Olympic cycling medals musings.

[screenman]

Yes, but one needs to decide whether that's a desirable outcome worth £30Mm. I enjoy GB&NI winning all those medals but really all I get out of it is that for a couple of weeks every four years I get to sit on my sofa and go "whoo hoo!" once in a while. I don't see it actually benefiting my cycling. Indeed it's possible that it just reinforces the idea of cycling as purely a competitive so you just end up with hundreds of FPKW MAMILs on carbon fibre twatmachines getting in @User 's way on Box Hill. This doesn't I think add to the promotion of cycling as a normal utilitarian mode of transport which I gather is more the case in the countries mentioned in which @snorri would rather cycle.

So as fun as Olympic medals are, in terms of day to day cycling there might be more beneficial ways to spend £30m.

Now the chances are I have been cycling a lot longer than you, and I should know the answer but why are my carbon fibre bikes described by you in that way? What do you spend your disposable on.

 

[Piemaster]

As @shouldbeinbed implies, there's economics at work.
Basketball - funding has gone. They didn't qualify. It takes a lot of £ to produce a team that has a chance of winning 1 medal, just by the numbers of people that have to be involved (and they weren't that good anyway)
Cycling - the team have produced a lot of medals for the funds they get.

Not saying it's quite as simple as that, but surely its a factorthat is considered.

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

After what games did they decide to do all of this??

I would have said it was after Britain's pitiful performance at Atlanta 1996 (only 1 gold, to much wailing and knashing of teeth from the media) with the drive for more medals starting go bear fruit 4 years later at Sydney, but others have said it was Athens where it all started to happen.

 

[srw]

As @shouldbeinbed implies, there's economics at work.
Basketball - funding has gone. They didn't qualify. It takes a lot of £ to produce a team that has a chance of winning 1 medal, just by the numbers of people that have to be involved (and they weren't that good anyway)
Cycling - the team have produced a lot of medals for the funds they get.

Not saying it's quite as simple as that, but surely its a factorthat is considered.

In Britain, I think it is quite as simple as that!

And I, for one, am glad of it. It's costing us 50p each. For that we are making a significant contribution to turning Britain from a nation where cycling was an eccentric pastime for oddballs into one where it's a valid transport choice, as well as a sport. Wiggo, Cav, Boardman, Kenny, Trott, Rowsell and the rest are proving that anyone can ride a bike and still be a functioning human being. And that normalisation is bringing people who otherwise would have walked or driven onto bikes. I look at the people I pass on bikes in Surrey, in Buckinghamshire and in London and they're ordinary Jo(e)s. Yes, some of them wear Sky kit and must upgrade to the last 4th generation wi-fi enabled electronic shifting, but they're balanced by as many people who jump on a bike to ride the 2 miles home.

I was looking around our office bike park today. 40-odd bikes, mostly variations on a cheap hybrid or a mountain bike. All well used, all treated much as most of the office treats their cars - as tools. There was one lime-green Brompton, and a handful of carbon bling things, but they looked out of place.

Which is why I think the OP has it wrong. The best place to ride is where you happen to be. Whether that's "cycle-friendly" in a conventional sense or not doesn't matter - more and more people are riding in the UK. And the more that people ride, the more that more people ride.

As it happens, I've done a lot of riding in the UK, some in Belgium and quite a lot in France. I'd rate them all pretty much equal for cycle-friendliness. Mile for mile I don't feel any less welcome on British roads than I did on French or Belgian roads. In all three countries there are roads I'd avoid like the plague, cycle paths that are really rather lovely and cycle paths that are horrible. It's terribly tempting to do ourselves done - for me that's a habit that's worth avoiding.

 

[HF2300]

After what games did they decide to do all of this??

I would have said it was after Britain's pitiful performance at Atlanta 1996 (only 1 gold, to much wailing and knashing of teeth from the media) with the drive for more medals starting go bear fruit 4 years later at Sydney, but others have said it was Athens where it all started to happen.

Atlanta. Lot of things came together at the same time - Boardman's success, we crashed & burned in Atlanta and 'something had to be done', Peter Keen put his performance proposals in (1998), lottery money started coming through (1998). Resulted in things starting to happen in Sydney, bit more in Athens, then the big success in Beijing.

