I can’t quite understand what needs ‘developing’, or indeed, if the idea of ‘development’ on offer here is really a positive thing for mountain biking.
‘Development’ and ‘progress’ are such powerful words in our society, but too often the questions “what are we developing for, what is ‘progress’?” are simply not asked. Mountain biking in Scotland does not, in my mind, need ‘developing’. A conception of mountain biking as this club based racing sport has already damaged mountain biking, and cycling as a whole, to such an extreme degree that any moves by BC and the like are highly suspect in my view. BC, by promoting cycling as a racing sport has destroyed any chance of bicycles being part of the lives of the majority of ordinary people in this country.
What’s wrong with a Scottish mountain bike scene with no organisations, no trail centres or multi million pound venues, with no regulation or red tape, no races? What’s wrong with small individual scale friendship groups zipping around utilising the wonderful access rights we have in Scotland?