David started mountain biking in the 90’s, by which he means “Ineptly jumping a Saracen Kili Racer off anything available in a nearby industrial estate”. After growing up and living in some extremely flat places, David moved to Yorkshire specifically for the mountain biking. This felt like a horrible mistake at first, because the hills are so steep, but you get used to them pretty quickly.
Previously, David trifled with road and BMX, but mountain bikes always won. He’s most at peace battering down a rough trail, quietly fixing everything that does to a bike, or trying to figure out if that one click of compression damping has made things marginally better or worse. The inept jumping continues to this day.
More posts from David
We’ve done this one a week ago. 9 pages, feel free to dive in.
http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/female-riders-would-you-enter-an-event-that-categorised-you-as-a-whore
yawn, who cares. There wouldn’t be any of this nonsense if it was a male race with comical names.
Biased journalist is biased
“There doesn’t seem to be much dissent or objection there, which is hardly surprising.”
How is that bias, scotroutes?
In discussion of it among the community of people who took part in the event, there are two mildly negative comments about the category names, both also thanking the organisers for putting on the event and generally praising it. Does that surprise you? It didn’t me.
I’m starting to find hyper-sensitivity really exhausting. I know Singletrackworld considers itself the Guardian of the bicycle press, but really? If this had been a race with categories for both sexes, and the mens had been seniors/veterans/juniors etc and the womens had been the above, I would understand the outrage…but its an all female event.
Maybe there are people who read the stw news pages and not the forums. This story must be for them.
Where’s the outrage Joe? Have you actually read the piece?
Lynne Armstrong may want to “reclaim” the words “babe, virgin, cougar and whore”, but does every woman feel the same as she does? And why should they?
What’s wrong with “junior, fun, sport and veteran” as category names?
I’m still confused about this. Was it a serious attempt to reclaim these oppressive terms (and if so, was this a suitable audience)? Or was it simply a joke, and anyone who doesn’t “get it” has no sense of humour?
Either way, it’s a pity we’re discussing the names, instead of the excellent event itself. For that reason alone, IMO the names show a lack of judgement.
My ears are burning…
Lots of very interesting opinions, as well as humourous comments. WRT ‘reclaiming language’ it would be foolish to view the famous ‘N’ word as having been healthily or even heartily reclaimed – it is still a term with a great deal of emotional weight and invokes all manner of responses and a lot of upset – so I question the validity of using that as a model. Am open to other derogatory words that have been more successfully reclaimed, though I can’t think of any off the top of my head ;P
” . . . although I can’t think of any off the top of my head”
Apparently the word “suffragette” was coined by the Daily Mail as an insult (and to distinguish from the genteel suffragists). But it was quickly adopted by the militant branch as a badge of pride. Very successfully reclaimed, I think?
Nice contemporary example that 😉