Adam Bylthe - Cycling's Bad Boy ?

Paulie W wrote:

One of the reasons that things are so slow to change is that a lot of men - Mike being another example - dont think there is a problem. (The gender pay gap exists - the notion that this is a product wholly of negotiating skills seems highly unlikely).

I would suggest that one of the biggest reasons for the so-called 'glass ceiling' is that fewer women fit the psychopathic model that seems to be a pre-requisite in order to 'succeed' in higher management.

Bender, You just dodged around some facts I gave you and selectively picked an element of her book. Beryl, quite rightly, always had the majority of cyclists and fans behind her, (as have Cook, Pooley and Armitstead). If you have her book, you will know that she was not just disdainful of the UCI but the BCF and for example scathing about Reg Harris. Journalists such as Phil Ligget get a pounding for their sexist attitudes. The element you have selectively picked is from 1984. Plenty of time for the guilt trip to have kicked in from the treatment handed out to Beryl over 10 years before and the episodes over her daughter. And, importantly, because her appeal had gone well beyond cycling, the rest of the population could not understand why a minority had a problem with her. This played backwards into the cycling community.

Even in the year you quote, Beryl was ignored by the BCF in all the preparations up to Los Angeles and cut out of the process. Eventually, too late for her to do anything about proper preparation, they offered her a place on the team, this being the year when the first Olympic event was opened for women. Rightly, she declined, but they could tick their box - "well we offered her the place, just no pleasing some damn women, too difficult to deal with, can never make up their minds!" If there were fora available at the time, Bender's forebears would be posting up rubbish stating that with Beryl it is all about her, she is a nightmare to deal with, why can't she be nice like that lovely Eileen Sheriden, (who didn't actually race because there were no races for her) who was the model of a professional, never falling out with team-mates (she had none).

What was the year when the editor of Cycling Weekly organised the Women's Road Race and put the finish up a big hill and only told a couple of competitors about it so they could get the right gears (days of 5 speed) fitted to their bikes so they could beat Beryl? That Editor hated Beryl and Beryl hated him. That's an anecdote and in your closed World you might like it not to prove anything to you (la, la la), but for Joe Public, I assert that it would prove that the sport of cycling had some pretty sick individuals in it, in quite senior places and they might write reports and opinion pieces, as they have every right to do, but those opinion pieces might just be complete s**t.

Promise to self - last post off topic - this is about Adam Blythe - opinion - gossip and rumour spread about him because he is not a Manchester clone.

Bender and the others, back to topic or I'll lock the thread

Salsiccia1 wrote:

Lock it anyway, it's shite

+1