PH wrote: ↑31 May 2021, 10:14pmIt's a relatively small organisation, with limited funds, and a large proportion of the membership subscription is spent directly on member benefits.
That used to be the case, but not now. The tax relief available with charity status is contingent upon minimal direct benefits for members/subscribers and CTC has radically cut those benefits in an attempt to maximise the tax advantages.
PH wrote: ↑31 May 2021, 10:14pmI'm not even sure there was a question here rather than just a gripe.
You're right, the question was largely rhetorical. But I think it's important to ask it, for the long-term good of CTC/CUK.
I observe that successful cycling campaigns the world over, harness the natural synergy between travel and transport use of the bicycle. Both activities use a bike because it's a most convenient, expedient and satisfying way of transporting oneself and one's stuff from place to place, about four times quicker and easier than walking. So by and large, we want the same things. So yes, I do have a gripe, that CUK has divorced travel from transport and marginalised the former.
It's nice that cycling tends to keep us healthy, that it's good for the environment and that some people also use bikes for sport. But to my mind those are incidental benefits and side-issues. If one of those aspects is
your primary motivation for using a bike, but such special interests should not be allowed to conflict with CTC's central mission: to promote and protect cycling as a means of travel and transport.
I put it to you that those special interests have been allowed to conflict with CTC's central mission.
- In shaming those who fly with their bikes in order to use their limited holiday to explore foreign contries by cycle, rather than lobby the train and ferry companies to provide an adequate alternative, CUK has not even done anything useful for the environment, but indulged in a bit of eco-virtue-signalling.
- Meanwhile, in fighting for the right to ride on the A63, rather than improvement of the alternative route, CUK has pandered to the sporting fringe instead of negotiating a good-enough facility for everyone else.
For another example of an apparent two-speed policy by CTC/CUK I give you the Bedford Turbo Roundabout. In this dreadful compromise some very inconvenient and unsafe cyclepaths were 'approved' since, after all, faster riders could still use the road!
IMHO the unwillingness of CTC/CUK to trade our 'right to ride' on the road for decent alternative facilities (such as we find when we tour not only the Netherlands but anywhere speaking German or a Scandinavian language) not only fails the cycle-tourist but also the everyday transport cyclist. They stick to this failed policy of the 30s in order not to upset a hard core of road warriors (who unfortunately, become over-represented in the shrinking cycling population of an anti-cycling country such as UK, USA... almost anywhere English-speaking). Meanwhile the eco-cyclists are satisfied by low-grade so-called facilities. Some will even campaign
against the smooth, durable, all-weather surfacing needed to make cycling as easy, clean and comfortable as it can be, on the grounds of 'urbanising the countryside'.
To be a campaigner for cycling you need a strong passion for it. But for most people who use bikes, it's just a way of getting somewhere. So long as it's the best or good-enough compromise of time, convenience, comfort, economy and safety, they cycle. When it isn't, they don't. As a touring cyclist one's passion is for the journey rather than the bike as such. We choose to travel by bike because it's the best compromise between a very similar set of factors as affect the choice of mode for the journey to work. Herein lies the synergy between touring and commuting. Cycle-touring fuels a passion that wants very much the same things as facilitate cycling as everday transport. That is what we do after all: transport ourselves by cycle, every day.
Sport, whether road-racing or mountain-biking, does not have the same synergy. A passion for speed at any cost and overcoming obstacles - be they high road passes or challenging surfaces and gradients, does not mesh so readily with most people's idea of how they'd like to get to work! Sure, some racers commute by bike, but at speeds and over distances no normal person would contemplate. Mountain-bikers too: by routes too rough and filthy for any normal person. A passion for nature, the environment etc., goes better with travel and transport cycling, but also leads to the acceptance of compromises that fail to make cycling a sufficiently convenient alternative to other means of transport. That's how we've ended up with so much crap infrastructure in UK: rubbish paths that we use only under the duress of drivers, who see the blue signs as permission to bully any cyclist with the ungrateful temerity still to use the adjacent road.
