British Cycling's new strategy

[slowster]

This was launched yesterday - https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/artic ... ategy-2025, and there was a very brief interview with British Cycling's CEO on the Radio 4 Today programme this morning (https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0028swm - starts at 2:55:25).

It is interesting to compare the new strategy with Cycling UK's - https://www.cyclinguk.org/blog/working- ... gh-cycling. In reality it seems that BC's new strategy is to muscle in on what CUK does, especially the creation of a 'British Cycling Foundation' charity to "harness the power of the bike to create a healthier, happier and more inclusive society" (and I suspect to seek government funding).

One difference between British Cycling's material and CUK's is the visual imagery accompanying the text. All the images in British Cycling's material are drawings, including drawings of a rider on a recumbent trike, a women with a dutch bike wearing a hijab, a man using a track pump wearing a turban etc. It's almost as if British Cycling looked at CUK's publications with photographs of all sorts of different people, and wanted to copy that just like everything else they copied from CUK's strategy, but they did not have any photographs of their own that they could use to illustrate their diversity.

[deeferdonk]

I read it still that British cycling are concentrating on cycling as a sport - so don't think that muscles into's CUK wider remit of cycling as a pastime, mode of transport et al. Makes sense that both would focus on inclusion in their particular fields.

[PH]

It's even "We are" British Cycling
They're competing for the same funding and membership, both organisations will be putting effort into that, effort which would be better spent on joint interests.

[mattheus]

Luckily, it's easy to tell BC from CUK:

[Nearholmer]

BC still seems a bit confused/confusing, because it’s strategy presentation keeps talking about cycling being a sport, and not getting the tone right when it tries to talk about cycling of not-sport kinds.

To me, it always seems that we have too many “bodies”, BC, CUK, Sustrans etc, pulling in overlapping, but subtly different, directions, and that we’d be better off either with one, but having clear sub-themes, maybe sport, exercise/leisure, and utility.

The expertise needed to advocate effectively for, and advise about, utility cycling is very different from that needed to organise sporting events. There are very few people (= none?) who could equally well advise a local authority about how to encourage leisure cycling in country parks, and the same authority about how to lay out traffic intersections, and lobby for cycling-friendly stuff in the Highway Code, and advise parliament next time the dreaded helmet debate comes to them, and coral a load of sponsors to support a national team, etc, so having different departments would be an essential. Having completely different organisations for the different strands I’m less sure about, because there are important overlaps, and it feels inefficient.

[mjr]

To me, it always seems that we have too many “bodies”, BC, CUK, Sustrans etc, pulling in overlapping, but subtly different, directions, and that we’d be better off either with one, but having clear sub-themes, maybe sport, exercise/leisure, and utility.

I think it's basically impossible to have one. CUK is a membership-based charity hybrid so seems the most suitable to be that, and (as I understand it) Sustrans is basically a self-perpetuating private charity so could merge with CUK if the self-perpetuation of trustees ever results in a group that believes it to be the best move.

One problem with CUK is that it feels like it's been captured by executive officers who are more comfortable with self-perpetuating private charities and now filter the candidates presented for election, Cuban-Communism-style, but with no requirement that the candidates are actually active members. I'm not sure how much that matters for merging. It may even help make it closer to Sustrans. I don't know.

But a merger with BC-Shell seems basically impossible. BC-Shell has been captured by past governments attaching strings to sports funding, ultimately resulting in I think three so-called "independent" directors either proposed or vetted by agencies of the UK government, as well as their desire to buddy up with really awful polluters to get more money. That seems incompatible with the political independence required of charities, without getting into their terrible lack of diversity, ableism-until-challenged and procedures that contradict their own policies.

There was an Active Travel Alliance or similar announced years ago involving the above three bodies and more, but those three organisations involved seemed to announce their things in an uncoordinated manner, wrongfooting other ATA member organisations (big and especially small), and I don't know what's happened to it now.

[Nearholmer]

Yes, me thinking it would be better is not the same as me thinking it is likely/possible.

