This discussion must come to an end but I would like to make one point publically. I do not know Chuck Ayers well personally nor do I understand his disagreements with the Board as I am merely a humble former ride leader. But I have met Chuck and talked to him on numerous occasions over the years including on a number of rides. I have discussed issues with him by e-mail on various occasions, even when I was not a member in protest. Chuck was always more than courteous when we did not agree and more generous with his time than he needed to be, or probably could afford to be. It was always clear to me that he took his responsibilities very seriously and worked tirelessly for the Club. Holding this group together was a big ballancing trick and he seemed to do it well. I think the real issue here is not whether his firing (and subsequent re-hiring!) was handled well or poorly (although I am sure Chuck thinks it is an important issue) as I am more concerned with results rather than process. Nevertheless, what does Chuck being rejected by the Board tell us about the leadership of the club that represents us and works for us? What does the current ballot tell us about our voice in the club that we own? Why all the focus on generating revenue (e.g. STP training rides to have a fee)? To me, those are the more important questions. One could respond, “well managing an operation with 23 employees, a large budget, fundraising, endorsing candidates, running a PAC, etc. is a very complex task and does not lend itself to micromanagement by members, or macromanagement by volunteers” and one would be correct. But, look at the result. Is this what you want? Are you proud of this?

Maybe it is time for the owners of the Club (us) to reconsider what we have created, and whether Frankenstien’s Monster needs to be destroyed and re-made.

Let me know what you think.

I do not think age and type of riding differences are the divisive elements within CBC members or Leadership. In my opinion, it is class issues, and a mentality of competitiveness and entitlement that is inherent with elite bicycling, and/or white male privilege. I would never consider CBC a bikes as transportation community unto itself, and if ever the club needed friends, now would be a good time to truly embrace the community that would be strengthened by their numbers and resources.

Seriously. Everyone who writes for the CBC Website and paper articles RARELY to NEVER mention all of the other advocates and organizations who are working for safe roads for all here in the Puget Sound region and Washington State. The “Share the Road” Campaigns and education outreach, the Safe Routes to School National partnership, changes in DOL drivers education to include bicyclists as accepted and legal users of roadways, are not a proprietary brand or product—yet to here CBC tell it, the club is the center of the universe on all of these good works.

The absence of coalition building aside, in general within the CBC rhetoric and every post I have read since the shake up, there is a truly telling and noteworthy omission of the advocacy world outside of CBC: The Bicycle Alliance of Washington has been far less less flashy and much less caustic in their hard work over the last twenty years; to build productive relationships and the hard earned street credibility in the Capitol.

Then there are the those on the front-lines of bike/ped education with which Bike-All builds the power base to reach and teach legislators and citizens—-Bikeworks, Feet First to name a couple.

CBC can choose to cease the shouting and finger pointing all around. Instead of knee jerk and recant decision making, choose to step away from power struggles. CBC needs a make over in strategic planning, focusing on building alliances and real leadership of a much larger movement for safe roads for all.

With the PAC, I as a bicyclist can meet and support those officials who can pave the way for safe, bicycle-friendly communities, or discover those who may get in the way of that. We bicyclists deserve to know which candidates support bike-friendly communities so that we can hold them accountable to their promises and for their actions. That was the theme that was presented at BikePAC, and that is what the Board saw firsthand (the first time for many of them at an event such as this).

I’ll have to admit, however, that my purpose for being there was to observe some of the interaction taking place, and seeing and meeting some of the players involved. David Hiller ran the program and did a superb job of introducing everyone and putting the event in perspective. When Chuck Ayers was introduced, he was invited to talk and then gave a brilliant and invigorating speech that stressed the need to back those bicycle friendly politicians, many who were in the audience. After his speech, the boisterous, resounding and sustained applause he received could not have been more deafening to the ears of Board members.

