Change Cycling Now Drafts 3 Goals

So last weekend the Change Cycling Now group met to discuss what can be done to bring some respect back to the professional cycling peloton. They came out of the weekend with three drafted goals: short, medium and long term.

Here, briefly, is what they proposed:

Short Term: Both Pat McQuaid (the current UCI president) and Hein Verbruggen (lifetime honorary president and managing committee member) must resign. Greg LeMond has stated he would serve as an interim UCI president until the most suitable full-time replacement can be found.

Medium Term: Convene a "Truth-and-Reconcilliation Commission" for current riders and managers to confess their pasts without fear of current professional repercussions. This commission should only hold a defined window of time open for people to come forward, after which full sanctions will again be leveled. To me, it is a little worrying that some of the riders who most recently have confessed past sins (like Levi Leipheimer) were immediately fired by their respective teams. How can we really expect to clean things up if riders will again be fearful to come-clean? Let's air it all and then move forward.

Long Term: Create a fully-independent drug testing agency, one that selects which riders, when, and where they will be tested. Currently the UCI makes these types of drug testing decisions - it should be stripped of this responsibility because of the real and/or implied conflict-of-interest.

Please go to the Change Cycling Now website to read their full Charter-of-the Willing, and if you are so moved like I am, sign their online petition to show your vote of non-confidence in the current UCI leadership of Pat McQuaid and Hein Verbruggen.




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