Dear all,
I am sorry that Giovanni calls this rule change proposal my "personal
"war" against IHPVA". This is a process which has been going on since
several decades, initiated by American, Australian, British, and German
members of the then IHPVA. I am simply the last one of these to try to
get these rules, since Richard Ballantine became ill and died and the
original proposers have become old or left. The idea of all these people
was that it should be possible to stage events as locally as possible
and not have to travel to far-away locations, even within the very large
USA, but especially not from Europe or Australia.
There are several main motivations for people involved with human
powered vehicles: science and technology, sports and competition, health
and environment, and touring and transportation. My motivation is mainly
environmental and therefore I think there should be useable sites in
every country or at least every continent. Human power is about
efficiency and chances for all, and not burning many tonnes of fuel
within a few days, something which only the rich can afford, albeit at
the cost of others, with the accelerating effects of climate warming and
ocean acidification.
My second main motivation apart from personal transport is science and
technology, and here it is poor science to call something human-powered
which isn't. I'm surprised that our organisation with the most
descriptive name, Propulsione Umana, doesn't take this seriously.
Other people have different priorities. Edgar told me that for him it is
primarly science/technology and then sports/competition. For most active
Future Bike members it is first touring and transport, then sports and
competition and then environment. Or similar.
The Battle Mountain records are really sports records. There is nothing
wrong with this, the same site for all, but the records have too much
gravity assistance to be real human power. The IHPVA was formed as an
alternative to the UCI, a sports body which is interested primarly in
competition and less in science and technology. Now we are trying the
same, trying to escape the constraints imposed by what are now sports
rules. If we fail, the WHPVA will itself be a sports body, like the UCI,
whose 200m rules (besides not allowing recumbents and fairings) have
flying-start run-ups of varying lengths around one kilometer. In sports
it is about prestige and money, right down to the village level.
So if you feel the WHPVA should be about sports, do vote NO, but if you
see the other priorities, please vote YES.
Best,
Theo Schmidt, Future Bike Switzerland
Am 10.10.2017 um 18:56 schrieb Giovanni Eupani:
Dear all,...
I try to be short.
