BMX Basics

Permit me to begin this month's column with a brief and apologetic note: Sixty days ago, I decided to quit my job and go into business for myself. I am now the Senior Software Developer for Martin Smith Associates, a company I formed with three other like-minded people. (If you're wondering why there's no Baruth in there, well... we had four last names to pick from, and we used the two that were least likely to cause anguish for customers.) I hadn't expected to have a lot of business initially, but we have already sold a year's worth of coding and network development, most of which I've been working on lately. I've had to subordinate pretty much everything, including the web site, to the needs of my clients. I'm just now out of the genuinely frantic mode, so please bear with me in the next few months. Thanks - JB.

Okay, now on to the topic of the month, one suggested by several of my readers - Bob Tedesco's decision to eliminate the Factory Team category at Nationals. Most of the folks who sent me copies of Tedesco's letter indicated strong disapproval of this decision. I've reproduced the text below, so you can read it and form your own opinion before we continue:

The NBL originated the Factory Team division in order to include bicycle manufacturers in the team series program. After many years of monitoring the declining participation of Factory Teams at national NBL events, we decided to eliminate this team division for 2000. After lengthy discussions with team managers, the NBL discovered that the majority of true bicycle manufacturers were DROPPING AMATEURS from their teams and concentrating on supporting professional riders. When it became clear to us that this trend was growing (to support the professional athlete), we found no reason to continue with a program that was not productive. The future of amateurs, who are the majority of our membership, is to some day become a professional athlete and to some day, hopefully, compete in the Olympics through the NBL. With this in mind, we have taken the money from the Factory Team division and distributed it to our professional classes, including the Super Girl class. The amount of money the NBL awards to its professional racers continues to be among the highest of BMX organizations worldwide. For the 2000 season, the NBL is awarding a maximum of $6,000 per day to AA Pros, $2,500 per day to A Pros and $2,500 per day to Super Girls. We strongly believe that pro athletes, both men and women, are more important to the future of our sport than an imitation Factory Team division. The NBL want to ensure that our professional riders are heroes to young aspiring riders who will strive to be like them. They are the future of the NBL and BMX.

Well, what do you think? Is this good or bad for amateur BMX?

I can hear you now. "Jim, you pot-bellied, low-flying idiot," you're saying, probably while beating your mouse against the monitor. "OF COURSE this is bad for amateur BMX. Tedesco is taking the primary reason for factories to support and develop talented amateur riders and throwing it out the window! What will kids have to look forward to now? What reason will factories have to put kids on their teams, or to focus on amateur competition in general? What will stop the factories from abandoning the kids?"

Don't get me wrong. I haven't had any respect for the NBL management since Scott Stevenson left a decade ago, and I'm not about to start having any. In my opinion, the NBL has done more than any other single organization to stifle the growth of BMX racing in America, most of said stifling being entirely accidental and due to incompetence. The BMX Basics readers who sent this to me with notes like, "Tedesco is (bleeping) amateurs to suck up to pros" and "The NBL doesn't care about the kids anymore" are probably entirely correct. I agree with you. No question there.

However, and it seems like there's always a "however" in our sport, Tedesco and the NBL have done the right thing in spite of themselves. In the same way that the "greed" of individuals in the free-market theory equates to "good" in the long run, I think that the NBL's greed and shortsightedness will eventually prove to be a boon to amateur riders in both sanctions.

And here's why. Tedesco's disturbing comment about "true bicycle manufacturers" aside, and you can interpret "true" in this case to mean "wasting money sucking up to the management of the NBL", it is undeniable that bike manufacturers sponsor teams and riders, not out of some altruistic desire to support the sport, but rather out of an earthly desire to improve the image of their products. Although I can conceive of someone, somewhere, perhaps in Zimbabwe or Iceland, who believes or believed that the top Factory Team did well because of the excellence of their bikes, I can't conceive that anyone actively involved in the sport thinks or thought that way. Have you ever purchased a product based on current Factory Team standings? Of course not.

