CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
Well done to ALL posters
It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
http://road.cc/content/news/30348-graeme-obree-reveals-he-gay
"We imagine that most road.cc users, like ourselves, will consider Obree’s sexuality to be a private matter for himself, but hope you will join us in wishing him inner peace and happiness for the future."
What road.cc said ^
If that's what road.cc thinks then why the headline?
and...? Good luck to the bloke,(as if my thoughts will make any difference), I know girls who like girls, girls who like boys, boys who like girls, boys who like boys and girls, the permutations are endless, and irrelevant to anyone not actually in or planning a relationship with the individual concerned.
Mind you, you only have to look at soccer commentators (for instance) to find the sort of ingrained bigotry I rather hoped would dissapear by the 21st century :-(
yeah football commentators are bad for that too
"If that's what road.cc thinks then why the headline?"
I suspect the "reveal" bit might (subconsciously at least) relate to the fact that he told The Sun.
Which (I presume) was a deliberately considered move by Graeme.
I've met him a couple of times. Anyone who tells you he is a 'really nice guy' is telling the truth -
and funny (in a good way).
I'd love to meet him. Tried a few times for Citycycling but never with any success - really does come across as a genuinely nice bloke who has had a lot of demons in his life to deal with.
I think my title for an article on him was 'Crouching Rider, Hidden Demons'. I always thought that was better than Flying Scotsman... ;)
Anth "I'd love to meet him."
gettoff! He's mine!
Seriously tho, I am really glad how public figures and role models are standing up to be counted, especially as there is still a lot of bigotry out there.
While I couldn't care less what anyone's sexuality is (unless I want to sleep with them myself), there is still so much homophobia in sport that anyone who chooses to reveal it should be applauded.
It says a lot about growing up in Ayrshire (as stated in the Metro "better dead than gay") that's the angle I took on the story
"CYCLING legend Graeme Obree has revealed plans to help other people struggling with their lives by training to become a counsellor."
http://news.scotsman.com/news/Bike-legend-Obree-plans-new.6722207.jp
'Full story' on Radio Scotland at 3.30 today -
As it happens this is very relevant to my job! The line I'd take is that it does seem to be important for high-profile people to be out - once they're ready to be - especially in fields like sport (as Kirst mentions, there's still a lot of prejudice out there) which can sometimes be overly macho and intimidating. It's also good that he's spoken openly about the homophobic environments he experienced as a young person in Scotland - awareness and openness about that stuff is sometimes the first step to tackling it.
I know it's not exactly the same thing, but I've seen some good research which shows that school pupils who have been taught about gay issues in a positive way answer much more positively on questions about feeling happy at school and feeling part of the community, etc. There was an interesting (if quite long!) piece on this in the Times Ed recently: http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6069969 - including a pretty inspiring bit (half way through) about an out gay head teacher changing attitudes in a 'challenge' school.
Well done Graeme! - I say why does it make any difference - doesn't to me. You're still a fantastic cyclist. If someone like Gareth Edwards can "come out" and be happy to do so, does it change him as a person? Certainly not!
As has been said above, there is bigotry about - but in the future, I'm sure it will not be worthy of talking about in these forums.
Lets hope more people become comfortable with and accept it.
I can recommend an excellent interview with Obree in the last (or 2nd last?) Velo Club Don Logan podcast.
First time I have heard him for a while - what a champion, what a character - this country could do with more sportspeople with his drive.
I was away skiing when he outed himself, so it was kind of old news when I heard it - hope he did not get any negative press etc.
what a champion, what a character - this country could do with more sportspeople with his drive.
So many (Scottish) people at my work go "Oh, I don't know any cyclists" when they ask me what "sport" I'm into (they assume the answer will be Green or Blue or Maroon). Tragic. Anyway, certainly the man that has encouraged me to pedal harder, further and through more pain than I ever thought I should.
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