LAB?

On Wed, 24 Mar 2004 17:17:26 GMT, "Mike Jacoubowsky"
wrote:

I see two ways to fix the situation: remove the pro-segregation lobby
from the leadership of LAB and return control to member cyclists, or
create a new organization that is accountable to the best interests of
competent cyclists.

I'll back a new organization. Reform of an organization that has
already been bought by industry and has decided to live in Washington
may be impossible.

Oh my goodness. Having been to Washington DC for the Bike Summit March
3-5th, and watching nearly 400 people, the majority of whom were *not* from
the industry, work very hard to promote the idea that cycling isn't
something that should be planned or legislated out of our lives, I have to
take strong issue, even offense, at that statement.

The LAB may not be the organization it used to be, and may no longer be
serving the needs people here are bringing up. That's a problem. But to
denigrate their efforts to keep us on the road and to promote cycling as a
means for kids to walk to school? And to at least imply that it's sold out
as they've tried to get more industry people involved... I do find that
personally offensive.

What a lot of people are looking for is an organization that is
responsive and responsible to its membership. I'm not directly
affiliated with LAB and I feel no reason to be. Affiliating to LAB is
handing cash over to a lobbying organization downtown. I don't see
rallies, membership activities, solidarity, cameraderie.

The LAB has become a lobbying organization--and while that may be
important, people are also looking for an organization of cyclists,
not just an organization for cyclists. The CTC in the UK might be the
perfect example of an organization of cyclists--along with their
considerable lobbying abilities at Westminster, they are organized all
the way down to the village level, and, through their local
organizations, sponsor rallies, cycle training, insurance, legal
advice, weekend rides--as well as visible local advocacy. They have
been tireless in defending the road rights of British cyclists, and
the CTC membership as a whole seems to have a sense of ownership of
the movement.


-Luigi
Democratic centralism is no democracy at all

On Wed, 24 Mar 2004 17:17:26 GMT, "Mike Jacoubowsky"
wrote:

And this "competent cyclist" bit is especially galling. I dunno, gee, I've
been riding a whole lot of miles for the past 33 years, but maybe not enough
to be competent. Certainly not enough, apparently, to get me past my
childish desires to have intersections designed with cyclists in mind, roads
with shoulders, laws that make it illegal to exclude cyclists on normal
roads, inclusion of cyclists requirements on a new roadway by default rather
than exception, etc. Oh, and if we can get a few more people out of SUVs, I
wouldn't mind that either.

Except for isolated cases, this is not what LAB works toward.

They give awards to communities based on facilities built, not how
well they promote on-road cycling. They have given an award to a
community that has a required use law on the books.

The entire ISTEA process is weighted in most, if not all, states to
produce additional off-road facilities in the form of MUPs. While
there are provisions to enhance roads with the improvements that you
mention, these rarely make it through the state processes, generally
'owned' by the equivalent of the State Highway Administration. The
SHAs generally require a project approach, with ownership. Unless you
live in a jurisdiction with a strong internal framework that moves
roadway improvements through the state process, you will see no ISTEA
funds spent on shoulders, gutter improvement and the like.

So the improvement of all roadways fall to local on-road advocates,
with support provided by improvements to the AASHTO standards (as it
is a industry reference). LAB rarely will intervene in these processes
and, as they are largely divorced from bike clubs not in the immediate
area of DC, they have no pipeline to provide local advocacy. And they
are unwilling to endorse local advocates as they are not under the
complete control of LAB.

Local roads are not national advocacy, so LAB is not involved. Local
roads are a local advocacy, and LAB has no local advocacy. LAB removes
seats on the board voted on by members and replaces them with giveaway
seats to industry and loyal supporters. LAB has no local agenda - only
a national agenda, and 'improving' LAB by receiving funds is higher on
their list than improving your local roadway.

Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...

According to Mike Jacoubowsky :
I see two ways to fix the situation: remove the pro-segregation lobby
from the leadership of LAB and return control to member cyclists, or
create a new organization that is accountable to the best interests of
competent cyclists.

