Cycling UK Forum

landsurfer wrote:Scrap all funding for BC ...
If the HUUB Wattbike / KGF track cycle team team can beat the worlds best, including the best of the UK tax payer supported cycling luvvies, without any support from British Cycling then funding is shown to be a waste of money...
Scrap all funding, for all "Elite" athletes, in all disciplines ... £25k x 1000 is a hell of a lot of money for children's school swimming lessons, after school football et al ...

https://huubwattbike.com


Discuss ......

Why not indeed. Why should sports with professional arms flowing with cash receive any public support. Football shouldn't receive any public money either. Put a levy on the pro clubs to pay for children's football. It's them who receive the benefit from the kids who turn out to have talent.
It's also a bit conceited to say the least wen people call themselves elite athletes. I don't think even the likes of Merckx, Coppi, Hinault, Burton etc ever referred to themselves in such a way.

€lit€ athl€t€$ might be the best description

The thing is that there's so much money sloshing around in top flight sport due to it's media coverage and following by the public,the best sportsmen(for it is mainly men)can command such high salaries.
What about bankers and politicians do we get our money's worth out of them

Cyril Haearn wrote:€lit€ athl€t€$ might be the best description

Double + 1 ... nice one ...

Not sure those Handlebars conform with UCI regulations

landsurfer wrote:

Vorpal wrote:

foxyrider wrote:Think you'll find its somewhat less than 1000 riders getting 25k, much less than 100 if I recall.

Not sure what swimming and football have to do with it, they have their own funding pots and decide to spend their money in different ways to cycling.

Maybe if cycling on a professional level was run in the same way as football there wouldn't be any need for as much central funding to gain success.

That won't help any issues with sexism, though

The issue is winning;
Other issues to consider:
Sexism Homophobia Trans Disability #metoo Hetrophobia Projectfear Brexit Farage ... et. al.

oh ... forgot one ...Cycling ...

.... and in the case of this team, pogonophobia - the fear of facial hair.

Facial Hair is massively unrepresented in Cyling

Cunobelin wrote:
.... and in the case of this team, pogonophobia - the fear of facial hair.

Facial Hair is massively unrepresented in Cyling

HUBB / WATTBIKE .. are doing their best with the moustache ... i know it's one of the cousins ... but good fuzz ...

mjr wrote:

PH wrote:

landsurfer wrote:If the HUUB Wattbike / KGF track cycle team team can beat the worlds best, including the best of the UK tax payer supported cycling luvvies, without any support from British Cycling then funding is shown to be a waste of money...

I'm pretty sure that some of those riders have come through the BC program and have benefited from BC money.
I've seen them training, they deserve their success.

Who? Some have done some training sessions with BC but I think it's a stretch to say they've come through the BC programme. In their recent interview on thecyclingpodcast.com, they mention BC being actively obstructive and unwelcoming.

I thought it was more than a bit of training, but don't follow sport that closely so I'm just going on the impression I get from their local interviews and the local press. Even if no BC support one rode for the Scottish team in the Commonwealth games and another was part of the USA team. What's not in doubt is that Charlie Tanfield is now part of the BC squad, he must have seen a better future there so it's hard to imagine he agrees with the op's point that funding is a waste of money. It is a great story and HUUB have the ability to milk it for all it's worth, but they don't exist in quite the bubble some of the marketing promotes.

At events, they fly the Derbados (Derby) flag rather than risk BC getting undue credit.

I went to the launch of that last year, you do know it's made up don't you and there isn't really a Republic of Derbados? It was excellent PR and very tongue in cheek, like the cowboy hats.

Cunobelin wrote:
Facial Hair is massively unrepresented in Cyling

But I might argue that the capability to grow it is massively overrepresented.

mjr wrote:

pjclinch wrote:And where does the funding come from? In significant part from the lottery AIUI, [...]

Does it? https://huubdesign.com/blogs/news/stude ... ling-world says "no lottery funding".

I wasn't meaning HUUB, I was meaning the BC track team.

Also, no one has really gone in to how successful the amateurs would be were it not for the infrastructure provided on the back of the elite central funding. I suspect the Derbados velodrome wouldn't be there without the interest in track cycling built on the back of funding provided to the Hoys and Pendletons etc. Leaving it to talented amateurs with little real structure gave us Beryl Burton, Chris Boardman, Graeme Obree... but again they're outliers and there can be years between them.

Pete.

pjclinch wrote:Also, no one has really gone in to how successful the amateurs would be were it not for the infrastructure provided on the back of the elite central funding. I suspect the Derbados velodrome wouldn't be there without the interest in track cycling built on the back of funding provided to the Hoys and Pendletons etc. Leaving it to talented amateurs with little real structure gave us Beryl Burton, Chris Boardman, Graeme Obree... but again they're outliers and there can be years between them.

That'll be Chris Hoy who was successful as a talented amateur outside the BC system at first (because it was only just starting to get lottery funding), riding with City of Edinburgh RC and then Team Athena. Maybe he wouldn't have been AS successful without central funding, but who's to say that funding had to be from the lottery quasi-taxes? Also, if the Derby velodrome wasn't there, I'm pretty sure we had others, so would Huub Wattbike simply have based themselves at another?

I think Nicole Cooke's "The Breakaway" really casts some doubt on whether the Performance Programme approach has been efficient - or fair even to athletes who seem like they really ought to qualify for it by any objective measures.

mjr wrote:

pjclinch wrote:Also, no one has really gone in to how successful the amateurs would be were it not for the infrastructure provided on the back of the elite central funding. I suspect the Derbados velodrome wouldn't be there without the interest in track cycling built on the back of funding provided to the Hoys and Pendletons etc. Leaving it to talented amateurs with little real structure gave us Beryl Burton, Chris Boardman, Graeme Obree... but again they're outliers and there can be years between them.

That'll be Chris Hoy who was successful as a talented amateur outside the BC system at first (because it was only just starting to get lottery funding), riding with City of Edinburgh RC and then Team Athena. Maybe he wouldn't have been AS successful without central funding, but who's to say that funding had to be from the lottery quasi-taxes? Also, if the Derby velodrome wasn't there, I'm pretty sure we had others, so would Huub Wattbike simply have based themselves at another?

I think Nicole Cooke's "The Breakaway" really casts some doubt on whether the Performance Programme approach has been efficient - or fair even to athletes who seem like they really ought to qualify for it by any objective measures.

So you'd have one more to add your list of outliers, but he'd still be an outlier, and lucky that Meadowbank happened to be there from a Commonwealth Games.
It's meaningless asking, but who's to say that funding had to be from the lottery quasi-taxes?, because it was and the point I was making was that if it comes from what amounts to voluntary donations from lottery players then complaining you could use it for something general taxation should be used on is a moot point.

The Breakaway doesn't "cast some doubt" as much as shout out very clearly that as far as women's road racing went the elite programme was absolutely shocking when Cooke was (sort of...) part of it. But that's not really the point here, is it? Look at the strength in depth of the GB women's track endurance squad and compare that to any other state of play in British cycling strength in our lifetimes.

Pete.

mjr wrote:Also, if the Derby velodrome wasn't there, I'm pretty sure we had others, so would Huub Wattbike simply have based themselves at another?

Doubtful , KGF wouldn’t have existed without the Derby Arena. HUUB may have found another team to sponsor, but they’re a Derby based company and the local link seems important to them.

Why do they need scrap in the first place?

Bonefishblues wrote:Why do they need scrap in the first place?

that’s my phone....
Corrected to KGF