuter town west of Glasgow in the late 1940's and at weekends thousands [ or so it seemed ] of club cyclists streamed past our front windows every Sunday and the same happened on Loch Lomondside. They caused massive traffic tail backs and the police had cars with loudspeakers encouraging the pelotons to single out for a bit or even stop briefly to allow the tailback of motor traffic to get moving.
This does not happen nowadays so there has been a dip in that kind of cycling and in any case the cyclepath onLoch Lomond could not cope.
I have heard reports that that path is now infested by youths on motorbikes anyway.

I'm on that path quite often and have been since I returned to cycling, and I've never seen a youth on a motorcycle once on it.

To be fair, I think I may have a picture of the couple who got confused as they came out The Lodge on the Loch, and drove down the path for a couple of miles before becoming jammed between a stone wall and the armco barrier.

 

[oldwheels]

I'm on that path quite often and have been since I returned to cycling, and I've never seen a youth on a motorcycle once on it.

To be fair, I think I may have a picture of the couple who got confused as they came out The Lodge on the Loch, and drove down the path for a couple of miles before becoming jammed between a stone wall and the armco barrier.

My informant seemed quite positive but I suspect may be given to flights of imagination. Not been there myself for a couple of years but he seemed to be with school visits of some kind.

 

[tyred]

I have never viewed my cycling as a sporting activity.

 

[Cycleops]

The trouble with that is inevitably when you've finished an Airfix kit you find a part left over.

I never had that. My problem was getting the wing and cabane struts to stay in place while the glue went off on WW1 biplanes.

 

[tyred]

This has given me a sudden impulse to build an Airfix kit again.

 

[UphillSlowly]

When I was younger my parents thought I would become a surgeon as I loved to build Airfix kits.

The trouble with that is inevitably when you've finished an Airfix kit you find a part left over.

I could never glue in the cockpits without covering the clear plastic with glue and making it look shoddy. Aircraft wheels would never stay stuck either

 

[UphillSlowly]

If ASO, with all their experience, couldn't make the TdY work it's probably not viable. Shame, but there you go. The ToB looks like it may go the same way. Harsh but these races have to turn a buck.

Cycling as a sport is a niche minority sport in the UK. It will only break onto the sports pages for some small articles during the TdF, and even then only if there is a Brit somewhere in the story. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan and I watch all kinds of obscure stuff on Discovery. But I'm aware how far it is from the public consciousness.

Institutional support for active transport - essentially a good thing - shouldn't be confused with institutional support for failing professional road races. Their reason for being is to turn a profit. That's what being professional is all about

This is a very coherent response. Are you sure you are in the right place?! ;-)

What is perhaps an.additional thought though is whether there is a correlation between successfully staged elite events and mass participation in sport. Football would suggest there is, or is that cultural. But I think the Olympics and Commonwealth Games have shown that participation doesn't necessarily go up (despite there being selling points when bidding)?