Shove a Tree Branch In It

Jolanda Neff

Do you remember NORBA?

During the nineties if you were into mountain biking you couldn’t swing a cat without hitting something with an NORBA sticker on it.

Bikes were sold with NORBA geometry stickers on them and helmets were NORBA approved.

Founded in 1983 by some of mountain biking’s early intelligentsia National Off Road Bicycle Association was an attempt to codify the rules for off-road mountain bike racing.

Amongst the earliest rules that came out of the earliest NORBA meetings were the rules were that racers had to start and finish with the same bike and racers were responsible for their own repairs.

The other day I watched Jolanda Neff’s World Cup win in La Bresse France.  As the race unfolded Neff fended off some very credible threats from Catharine Pendrel and Emily Batty, a sternum-thumping crash and a flat tire.

After Neff’s crash, she powered her way to the pit area with a flattened rear tire. In the pit, she was greeted by two mechanics that quickly replaced her rear wheel and got her back into the race in less than a minute.

When NORBA was absorbed into USA Cycling and the UCI, it was a marriage made in hell. USA Cycling was an organization that was obsessed with shorts lengths and sock color while UCI was simultaneously both shielded and prosecuted drug cheats.

Things got pretty nasty when both USA Cycling and the UCI got their knickers in a twist when in 2012 some pro mountain bike racers raced in some non USA Cycling / UCI sanctioned mountain bike races.

Threats of fines and suspensions were thrown around, editorials were written, nasty things were said online and everything came to a head with the biggest nothing since John Tomac’s road racing career.

I have mixed feelings about Neff receiving mechanical assistance because it did make for a thrilling end to a nail-biting final lap.

But Neff’s win reminds me how far we have come from when Larry Hibbard shoved a tree branch into the remains of a broken handlebar in order to finish a race.

Or when Cindy Whitehead finished a race with a broken seapost. 

Complaining about the mechanical assistance rules in a World Cup mountain bike race is a bit like moaning about the color of the painted figures on the Acropolis; both events took place a long time ago and there isn’t anything you can do about it now.

Next week we look at index shifting, passing fad or here to stay?

Be sure check out previous Bicycle Industrial Complex posts like “Toe Clips; Saviors or Death Traps”, “Fooey for Food and Water”, and the popular “What Color Are Your Nipples?”