I'll back a new organization. Reform of an organization that has
already been bought by industry and has decided to live in Washington
may be impossible.

Oh my goodness. Having been to Washington DC for the Bike Summit March
3-5th, and watching nearly 400 people, the majority of whom were *not* from
the industry, work very hard to promote the idea that cycling isn't
something that should be planned or legislated out of our lives, I have to
take strong issue, even offense, at that statement.

You're from the industry. All the ones that work for LAB, Bikes Belong,
or any of innumerable "bicycle coalitions" are largely funded by the
sporting-goods lobby.

The LAB may not be the organization it used to be, and may no longer be
serving the needs people here are bringing up. That's a problem. But to
denigrate their efforts to keep us on the road and to promote cycling as a
means for kids to walk to school?

I'll denigrate it. Paths are more dangerous than the street. The real
problem with kids getting to school is at the local school board level.
Some districts don't allow children to ride their bikes to class.


And to at least imply that it's sold out
as they've tried to get more industry people involved... I do find that
personally offensive.

I don't see why you're offended, they're doing everything they can to
make you money. I'm sure you've been to Interbike, so I'm sure you are
well aware that "the industry" is a pack of chainsmoking KMT types from
Taiwan.

I visited with six different legislators on March 4th, always as part of a
team in which I was in awe of the work of advocates who selflessly give of
their time and are not part of the cycling industry.

Save for their nonprofits being supported by said industry almost in
entirety.

See:
http://www.trekbikes.com/news/news_detail.jsp?articleId=981&category=hot_news

I can approach their
passion for cycling, but not the delivery of their message nor the time they
put into it. On the other hand, the legislators pay a lot more attention to
a message that's delivered from a coalition of different types of
constituents, and the presence of small-business (and large-business) owners
does, indeed, give more credibility to the cause.

Here is where I call bull****. Agitation for bikeways always cites,
"the reason people don't ride is because there is nowhere safe to do
it." I highly doubt that there is a definable constituency of people in
this country writing their congressmen occasionally to opine, "We've
been wanting to buy a bike now for three or four years, but still
haven't made the plunge because there is no path system in our town."
Modern bike advocacy is about enriching you and yours.

Are the industry people there out of a selfless desire to help the cause?
ABSOLUTELY NOT! I'm scared to death that, if something isn't done to get
kids more physically active and consider walking or riding to school, our
roads are going to become even more congested (and unsafe to ride), and the
next generation of young adults are going to be so physically inactive that
I won't have a customer base a few years down the road.

Yep. I don't want my tax dollars spent to keep you on carbon. Pay for
your trips to France yourself.

And this "competent cyclist" bit is especially galling. I dunno, gee, I've
been riding a whole lot of miles for the past 33 years, but maybe not enough
to be competent. Certainly not enough, apparently, to get me past my
childish desires to have intersections designed with cyclists in mind, roads
with shoulders, laws that make it illegal to exclude cyclists on normal
roads, inclusion of cyclists requirements on a new roadway by default rather
than exception, etc. Oh, and if we can get a few more people out of SUVs, I
wouldn't mind that either.

Intersections work already. Roads without shoulders inconvenience
motorists, not the cyclist taking the lane. The LAB is high if it
thinks that putting up MUPs doesn't increase roadway restrictions.

Why do you want them out of SUVs? So they have more money to spend on
bikes?

But obviously I'm not a "competent cyclist." Just a really ticked off one
at the moment.

Your indignation is baseless.

The LAB may have problems, but their lobbying efforts are, I feel,
extraordinarily important *and* effective at making the US a better place to
ride a bike. Providing, apparently, that you're an INcompetent cyclist.
Please count me as one.

They're trying to make the US a better place to sell a bike.

---
Lars

LioNiNoiL wrote:

The governance of the League Formerly Known As American Wheelmen went to
Hell in a handcart in the Eighties, and has not recovered since.

Curtis added:
Late 80s, but mostly the 90s. Agree with the rest of the sentiment.

