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UCI wants YOU — to tell it what you want from sportives and mass ridesUCI logo on white

UCI wants YOU — to tell it what you want from sportives and mass rides

Quick survey will inform new Mass Participation Commission ideas
by John Stevenson
Tue, May 13, 2014 16:13
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One of our regular readers and contributors ‘themartincox’ is lucky enough to be away in Aigle this week. As part of his MBA program with Nottingham Trent he is spending a week at the UCI headquarters doing a market study into mass-participation cycling (that’s sportives and the like to us normal folk). He's looking for your help with a quick survey that'll go inform the UCI's ideas about mass participation cycling.

The newly created UCI Mass Participation Commission met for the very first time at the UCI's office in Aigle, Switzerland, another sign of the change in Aigle after Brian Cookson’s election.

Following the two day session, Cookson said: “The Mass Participation Commission will be central to the UCI's desire to help drive the development of non-elite and amateur cycling, and growing the number and reach of mass participation events will be central to this aim. I was delighted to see the energy and commitment of the Commission in its first meeting and it confirmed to me that mass participation events have huge potential.

“With more leisure time and an increasing desire by governments and individuals to improve health, there is a real opportunity to significantly grow mass participation events across all territories. I regularly ride mass participation events and I want the UCI to help bring the pleasure they give to more and more people, whatever their age or cycling standard.”

The UCI points out that mass participation events are booming in many parts of the world and cites last year’s inaugural RideLondon event as demonstrating the appeal. The organisation says big events can  help introduce participants of all ages and levels into cycling.

Martin is out there working with the UCI to prepare a report into cyclists’ habits, and to see how the UCI can assist riders and event organisers in getting more from their days out on the bike.

He has a short anonymous survey, which looks like it will take about three minutes to fill in. It won’t save the cycling world, but it might help make it a slightly it a better place.

uci
Mass Participation Commission
'UCI'
John Stevenson

John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.

He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.

Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.

John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.

He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.

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