The fundamental marketing irrelevance of the Factory Team results has led, as Mr. Tedesco noted, to manufacturers' putting their marketing cash elsewhere - the Pro class. Kids do buy bikes because their favorite pro rides something that looks vaguely like it, but they don't buy bikes because the factory-supported kid in their own class rides one. If anything, kids are less likely to pay their own good money for something other kids their own age are getting for free.

Taking the above to be true, and you'd have a hard time proving it not to be, is there ever any real reason to sponsor kids? The awful truth, and I know I will earn the hatred of parents everywhere when I say this, is "umm, no." A manufacturer might find it useful to have a couple of younger riders around for product testing purposes, but it doesn't take a full National program to determine whether or not a particular product is worth selling. Furthermore, the original intent of the Factory Team category, that of pitting a wide variety of riders against each other on equal footing, has long since been abandoned.

Consider the following question for a moment: Why isn't Barry Nilson a professional rider? He certainly has what it takes to be a middling-level Superclasser, and he isn't too old to do it. The answer is that Barry, and other riders like him, stay in the amateur ranks to earn easy points for Factory Team contenders. Jorg DeLouw is another professional in amateur's clothing, and it's no coincidence that both of them have been on the GT team for quite some time. GT and its satellites have been perverting the intent of the Factory Team trophy for as long as they've been involved. You see, it's much easier and smarter to "cherrypick" classes for Team points than to create a team of, say, one 10X, one 13X, one 16X, one 18X, and one Girl. Some people have benefited from this - particularly parents of fast female riders - but it's not what Team competition was supposed to be.

If the Factory Team isn't a sales tool, and it isn't an interesting event to watch, what is it? The answer, dear readers, is "useless".

Naturally, the parents of young riders don't think that Factory Team is useless, because they have hopes of getting their kids on the teams and escaping some of the crippling financial burden that is part and parcel of supporting a full National season. The odds are against them, though, and most parents never get the mythical "free ride", no matter how fast their kids are.

We've established, to my satisfaction at least, that Factory Team wasn't doing anybody much good. What good will be done by its absence? Consider the following:

• Not all of the money freed-up by the lack of Team competition will go directly to the Pro class, at least not on the manufacturers' side. Some of it will go to TV ads, some of it will go to bicycle R&D, and some of it might even go to supporting local tracks, which is perhaps the most responsible and remunerative use possible. With fewer factory rides available, perhaps fewer parents will mercilessly push their children towards that object. Some of the parent/child combos on the National treadmill might return to a less ambitious, and more enjoyable, racing experience.
• National class participation will go down, and kids will race more locals. Bobby T. will be surprised when it happens, but you and I won't be.
• There will be more money for Pros, which means that more riders will be able to make a living in the sport. I support this, because most of the Pros I've met don't have a chance in heck of making a living out of the cycling industry, and because we're losing some of our best talent to the easier but better-paying cycling sports like cross-country and downhill racing.
• There will be less fiscal incentive for the NBL to "stack the deck" in the amateur classes. As a 17X, I frequently observed GT and Haro riders permitted to take both the practice class before me and the one after me. My brother, who was a young Expert, liked to say that In Hee Lee was getting four practice laps for every one he got, and better treatment from the corner marshals, and he was absolutely correct. Let's not forget to mention the "parade laps" that give Factory Team members a chance to set their muscle memory and acclimate to the track while their comp is shivering in the staging lanes.
• I could go on, but you get the point. Taking the money out of the amateur ranks results in a fairer ride for everyone.

I know that some of you expected me to really tear into Bob T. for canning the Factory Teams, but in this case I have to agree with what he did. This was the right action, and if it was for the wrong reasons we can console ourselves that many good things have come about in the same fashion. When Bruce Brown needed thirty seconds of footage to begin "On Any Sunday", he didn't know what he was starting. He couldn't have conceived the idea of BMX as we have it now, nor could he have envisioned the "professional amateur" philosophy that reached its apex in kids like Shelby James and old men like Barry Nilson. If we have traveled far beyond what BMX originally was, there's no reason why we can't backtrack a bit, to kids just having fun, free of the worries of factory rides or manufacturers' trophies. If Bob did this to line his pocket a bit, for once I can't begrudge him the lining. Right decision, wrong reason, and I'll see you next month.