Not very sporting - so what?

[glueman]

Yes, I agree with all of that, especially

At that time tourists did look different from the sporty types. Indeed we looked more like ramblers than racers. Cut off jeans for the youngsters, Hebden Cord for the oldsters, lumberjack shirts, polo neck sweaters - I have the photos!

I still have a Hebden Cord jacket in black canvas that was destined for the Canadian cycle police. Fantastically practical and, so I'm told, very cool. As you say, let Sport England do their thing, it has very little relevance to most cyclists.

[PRL]

Whilst recreational cycling can be classified as "sport" I can maintain that I have some interest in sport. If sport hast to be a matter of winning and losing (yawn!) I will have to found the "sport for none campaign".

[Les Reay]

CJ wrote: ... Sport England had decided that non-competitive cycling, for travel, transport and pleasure, was not sport ...

Like with most government initiatives, Sport England takes a narrow and short term view of the situation. When I see fat little kids flopping out of their parents' cars in front of schools, I wonder if England will ever produce top athletes and winning teams again. Many of the sporting heroes of the past surely weren't taken to school in daddy's car. I grew up in the fifties, and the miles of walking and cycling I had to do each day has given me a long legacy of fitness which should last well into my retirement.

So I agree that there is a big distinction between cycling as sport and other spheres, but see a need to take a broader view in order to reverse the decline in the nation's fitness.

Or perhaps we could excel at sumo wrestling?

[fatboy]

I think that in schools the emphasis should not be on sport but on activity. I know that the concept of non-competitive sport was seen as political correctness gone mad but actually it makes a lot of sense. I speak from some experience here as the kid who was always last to be picked when they were picking teams (I can still hear the cries of "But sir, we had him last week!"). My eye hand co-ordination and ball control skils were and still are truely attrocious. I went to a private school where excellence in sport was pushed and forget the ones who weren't excellent. Luckily for me they did rowing and it turned out that I was quite good at that which kept me enjoying being active. As an aside they had a funny attitude to what where their "real" sports (basically Rugby, Hockey and Cricket were, everything else wasn't) and I clearly remember beating everyone else in my class in a PE lesson where we did the 400 metres. The PE teacher didn't congratulate me but asked the people doing the "real" sports why they let me beat them. He then proceeded to ask me if I wanted to do rugby - No thanks!

So the key issue with kids is to get them active whether they are good at the schools favoured sports. Most people aren't any good at sport but most people can be active and find something that they enjoy. Maybe that's where cycling can come in.

Gosh that was longer than expected....sorry!

[Bob S]

Very good point, and very well said. I agree whole heartedly.

[Si]

Re sport/exercise in schools... I think that a happy balance needs striking. It's important that you show the children that they can have fun exercising without it being competative or humiliating. But on the other hand, sport does bring advantages: team work, the urge to improve and, perhaps most importantly, knowing that losing isn't the end of the world and losing with grace is perfectly acceptable - this might help to stem the me-first/never-admit-you're-wrong culture that seems to be florishing these days.

[George Riches]

I've just read Cyclenews in the Feb/mar issue of Cycle. it's a bit out of touch with the sentiments expressed in this forum entry. It argues that the decision of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport to only back real sport is wrong:

Unlike swimming, sailing, horse riding or even skydiving, cycling has been split apart, with competitive cycling considered sport, and everything else classed as recreational

How many people swim to work?
Shouldn't we welcome the fact that cycling is so big that it needs to be tackled in different ways? OK there are grey areas between cycling as a health measure, as a means of getting about, as a recreation and as a sport, but isn't it good that we can get funding from different sources?
Culture, Media and Sport for sport.
Health for recreation
Transport for traffic congestion
Environment for cutting greenhouse gases

[cdtb]

Many of the posts have noted the health benefits of cycling as a means of transport. As a health care professional, I have cycled to work for >20years, parking my utilitarian 80s bike in hospital grounds throughout the UK. Throughout this time I have been disappointed by the numbers of health care professionals that have failed to lead by example, in promoting the health benefits of cycling to work. A major factor impeding a wider use of the bicycle as a mode of transport in the UK, is middle class attitudes to the bicycle. In the UK, unlike other Northern European countries (such as Holland etc), there seems to be a problem with attitudes towards utilitarian cycling. In the UK, affluence and success is not associated with utilitarian cycling. Hospital staff car parks are full of expensive cars and not bikes, and the manifestation of professional success is the expensive car and not the bicycle. Until more middle class, affluent individuals (and also celebrities!) are seen leading by example, there is not going to be a change in attitude to the bike -and it is a change in attitude that is needed first.

[Mick F]

So very true.

Look at any LBS and what do you see for sale? MTBs and leisure bikes.

We seem to have come to the position that bikes are seen as another leisure activity like golf or sailing or walking. Kids always "play" on bikes, but adults are "playing" now.

Bikes are a form of transport as well, but the public have forgotten the days when people cycled to work or the shops or to school as a means to getting there. Health benefits were of a minor concern in those days. Just getting from A to B was the thing!

[Simon L6]

It's a brave (or foolish) man that disagrees with Chris Juden, but I'm going to give it a go.

Government funded sports bodies in this country are there not just to administer sport, but to increase participation. The FA and the RFL do very well at this. Cycling England has had fantastic success on the track, but has seen it's participation remit taken up with enthusiasm by the DfT and (in my part of the world) TfL. They want to get out of the way. That's poor. There are few better ways of inspiring kids to cycle to school than to have men and women who may only be a few years older than them appear on the telly with gold medals.

[thirdcrank]

Simon L6

I'm not sure how you are disagreeing with CJ. I think he was agreeing that whichever quango we are talking about should not be directly supporting non-competive cycling.

You are saying that by supporting successful competitive cycling, they will also inevitably encourage people to take up cycling. It sounds to me as though you are, therefore, also agreeing with the quango's decision, but for different reasons.