You're misremembering the BICYCLE USA fiasco in 1984. Not to
mention the Kod*k Liberty Ride Fiasco the following year.

--Karen M.
former staffer, left in '86

In article ,
Curtis L. Russell wrote:
On Wed, 24 Mar 2004 10:54:49 -0500, Luigi de Guzman
wrote:

I'll back a new organization. Reform of an organization that has
already been bought by industry and has decided to live in Washington
may be impossible.

It is debatable which would be more difficult or unlikely to succeed.
As ineffectual as LAB might seem, and as ineffective in using members'
$$, do we have a better solution (without LAB)?

The start toward financial reform would be to move the offices from
downtown Washington DC, more or less, to one of the older Columbia, MD
corporate parks. Pretty much the equivalent of where they were before,
near Baltimore, before ED Gil decided to use LAW as a growth
organization (and failed dramatically). He moved the offices to a new
location in South Baltimore where a museum was supposed to be created
as well; then ED Jodie Newman and Pres. Earl Jones led their troops
into downtown DC. Like many denizens of DC, they HAVE to constantly
hunt and grub for money, because the cost of a DC location gives
little alternative.

In 1980, Phyllis Harmon was voted out, and John Forrester voted in.
At that time LAB was being changed from a folksy club-riding organization
to something that was far more proactive in terms of ensuring bicyclists'
rights to the road. It was an exciting time to be involved, even at
the lowest levels. Subsequently the offices were moved to Baltimore.
IMHO LAB has mostly done all right until relatively recent times. It's
still small enough that it is possible that members acting together might
have an impact. Change such as this won't be easy, there will be pain
just as there was in 1980.

OK, maybe what we really need to do is move it all the way back to the
midwest, so the temptation of DC goes away altogether. Hire one
lobbyist and keep things in perspective.

IMHO we need a DC presence, just shouldn't consider this the world.
We need to get enough attention from someone on the board -- particularly
with enough clout so that the LAB magazine could be used to bring up these
issues with rank and file members. Right now most members are unaware of
these issues -- as I was a short while ago.

-frank
--

On 24 Mar 2004 12:13:02 -0800, (Karen M.)
wrote:

You're misremembering the BICYCLE USA fiasco in 1984. Not to
mention the Kod*k Liberty Ride Fiasco the following year.

--Karen M.
former staffer, left in '86

Not completely. But that wasn't continuous - there was a period of
about 8 years where things settled down, the GEARs were well run and
no one tried to spend money to make money.

Then Gil Clark came in and tried to make it back to the big time by
making LAW what it wasn't. But at least he put on about three really
good GEARs...

Jodie came in with a clueless staff (Gil fired everyone from the 8
years when things more or less worked OK as a club and member
organization again) and everyone wandered around until Earl came on
board. Earl was Gil writ small, and we ended up with a small version
of what Gil wanted - no club support, GEARs going down the tubes, club
programs ignored and mismanaged until the clubs stopped participating,
then the programs cut because there was no participation. (Example was
the patch program - popular when the patches were managed to help
rides and clubs. Then Gil and Jodie oversold the patches to the bike
clubs 'on consignment' and then refused to take them back and finished
by not writing refunds for months.)

The last ruling clique came in with all the good will it could use.
Jodie and Earl were gone and there was hope. And it turns out that
they were a bunch of kids with no institutional memory, bound to take
LAB the last few steps of the Gil and Earl path. No real club support,
virutally no club programs, education going no where fast, no
connection to clubs or club riders, and in no way answerable to the
members. But the money raising machine runs smoothly and the staff
gets to smooze with the politicos and what they consider to be the
bigwigs.

Although I started the LAB-reform mailing list some 12 or so years ago
with some measure of hope, I think now that replacement is a better
idea. I hear indirectly (so I don't know it as fact) that some of the
bigger clubs are disenchanted with LAB and may be the source of the
birth of a national club/membership based organization that supports
nationally and locally on-road riding and advocacy. Its something that
I'm willing to put money into.


Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...

In article ,
Lars Lehtonen wrote:

[snip]
{MikeJ}
The LAB may not be the organization it used to be, and may no longer be
serving the needs people here are bringing up. That's a problem. But to
denigrate their efforts to keep us on the road and to promote cycling as a
means for kids to walk to school?

I'll denigrate it. Paths are more dangerous than the street. The real
problem with kids getting to school is at the local school board level.
Some districts don't allow children to ride their bikes to class.

Huh? Where did he talk about bike paths? Most of the legal/lobbying action
I've seen from LAB involves _roads_. Their web site deals with issues of
bikes on roads. Sure, there are many misguided communities making bike
paths. Why tar LAB with someone else's brush?

[snip]

They're trying to make the US a better place to sell a bike.

This is not necessarily a completely bad idea. No reason to bite the
hand of the bike dealers and manufacturers, though we need to control
(and fund) our own (riders') organization.

-frank
--

On 24 Mar 2004 20:27:16 GMT, (Frank Miles) wrote:

It is debatable which would be more difficult or unlikely to succeed.
As ineffectual as LAB might seem, and as ineffective in using members'
$$, do we have a better solution (without LAB)?

Not now, because we're still agonizing about LAB. The fact is, though,
that even when LAW was relatively popular among bicycling clubs
nationwide and there were multiple club programs, LAW was not all that
well known among the rank and file of members. LAW was concerned
about their lack of name recognition back in the 80s.

I doubt that LAB is now the best known cycling group. Adventure
Cycling is probably better known than LAB and, unfortunately IMO, if
people across the U.S. were asked to name a bicycling organization,
more would probably name Rail to Trails than LAB, Adventure Cycling
and USCF combined. And, yes, I'm fully aware that they aren't a
cycling organization...

Which means (assuming that I am correct) that there is more a void
than a replacement to consider. Yes, LAB will remain the better known
organization in Washington, DC. It is, afterall, a lobbying
organization in fact if not technically, and not a membership oriented
organization at all. Their web site is far more about what you can do
for LAB than what they can do for you, at least directly. (Of course,
if you keep sending them money, they will attain cycling Nirvana.)

The local jurisdictions, the states and the clubs are ripe to be
'taken' from LAB IMO. A grass-roots local advocacy organization
supported nationally via the Internet, and a real interest in the
needs of clubs would go a long way to setting up a new organization.

I'm a life member of LAB, a former volunteer and involved with LAB up
through the end of the Jodie days. But what is left is not LAW and it
isn't LAB as it was expected to be back in the early 90s. It is a
self-perpetuating industry shill. And a shell of what it could have
been.

No, I don't thinkthe members can take it back, although I will support
any effort to try to do so. I think that it isn't a waste of time to
explore a new organization, as long as we remain aware that it could
go either way at this point - a truly new organization or a
replacement within LAB itself.

FWIW, a lot of people more directly involved than I in the period
between John F being forced out (1982?) and the mini-restoration (sort
of 1984 through 1986 as I remember it) would say that the 80s weren't
all good.

Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...

Lars: Your cynicism goes even beyond mine on a good day, and that takes
some doing. Nevertheless, I did change the subject, to try and stay within
the spirit of things. :)

Paths are more dangerous than the street. The real
problem with kids getting to school is at the local school board level.
Some districts don't allow children to ride their bikes to class.

The "Complete Streets" initiative has nothing to do with taking people off
of roads and putting them onto bike paths.

And you are correct that there are schools that actually don't allow kids to
ride. Part of "Safe Routes to Schools" is to identify these schools and
change that mind-set. I included many links on the web page I put up that
explain this much better than I ever could.

You're from the industry. All the ones that work for LAB, Bikes Belong,
or any of innumerable "bicycle coalitions" are largely funded by the
sporting-goods lobby.

