"To classify is human", said Susan Star
once.
In other words, classifications aren't natural, pre-given or fixed, they are created, applied and evolve because of what people do and say. They are attempts to impose order - so they are instruments of and reflective of power. Whenever anyone classifies, be sure to ask why, and who made and agreed those classifications. Not least because classification has a social use: it has effects. When we classify what is normal or desirable, people adapt to those definitions. After-all, who wants to be called abnormal?
Sociologists like to think about how 'important' classifications are created - usually in the fields of science, medicine and technology. Let's instead think about how they are used in sport, and cycling in particular.
Let's start with the term 'trackie'. Frequently used derogatorily, this is someone that belongs on the track. Those trackies, they are not
real cyclists, they should be out on the road - that's where real cyclists belong. So went the aggrieved argument of club cyclists, as British Cycling invested in the track in the 1990s/2000s. And that's the first point about the term trackie - that its a product of context (or environment). For without the focus and £000s being invested in track cycling in Britain, some of today's top British cyclists wouldn't have ridden it. That doesn't happen in other countries, but explains why those cyclists are associated with the track. It explains its pejorative use too.
But let's also not forget that one reason why many top British cyclists have come through the track is because of the roads. Its no coincidence that the perceived danger of British roads means parents are happy to send their kids to cycling facilities. And its no coincidence that some of the best youth cycling clubs are based at tracks. You don't have to read
David Epstein's The Sports Gene to realise the significance of environment in this case.
Neither do tracks determine physiology. Track teaches race craft, but its primarily an endurance sport the same as road cycling. Its no surprise that the best cyclists have ridden and won medals on the track.
Greg LeMond, for instance. Of course, you knew that, didn't you? And more recently, climbers like Simon Yates won the points race in 2013. But wait: how can a climber be a trackie? This classification game is getting confusing...
When Nairo Quintana started the 2015 Tour de France, he was labelled 'the world's greatest climber'. Im not sure where this 'award' came from, but if a climber like Simon Yates can win a track title, what exactly is a climber? Is a climber an unpredictable character, like Ocaña or Pantani, with rapier acceleration? Or more of a slow burning diesel like Quintana? Or someone who can ride the track like Yates? And do we believe Quintana can't ride a time trial? Last time I checked he could - should we call him a 'tester' now as well? Because if we cant decide on what or who is a climber, these classifications cease to have much relevance.
Historians would probably suggest that these classifications say much more about how cycling has relied on the creation of myths. As
Benjo Maso points out, how we understand the Tour is entirely shaped by the mythologising of events to suit the organiser's purpose of making the event as popular as possible. Reporting the Tour would revolve around storytelling and the creation of characters. It had to: no-one could tell what was going on in the race before TV. Even radio reports were made up. And essential for these stories were the categories of 'climber', 'baroudeur', 'rouleur' etc.
Classifying cyclists was an exercise of a previous era, when racing was different, its purpose to serve social and economic interests. This doesn't mean that all endurance cyclists are physiologically the same. But we'd do well to remember that those classifications are constructed, and fit the context they were made in - not just the social context, but also the context of the racing itself. As contexts change, so must the meaning and application of those categories. And when those classifications themselves overlap or have multiple meanings, is their use reduced to insulting and insinuating, as part of a fight over who has the right to speak about cycling? Isn't that the new context facing cycling?
Classification may work as a convenient shortcut. But as someone once said:
there are no shortcuts in cycling.
