British Cycling

rockmonkeysc
rockmonkeysc Posts: 14,774
edited February 2015 in MTB general
Is it just me or are BC loosing interest in mountain biking? First they drop the fastest growing discipline of mountain bike racing. They are getting less reliable with mtb event booking throught their website. Commisaires arent getting booked for DH races quite regularly which means no BC points for riders. And on social media they put lots in to pro.oting road and track cycling but nothing at all about mountain biking. Im nit sure its worth renewing my membership and race licence this year.
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Comments

  • mikeyj28
    mikeyj28 Posts: 754
    RockmonkeySC wrote:
    Is it just me or are BC loosing interest in mountain biking? First they drop the fastest growing discipline of mountain bike racing. They are getting less reliable with mtb event booking throught their website. Commisaires arent getting booked for DH races quite regularly which means no BC points for riders. And on social media they put lots in to pro.oting road and track cycling but nothing at all about mountain biking. Im nit sure its worth renewing my membership and race licence this year.

    I think you have raised a valid point. It is a shame that they have seemed to have lost interest and the level of depth that they have with track and road.
    Could it be that the MTB world lacks the heavy sponsorship and public perception that road and track does? Also a few Olympic golds and grand tour victories helps to push the profile up too.
    Constantly trying to upgrade my parts.It is a long road ahead as things are so expensive for little gain. n+1 is always the principle in my mind.
  • Lewis A
    Lewis A Posts: 767
    The CRC team are sponsored by PayPal this season, a sign of things to come?
    Cube Analog 2012 with various upgrades.
  • njee20
    njee20 Posts: 9,613
    They've never given a damn about mountain biking. For the Commonwealth games in 2006 they entered one of the road riders in the XC race, because they'd not bothered to send a mountain biker!

    The Enduro stuff is just the latest!
  • Ferrals
    Ferrals Posts: 785
    I also think the membership and race license thing is an absolute rip-off. Last year, as my first year racing, i dutifully read the british cycling website where said that to enter almost any race you need a bronze membership and a provisional race license, so i bought one, only to find out afterwards that barely any races need a provisional license. Then this year, i toyed with the idea of having a full license to get points, but with a silver license and a race license that comes to £77 which as i'll enter about 10 races seems a waste of cash. So i'm now thinking I won't re-join at all.

    as an aside, will i need some kind of license to do a couple of the national series events? I'd either do sport or open.
  • Manc33
    Manc33 Posts: 2,157
    Sponsored by PayPal lol.

    You have to finish the race 2.9% quicker.

    Also you can't have any other sponsors, only PayPal.
  • njee20
    njee20 Posts: 9,613
    Ferrals wrote:
    I also think the membership and race license thing is an absolute rip-off. Last year, as my first year racing, i dutifully read the british cycling website where said that to enter almost any race you need a bronze membership and a provisional race license, so i bought one, only to find out afterwards that barely any races need a provisional license. Then this year, i toyed with the idea of having a full license to get points, but with a silver license and a race license that comes to £77 which as i'll enter about 10 races seems a waste of cash. So i'm now thinking I won't re-join at all.

    as an aside, will i need some kind of license to do a couple of the national series events? I'd either do sport or open.

    Not for Open, they keep changing their mind if you need one for Sport, and you won't get points in either obviously.

    A little unfair to say the licence is £77, it's £30 or whatever, the rest is the membership, which gives you liability insurance, various shop discounts etc etc. I don't think it's overpriced myself, but a provisional licence is no use at all, and I accept that if you do the odd race it's not hugely good value. I think I only did 3 ranking races last year, but I value the insurance, so I'm not that bothered.
  • Ferrals
    Ferrals Posts: 785
    I suppose that's a valid point. I'd not really thought the other benefits were that useful so I only got the bronze license thinking I needed it to race and was annoyed to find i didnt need it at all. But i guess with insurance its not useful until you need it! I'll probably do open if i can't do sport and get a proper race license next year. I'm not going to do well enough this year to have any interest in point collecting!
  • rockmonkeysc
    rockmonkeysc Posts: 14,774
    njee20 wrote:
    They've never given a damn about mountain biking. For the Commonwealth games in 2006 they entered one of the road riders in the XC race, because they'd not bothered to send a mountain biker!

    The Enduro stuff is just the latest!

    They are really messing up downhill as well. Its fairly obvious that the rule makers know nothing about the sport.
    It seems a fairly regular thing that the BC website has wrong dates for races or entries close for random categories with no reason and without the organisers knowledge. Commissaires dont get organised for races until last minute so they then find none are available which then means no points for riders.
    When organisers fail to run events to the rules BC punish riders by not giving points.
    And then there's the BC website but thats awful for everyone, not just miuntain bike riders.
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