Originally Posted by
Steve B.
That's so ironic. One would think that the "recreation only" folks would see the benefit of strong advocacy to keep the roads safe for that very same recreation.
There are 4 well known (locally) large-ish road bike clubs on Long Island as well as a Mt, Bike club. Every one of those clubs has members that are involved in the advocacy part, either keeping after the local governments to make sure cycling is considered when planning road projects, or to gain and maintain access to trail systems. I have never heard of any member complaining that the clubs advocate too strongly, the idea seems ludicrous.
It's hard to summarize quickly what happened -- but there was a a long-time executive director of the club who was a very outspoken advocate, and had been active on the state, local and suburban level. There was a disagreement on the board around a lot of things; one was around whether the club should be even *more* outspoken in its political stance, and others thought that the club was becoming a lightning rod for criticism and should adopt a lower profile, and for being too closely aligned with certain politicians, esp. the mayor.
According to some local folks, one of the flash points was a newspaper article in which the exec dir of the club was quoted as saying that drivers who kill cyclists should be "strung up and hung from a bridge on the edge of town" or something like that -- at a time when the club was already under fire for pushing too hard.
So I don't think it was so much that the club shouldn't do *anything,* but whether maybe a quieter approach would be more effective.
Lots of other internal club politics, personnel, and personalities involved as well - I followed from a distance.