TBH, because I’m not interested in sport, as in competitive sport, any of it, I always find the concept of sport governing bodies a bit weird/alien anyway, and tend to think that they make enough work for themselves governing their respective sports, without needing to get involved in anything else.

[awavey]

One difference between British Cycling's material and CUK's is the visual imagery accompanying the text. All the images in British Cycling's material are drawings, including drawings of a rider on a recumbent trike, a women with a dutch bike wearing a hijab, a man using a track pump wearing a turban etc. It's almost as if British Cycling looked at CUK's publications with photographs of all sorts of different people, and wanted to copy that just like everything else they copied from CUK's strategy, but they did not have any photographs of their own that they could use to illustrate their diversity.

the cartoon drawing stuff, is very corporate business strategy marketing 101, its supposed to soften the messaging & engage with the audience more than pure photography images alone. At least thats the consultants sell on how they convince boards to go for these things and the whole strategy and single word placement on a page, its like literally 34 pages with about 4 pages of real content, reeks of some consultancy agency being involved in it and it probably cost a bundle more than some stock library photos that BC already own the rights to use.

[awavey]

Yes, me thinking it would be better is not the same as me thinking it is likely/possible.

TBH, because I’m not interested in sport, as in competitive sport, any of it, I always find the concept of sport governing bodies a bit weird/alien anyway, and tend to think that they make enough work for themselves governing their respective sports, without needing to get involved in anything else.

part of the problem is the funding model they operate on, as government through various organisations and buckets of cash do give BC access to money to fund promoting cycling as a thing beyond their pure sporting outlook.

now whether thats the best way to spend that money, whether BC have the time, energy or even focus to be doing that are all valid questions, but I do think outside of cycling, BC comes across to people as being THE cycling organisation both sporting and all other aspects in Britain, whilst CUK are kind of this almost like a supporters group always there for a quote on most cycling topics and do alot of campaigning whilst no-one cares or has heard of Sustrans.

and obviously the benefit to BC of getting more cash, potentially boosting members beyond purely racing is obviously desirable to them as theyve been lets face it theyve not been so succesful on maintaining the racing membership side of late, from their peak of popularity of over a decade ago now, Id not be surprised to see theyd lost maybe half the members they had.

will this new strategy deliver it though, no its just a bunch of meaningless buzz words that reads like it was written by a 5 year old, in 5 years time the current CEO will leave, as all CEOs do after 5 years, and the new one who comes in might actually get BC back to what they should be doing which is trying to govern, promote & develop the sport from the grass roots upwards.

[Nearholmer]

I have no idea what BC’s organisation consists of, but if they appointed a ‘Director Not-Sporty Stuff’, and gave them a decent proportion of the budget, that would probably help a lot, although I suspect that their board is stacked with the sort of people who get over-excited by sporty stuff, starstruck by athletes etc. (PS: I looked at the biogs for their board members, and nearly all of them are indeed “competitive sport driven”. That doesn’t mean they can’t advocate for other types of cycling, but it does indicate their main “compass setting”)

[pjclinch]

I have no idea what BC’s organisation consists of, but if they appointed a ‘Director Not-Sporty Stuff’, and gave them a decent proportion of the budget, that would probably help a lot, although I suspect that their board is stacked with the sort of people who get over-excited by sporty stuff, starstruck by athletes etc. (PS: I looked at the biogs for their board members, and nearly all of them are indeed “competitive sport driven”. That doesn’t mean they can’t advocate for other types of cycling, but it does indicate their main “compass setting”)

BC exists as the national federation linked to the UCI for the regulation of "official" cycle sport in the UK. It exists primarily for sporting purposes, and always has. They're not so much "star struck" by athletes as it's their main job to provide a structure for athletes to work in, for which they very much need to be excited about sporty stuff.

You don't have to be in BC to do cycle sport (particularly if you race stuff that the Luddites of Lausanne don't recognise, like recumbents), but it certainly helps in much the same way as anyone can go swimming but you'll need to be part of Aquatics GB if you want to line up in the pool for Team GB at the next Olympics, World Swimming Championships etc.