I did make it a point to meet and introduce myself to Chris Weiss (Board President who wrote the “Message to Members” above) to try and understand more of what he and the Board were thinking with their sudden and startling recent announcement in regard to the ED. Frankly, I realized that I was talking to a man who had the credentials to be on the board, which he constantly attempted to impress on me, but he refused to admit the fact that maybe the Board could have handled the situation with Chuck a bit differently. When I mentioned that many members view the recent action as extremely naïve and that it gave evidence of being “out of touch” with the membership, I was met with a blank stare and then a comment that the Board had been trying to resolve the differences with Chuck for months. When I told him that many in the membership see the current General Election Ballot as a “sham” by the Board and that the membership really has no choice in the upcoming election, he simply indicated that the members need to refer to the by-laws. When I suggested that, for the good of the club, it would be an appropriate gesture for him to remove his name from the ballot, his answer was that Chuck recruited him for the Board and that Chuck approved him to be on the ballot.

I did not get a chance to tell Chris that the way he and the Board conducted the ED firing, along with the statements he made to the Puget Sound Business Journal was drastically more damaging to the club than any “heartburn” endured by Board members via comments made by David Hiller. I also did not get a chance to state to him that it might be far better, for the sake of the club, that certain Board members just quietly resign and fade away, rather than face an ugly recall which would further damage our club and turn away valuable club sponsors. Would it be possible that several major sponsors are “now on the fence”? Personally, I feel that it is a shame that the club now has an obvious conflict involving egos, where certain naïve Board members feel that they are more important than the club membership.

And it sure seems like a misuse of a 13,000-member cycling organization to not use that significant influence to substantially improve conditions, laws, and infrastructure for cyclists in the Puget Sound and WA State, well beyond keeping the shoulder clean.
To restrict it to a merely recreational function seems like a big waste to me. Anyone can organize a ride these days (not an STP, of course, but the stuff it sounds like you miss).

But by ourselves it’s hard to get anything done on a local or state level when it comes to advocacy. I want Cascade to help get others back on their bikes, on our roads, replacing ridiculous 1-2 mile car trips, increasing ridership and safety in numbers, get kids biking to school again, and to help shift the culture a bit … ambitious, yes, but it’s the largest freaking cycling club in the country. We can and should do more than ride in circles.

I do know this, if you loose the club rides people you will probably loose 3,000 members. I think the advocacy people long ago figured this out and determined that the club could afford to loose them considering the numbers that would be picked up by becoming an advocacy organization. Obviously they were right. Nevertheless, the inevitable seems to be happening and I just hope everyone sees where this is going and is OK with that. Seems like you are.

Here is something you should know. The Club didn’t conciously and affirmatively decide to go the PAC route, the Club was hijacked in that direction. The hijacking was done by people who:

a) wanted to bring in more revenues than merely Club dues, specifically, the much greater revenue that could be obtained from the donations a PAC type orginization could raise;
b) wanted to become paid employees and bosses of paid employees rather than merely being unpaid volunteers-up to then everybody was a volunteer, except maybe the secretary that put the Courier together- even STP was put on totally by volunteers; and
c) genuinely believed in the advocacy/PAC approach to fufilling Cascade’s mission statement and frankly were more interested in that than in rides.

Those people won the day, primarily by default as the ride oriented people just were not up for a fight. Many of them simply migrated to other start up clubs that were created by defecting CBC members (pratical minded Boeing engineers, many of them), most of whom have not returned to this day. So the club is now totally dominated by the advocacy people (23 employees, 23!) making self serving surveys to justify thier existence. You can now expect triumvrates, palace revolts, junta’s, alliances, party purges and all the other things that go along with being a political party as there is no primary, non-contentious activity (going on rides) that binds everybody together. Furthermore, there are other local cycling advocacy groups fighting for their share of the limited pool of bicycling advocacy donations, making defections, internal fights, etc. more likely.

All I am saying really is that the advocacy people got their way and now 15 years later this is the bed that CBC has made for itself. Don’t be suprised as the leadership gets more and more removed from the members (and more and more ensconced) and turmoil gets more routine. You can either have a unified, peaceful club centered around a non-political shared activity, or a contentious club with a political agenda. You just can’t have both.

Let me say one more thing. Other than people who enjoy supporting a cause by merely putting a check in the mail (and that kind of support is fickle), I don’t know how you are going to build up new sustaining members if you don’t have an active rides program that brings in new young blood. The reason we don’t have that is because rides are now a secondary or even tertiary function of the Club.

If you don’t like where all of this has gone, speak up and let me know.