On June 1 the board of British Cycling announced some significant changes to their youth program.

You can see the full details here

These are the rule changes specific to BMX

BMX will need to undergo a number of significant changes and therefore these policies will be phased in over two years.

• BMX National Series categories (including associated series standings and national rankings) will be for riders aged 9 or older in 2016, moving to 13 or older in 2017.  Events for younger categories are still encouraged, but the format of these will change to be non-ranking support races.

• BMX international representation will be unchanged for 2016 as the qualification process for the BMX World Championships has already started.  Representation for the 2017 UCI BMX World Championships and all other international events will only be for riders aged 13 and over.

Changes in some of the other cycle sport disciplines are still being considered by the various commissions but it is the expectation that all disciplines will be fully aligned by 2017.

British Cycling welcomes any feedback on the changes, please send to: youthworkgroup@britishcycling.org.uk

What does it all mean?

As an outsider looking in it’s easy to make comment but difficult to understand exactly how the board came to these decisions. I won’t pretend to know everything.

I can’t help but thinking, I’m an Australian, how the heck could I fully understand the BC culture? Well BC BMX coach Grant White is also Australian (I don’t know if it still says that on his passport) and he was on the board who made the decision. I raced against Grant through our teens and I’m sure he understands as a rider how this would effect these kids thriving to be future champions. Would BC have been able to produce current champions like Shanaze Reade, Lliam Phillips, Tre Whyte or past champions like Dale Holmes, Jamie Staff, Neil Wood without each of them having a greater goal to develop their skills, confidence and race smarts at an earlier age?

BMX continues to drive toward a more elite focused sport, and so it should those riders deserve every bit of acknowledgement they get, they certainly don’t get paid the sort of money athletes from other sports get (the sort of money they deserve) and each of them put a whole lot more on the line day in day out, but that’s not a reason to erase history, or the potential or opportunity for the developing riders.

Sure those riders will still get to race at national events, eliminating the need to compete at every round makes racing more affordable for many people, but without a goal to be national champion won’t that lead to less riders competing at each round? How can it hurt anyone to continue the younger classes the way things are? It seems that it’s only the grassroots that will suffer from the inevitable progression of the sport as people at the top continually attempt to legitimise the sport to outsiders. It so doesn’t need to be legitimised, the stage doesn’t get any bigger than the Olympics and the tracks don’t get any bigger than BMX Supercross (except maybe Redbull Revolution).

Seriously BC you can’t compare the culture of BMX to road, track or mountain cycling. The impact on those other categories of cycling would be minimum in comparison to BMX. I feel sorry for the riders who are effected by the changes. Nothing will be worse than having to sit at home and watch the world championships live feed while riders your same age from all of the other competing countries race for a title.

I keep thinking back to “Youth cycling should be fun” a key element in the general announcement. To me, even after 30 something years in the sport, BMX is a heck of a lot of fun. Just as much now as when I first started. Although my goals may have changed I was always driven in those early days to make a name for myself and always strived to me the national champion. I don’t know that I would have been so heavily involved if it wasn’t for that, I don’t know if I would still be racing today.