Therefor I'm evil. Part of the "sporting-goods" lobby, whatever that is.
Of the nearly-400 people at the DC Bike Summit, there were very few who
weren't active cyclists, and I doubt that much, if any funding comes from an
all-ecompassing "sporting-goods lobby." Why? Because they would rather
people were spending their money on guns, or snowboards, or roller blades,
or whatever. We're all about cycling. Just cycling. Nothing but cycling.
Actually, that's a lie; we also promote walking as a non-vehicular form of
transportation as well.

I don't see why you're offended, they're doing everything they can to
make you money. I'm sure you've been to Interbike, so I'm sure you are
well aware that "the industry" is a pack of chainsmoking KMT types from
Taiwan.

Interbike isn't terribly thrilling to me, for the reasons you mention. I'm
planning on skipping it this coming year, spending the $$$ where I believe
it makes more sense... at the DC Bike Summit. Even this past year I spent
only one day at Interbike. By the way, what is it that Interbike is doing
to make me money? Near as I can tell, they only come up with ways to spend
it.

See:

http://www.trekbikes.com/news/news_d...ategory=hot_ne
ws

I can approach their
passion for cycling, but not the delivery of their message nor the time
they
put into it. On the other hand, the legislators pay a lot more attention
to
a message that's delivered from a coalition of different types of
constituents, and the presence of small-business (and large-business)
owners
does, indeed, give more credibility to the cause.

Here is where I call bull****. Agitation for bikeways always cites,
"the reason people don't ride is because there is nowhere safe to do
it." I highly doubt that there is a definable constituency of people in
this country writing their congressmen occasionally to opine, "We've
been wanting to buy a bike now for three or four years, but still
haven't made the plunge because there is no path system in our town."
Modern bike advocacy is about enriching you and yours.

One of the primary reasons people don't take up cycling is because it's
inconvenient or unsafe to do so. We've built our cities around the
automobile, and are now suffering greatly for it. And it's not about people
not spending a lot of money on a new bike so they'll ride; most everybody
already has one. Bikes are hardly a rare item; they're just not used. *I*
think the world would be a better place if more people rode bikes and fewer
people drove cars. That's just my thinking. And I'm arrogant enough to
believe that *your* world, if you ride a bike, would also benefit from more
people riding bikes and fewer people driving cars.

Does that enrich me financially? Well, sure, it keeps my two shops in
business. So I guess I'm an evil tool of capitalism. What would you have
me do instead?

Yep. I don't want my tax dollars spent to keep you on carbon. Pay for
your trips to France yourself.

I don't recall putting out a collection plate. People are free to spend
their money wherever they wish. If I don't provide them with something they
want, they'll spend their money elsewhere. Not just at a different bike
shop, but maybe something entirely different. That's the whole point. If
we make cycling inconvenient (or allow it to stay so), people will choose to
do something else. Maybe they'll take up hunting. Or scuba. Or travel.
Or buy a bigger car. Or a faster computer. It's a choice, and I feel the
world would be a better place if more people made the choice to ride. You
can (and do) argue that it's entirely for my own financial gain. If enough
other people (my customers) agree with you, then I'll go out of business,
which apparently will make your world a better place.

Why do you want them out of SUVs? So they have more money to spend on
bikes?

Because I think the world's a better place if more people are out cycling
and fewer people driving to their destinations. My financial incentives for
attending the DC Bike Summit are extremely long-range; more likely I could
make far more money if I invested the same amount of $$$, time & effort
looking at ways to sell more product at the shop.

--Mike--
Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReaction.com

"Luigi de Guzman" wrote in message
...
On 24 Mar 2004 06:58:47 -0800, (Steven
Goodridge) wrote:

I see two ways to fix the situation: remove the pro-segregation lobby
from the leadership of LAB and return control to member cyclists, or
create a new organization that is accountable to the best interests of
competent cyclists.

I'll back a new organization. Reform of an organization that has
already been bought by industry and has decided to live in Washington
may be impossible.

-Luigi

Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Organizations go thorough changes and phases just like people do.
There's still a League of American Wheelmen in there somewhere.
btw:
In part because of my efforts, my club affiliated with the League last year.