Originally Posted by
hubcyclist
I was gonna keep quiet but I'll chirp. Personally the big aggrieved energy is palpable here, and you seem more upset your son didn't make it to the big time than anything else. I've always kind of questioned your parenting vis a vis pushing your kid in cycling. When I started on this forum my kid was 2ish/3 and he's about to turn 12, so I've gotten some years of parenting under my belt. My son is not interesting in cycling at all (much to my chagrin, I'd love to ride together, but pushing my interests is a fruitless endeavor), and not interested in competitive sports period (although he does participate in a swim team prep program). You seem to treat sports as a means to get some other life advantages (pro contract/scholarships/whatever), and frankly, I wish we'd do away with athletic scholarships as a thing. I see sports as a way to encourage kids to adopt healthy habits, learn some life lessons on trying their best and losing with grace, and forming friendships. Maybe that's the case for you too, but it's never seemed that way. Hopefully your son has found a way to keep cycling in his life and is enjoying it in a non-competitive fashion.
Not really. Junior came back to town this week to grab some KOMs back. This has been his thing all along.
As a very long cycling fan, I would have liked to see what he could have done, but that is not much different than all choices we make, or see others make.
As my other post indicated, the culture has not been around fairly competing. We all go nuts over drugs or motors, but take something like a gear that would really make a difference and we are all fine giving the advantage to the big people. And the big people are fine taking it. I am glad the restrictions are over (soon) world-wide. We will see more cycling as a sport and fewer class restrictions.
What remains is to allow the juniors in Europe to race with adults based on ability, but they have no shortage of junior fields, so I don't see that as an issue.