The WSBA is the worst governing body except all the others

I am pretty unimpressed when people respond to critiques of bicycle racing with "you don't race" or "you aren't don't race enough/well enough" for me to care about your opinion. I think this is a lazy argument: most people who make the critiques do, in fact race or have raced and are still involved in the community. Otherwise they wouldn't even be in a position to make a critique to begin with. And the racing community is quite diverse, we all get older and with a few exceptions can't dedicate our lives to some ideal participation in the sport.

On the otherhand, I am sympathetic to frustration various members of the WSBA Board may feel about the relentless complaining. After all, while most of us have raced enough to actually have insight into racing, very few of us have actually put much effort into making the WSBA better. There are many reasons for this. I personally don't have the time; I could offer to help and I suspect that I could have a positive impact on how the WSBA operates but that impact would be weighed against long periods of time where I would not be able to do whatever job they gave me because I was busy with other stuff.

So, before you complain too loudly ask yourself if you would be willing to do the job and if you could do it better. And I don't mean could you improve some specific aspect of WSBA. If I where King I am 100% positive I could improve Masters turnout by 50% in two years. Great you say! But the flip side is I would do it by mandating one 35+ category and one 50+ category and implementing a minimum distance on all Cat 1/2 races. And I would probably ignore every single other important intiative. So, you know, maybe having me as King would be a bad idea.

On the otherhand, I do think that the WSBA could approach decision making in a slightly different manner that is percieved. Specifically, I see a lot of threads in various places about proposed changes to Masters races, WSBA taxes, BARR/State Championships that, as a stakeholder in the process, don't make sense to me. The reason is that I don't understand what the changes are trying to accomplish. My guess is that I am not the only one who feels this way.

My practical sugestion is for the WSBA to focus less time on making decisions and communicating them to stakeholders like myself. Instead, focus on identifying goals and communicating those. Then, let those who are interested in working on those goals offer their time and energy into creating workable solutions. In otherwards, define the what and then let people contribute the hows.

Obviously, there'll still be a lot of pet suggestions. You'll still get push back. But then you always will. But those of us who do have positive contibutions and a desire to help will know what the goal is, be able to identify areas where we have somethign to offer and have criteria for offering input and suggestions.

Just a thought. On the otherhand, maybe I should just g back to racing.