Continuing the analogy with Aquatics GB, while they have a clear interest in people being able to swim they're not primarily concerned with stuff like basic swimming lessons or provision of local authority and school swimming pools. While I imagine it wouldn't be an entirely bad thing if they were, it's not their "core business", which is competitive swimming.
But as Chris Boardman (who has spent time as BC Policy Advisor which seemed effectively the strategy making for the Campaigning arm) has pointed out, one typically doesn't football to school or swim to the shops, so there is more of an overlap for many cyclists with "normal life" than is the case for competitive swimmers.

https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/campaigning is the home page for BC's Campaigning arm. It's come a long way since they tried to launch an "everyday cycling" initiative ~20+ years back with helpful advice like "eyewear" was "essential" on the premise that "a bee in the eye at 20 mph" wouldn't be pleasant (i.e., it was launched by people who couldn't really get beyond a sports culture). These days the campaigning arm is generally singing from the same broad hymn sheet as CUK, Sustrans, ATE etc. and it's not a bad thing, though I do suspect that a lot of people looking at their current range of adverts headlining on insurance and legal cover might well be better off in CUK.
I'm in both, but only in BC because I have to be to do sport coaching (really very basic stuff for youngsters in reality, but it's officially BC Go-Ride so I have to be a member for my qualification to be recognised). I wouldn't bother were it not for that.

Pete.

[Bmblbzzz]

It makes sense to have both CUK and BC because they have different, though slightly overlapping, interests. Sustrans is different – it's not about cycling, it's about paths (which you can cycle on but which are also for walking, horse riding, picnicking, looking at art works, observing nature, and many other things).

[rareposter]

https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/campaigning is the home page for BC's Campaigning arm. It's come a long way since they tried to launch an "everyday cycling" initiative ~20+ years back with helpful advice like "eyewear" was "essential" on the premise that "a bee in the eye at 20 mph" wouldn't be pleasant (i.e., it was launched by people who couldn't really get beyond a sports culture). These days the campaigning arm is generally singing from the same broad hymn sheet as CUK, Sustrans, ATE etc. and it's not a bad thing, though I do suspect that a lot of people looking at their current range of adverts headlining on insurance and legal cover might well be better off in CUK.
I'm in both, but only in BC because I have to be to do sport coaching (really very basic stuff for youngsters in reality, but it's officially BC Go-Ride so I have to be a member for my qualification to be recognised). I wouldn't bother were it not for that.

All of your post is spot on but especially that final paragraph.

For racing (and coaching / commissaire-ing etc) you have to be a member and have a racing licence - much like you have to have a TV licence, it's a non-negotiable part of the sport so you jump through the necessary hoops and have a membership whether you want it or not.

Where BC have always struggled though is the "casual" cyclist, the commuter, the leisure rider, the weekender. As you say, no-one needs to be a member of any organisation; you can go into Halfords, buy a bike and ride around for years without ever having heard of BC (or the UCI, CUK, Sustrans, or any other local cycling campaign group), never mind handing over money to be a member of any of them.

So the only way they've ever really had to market much of that is insurance and legal cover which is hardly the most exciting thing to be considering. I mean, I have home insurance, car insurance etc but I'm not *engaged* with any of them, I don't follow them on social media, I'm not posting how I'm proud to be insured by [insurance provider]. It's a very dry subject, you buy it hoping to never need it. And that's the exact opposite to what BC want which is engagement and to have people feeling involved, watching BC athletes win medals, feeling part of the organisation. You don't get that by selling insurance - but most people cycling for leisure don't really need much more than that and don't care enough to be involved.

Everyday Cycling morphed into the Ride Membership but they've recently rejigged the whole membership package and are pushing the member discounts and "supporting BC athletes" part of it rather than just insurance now.

[mattsccm]

Am I the only one thinks that both BC and UK ought to stick to what they do best? BC can organise the racing, CUK should go back to touring and the rest can look after itself.

[Bmblbzzz]

Maybe in as far as BC should organize racing and CUK touring, but the rest does need looking after as well.