From: les@sail.stanford.edu (Les Earnest)
Subject: U.S. cycling governance: Affiliations and fornications [part 7 of 10]
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 08:52:33 GMT

In order to head off another potential turf war, I negotiated Articles
of Alliance with the International Human Powered Vehicle Association
(IHPVA) in 1980 that still remain in effect, with continuing amicable
relations.  IHPVA also became a USCF member club for a time in order
to get inexpensive liability insurance.

There was very little professional bike racing in the U.S. from 1940
through 1980.  The ancient National Cycling Association had vanished
completely by 1961, but in 1968 Chris vanGent, a former six day bike
racer, formed a Colorado non-profit corporation called Professional
Racing Organization (PRO) with the goal of reviving six day racing in
the U.S.  A number of U.S. riders turned pro in order to join this
venture and several six day races were held in major cities, but these
too were financial flops.

PRO was a zombie by 1974 and VanGent reportedly sent a letter to ABLA
President Otto Wenz in 1975 offering to turn over pro racing to ABLA.
ABLA accepted and appropriately changed its name to U.S. Cycling
Federation, given that it was no longer just an ``amateur''
organization.  Unfortunately, Wenz lost the letter from VanGent, which
turned out to have profound and expensive implications.

USCF began paying dues to the International Professional Cycling
Federation, but neglected to inform them that it was replacing PRO.
The international body assumed that USCF was acting as an agent of PRO
in paying the dues and so kept PRO on their books as the current U.S.
member.

Promoters Jack Simes and Dave Chauner came to the USCF board in
October 1979 with a proposal that their company, Omni-Sports, be given
an opportunity to develop professional racing.  The USCF board
encouraged them to come back with a concrete proposal.

What happened next was either a very clever move on the part of Simes
and Chauner or a piece of gross skullduggery, depending on your
viewpoint.  They learned that the international body still thought PRO
was running U.S. professional racing, negotiated a deal with Van Gent
to buy the worthless shell of PRO, and informed USCF that they now
controlled professional racing in the U.S.

Most of the USCF directors had a fit.  For one thing, there was
longstanding bad blood between the families of USCF President Mike
Fraysse and Simes.  A major turf war erupted that involved many trips
overseas in vain attempts to get the international bodies to resolve
the matter.  Even more expensive were the legal actions.  USCF paid
for this by raising license fees by 66% in 1982, but PRO had few
riders to tax and so sank into debt by about $200,000.

PRO, which later changed its name to USPRO, eventually won this
struggle, which meant that they controlled the virtually nonexistent
sport of professional bike racing in the U.S.  USPRO faced a bleak
future until rescue came from a surprising direction.

--
Les Earnest (Les@cs.Stanford.edu)               Phone:  415 941-3984
Computer Science Dept.; Stanford, CA 94305	  Fax:  415 941-3934
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.racing