I suppose seeing all the cycling success in the Olympics will inspire a lot of people to start cycling. Winner all round IMO.

I don't see it actually benefiting my cycling... in terms of day to day cycling there might be more beneficial ways to spend £30m.

As for trickledown, just look at the way cycling has taken off in the UK in line with the track (& road) success, and it seems to me that benefits everydy cycling in all sorts of ways from more suppliers and improved kit to high profile events that have their own influence, better provision and so on.

 

[HF2300]

This is the Barney Ronay article in full. It didn't seem to me it was particularly negative, and it ends up suggesting a benefit in terms of a culture of participation:

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/b...-kenny-team-gb-cycling-gold-rush-olympics-rio

 

[philk56]

According to reports this morning we have John Major to thank for the funding. He was instrumental in getting lottery money involved.

 

[T4tomo]

There's a thread going on UKClimbing at the moment about people who climb big dangerous mountains without the right equipment or training, my belief is that it's because the media show climbers teleporting magically from the bottom to the summit in perfect weather without showing the sweat and toil and the dangers involved in climbing the damned thing. The same will happen in track cycling as folk will book tracks then be disappointed that they can't fly round like Laura Trott and Jason Kenny. Luckily velodromes are better staffed than mountains.

Odd anology. Cycling slowly around a velodrome isn't the least bit life threatening, whereas attempting to climb Mont Blanc in your espadrilles probably is.

 

[snorri]

I've done a lot of riding in the UK, some in Belgium and quite a lot in France. I'd rate them all pretty much equal for cycle-friendliness.

I agree that France is pretty much on a par with Britain but would consider the other countries to be markedly more cycle friendly.

 

[srw]

I agree that France is pretty much on a par with Britain but would consider the other countries to be markedly more cycle friendly.

When you say "cycle friendly", what do you mean? The reason I say that Britain is cycle friendly is that in all the bits of Britain I've ridden in I've been usually treated with respect by drivers, because over the last few years all the railway stations I've been through have had large double-decker bike parks built, and because visibly more and more and more people are starting to be out and about on the streets on bikes.

Let's get to specifics. Belgium (or at least Flanders) has a better network of signposted bike paths, but the signposting is as bad as the signposting on British bike paths. It has canal paths that (unlike ours) are well tarmacked and wide and go where you want to go, but they tend to have tree roots growing through them, and are dominated by marauding gangs of roadies. It has a presumed liability law, but drivers are extremely aggressive and far too many roads have badly made concrete cycle lanes that it's compulsory for cyclists to use and which dot from one side of the road to the other, to get them out of the way of the "real traffic".

I'm going on tour through Germany and the Netherlands in September. I'll be interested to see what they look like.

 

[nickyboy]

Apparently the Government funding (ie our money) of elite sport prior to the Atlanta games was about £5m per year. It is now about £280m per year. That extra £275m could be spent on something other than elite sport programs.

However I'm happy for my and your money to be spent this way. It's £4 per person per year. I like the idea that we have a genuine world class sports development program and I'm happy to fund it. I suspect there is a trickle down into mass participation but I don't think that is a major objective. It's about punching above our weight in something where we have shown that rarmping up the funding has been shown to deliver results

 

[snorri]

When you say "cycle friendly", what do you mean?
I'm going on tour through Germany and the Netherlands in September. I'll be interested to see what they look like.

I think the numbers of children seen cycling with parents or going solo, also the number of aged cyclists is an indicator of a cycle friendly environment.
I wish you well on your tour, and can only hope you enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed tours there.

 

[swansonj]

I kind of agree. I think a civilised society spends money not just in utilitarian ways. We also spend public money on subsidising theatre - opera - orchestras - particle physics - sculpture and public art - "conserving" the landscape - and elite sport.

Not quite so sure about "punching above our weight" though.

 

[snorri]

Not quite so sure about "punching above our weight" though.

2016, the year Olympic medal awards and population obesity reached all time highs.

 

[winjim]

"We laugh at Denmark, with its pathetic medal tally and outstanding quality of life."

http://m.thedailymash.co.uk/news/so...s-been-spent-on-cycling-medals-20160818112543