Does anyone know the numbers for the hill bender? How was it for a non-usac race? Also, traditional racing is not very exciting for the individual anymore. Grand Fondos, gravel racing, and other open/nontraditional forms if racing are the current trend. I know it's hard to think of this event changing, but maybe it's time. Something fresh? Maybe a relay event? Who knows?
Jeremy
All I am saying we need to get a consensus about what to do. I have spent a lot of time already trying to get sponsors and got one, 315 Brewery. There has been a constant diminishing return on the effort we put into holding this event. Thought we should make the decision at the meeting and then get input from those that can’t attend. Also, the race committee really doesn’t get involved with the cross race, but I wouldn’t mind if they did. It is usually just Noel and me making the decisions. Mike - are you thinking we don’t do SRW this year? Focus on ‘cross Race instead? I'll call them and make arrangements.
Donald Butler
Treasurer, Onondaga Cycling Club On Mon, May 14, 2018 at 8:27 AM, Todd Relyea brewer13210@PROTECTED [OCC_Race_Committee] <occ_race_comm@PROTECTED> wrote: If you can send the payment info to Don, he can make sure that the park is paid. I've never had an OCC checkbook. We still have the race on the OCC calendar, so the worst case is that we still a fun ride followed by a picnic. Regrading the split between responsibilities between the board and the race committee, the board oversees the race committee, and technically the board has to approve any spending, but from a practical standpoint the RC has run things fairly independently providing updates at board meetings. Regarding the configuration of the race, how many days, events, etc., the board has always deferred to the RC. If the RC decides to skip a year, then it isn't as if the board can force us to hold a race. I’m not sure this helps, but : 1) I LOVE our several race / weekend format. It is different from anything else around this area. It SHOULD appeal to a different group of racers from the normal road racing crew. 2) It doesn’t. Fewer and fewer people come, and no one in the club seems to care about this race. 3) I am happy to do whatever I can to help put this weekend together. 4) Like most of the people organizing this, I am overextended in life, and if we decide to cancel, I’ll be sad, but almost relieved. I’d hate for all of us to put out a great effort for . . . what, lost resources and the ambivalence of the OCC population? I guess the bottom line is, maybe we DO think about not doing it THIS year, 2018. And, procedurally, does the committee or the board make that decision? We’d need to get the ball rolling if we are going to float the idea of not doing it THIS year. PS - One more thing to to consider for this year. Spokeride, in Sacketts Harbor, is also the same day, and it is closer to Canada where many of our riders traditionally come from. So……….Does that mean we aren’t going to ask Marcellus to extend the due date for payment?
- As a multi-day event, Race Weekend (RW) is always hit with significantly higher costs per day than a single day event, primarily because of meals, lodging & overtime from the USACycling officials,
- Three years ago, all of the race directors in NY were informed that we were out of compliance with the NYS DOT. Speed events (races) require a permit, which in turn requires an expensive insurance policy and dramatically more law enforcement officers than we used to use (6 vs. 1). Since then, my fear has been that in the event of a bad accident or fatality, if it turned out that we were operating within the required permits, the OCC would be sued out of existence.
- Road racing also isn't what it used to be. Back in the day when Lance Armstrong was winning the Tour de France, everyone and their brother wanted to race their bikes. Today when you look at USACycling and BikeReg numbers, there's been a slow decay for a long time. Today the average American probably can't name a single professional bike racer, and now there are also innumerable cycling related events people can choose from; more triathlons than you can shake a stick at, and no lack of charity bike rides and 5k & 10k runs.
- Case in point: Battenkill: Back in 2010, Tour of the Battenkill was a 2-day pro/am race and had over 2,200 registrations. In 2018 it was down to a one-day fondo with 450 participants, and that's with a full time staff running year-round advertising,
- Registration numbers for RW have been flat for a number of years; adding the hill climb four years ago and holding the crit at the state fair last year didn't increase registration at all.
- Saying that the general OCC membership doesn't care about RW is the understatement of the century. Anyone who has had the pleasure of trying to drum-up volunteers knows that it's a pretty soul crushing task. Even before I was race director, the last few days before the race was a jigsaw puzzle of trying to figure out how to run the event with about half the volunteers that we actually needed. When Gus was the volunteer coordinator, he started to beat the drum at the banquet in January, as we still ran significantly short of volunteers.
- After trying to find place on the calendar for RW with no other USACycling conflicts, early in 2018 the Tour de Cure changed their date to Sunday July 29th (same day as our road race). A lot of race teams, including OCC members, have traditionally done this fund raiser, and I expect that it would peel off some of our participation.
- Financially, RW is a huge roll of the dice. We front a very significant amount of cash setting up the event, and everyone waits until the 5-day weather forecast shows that it's going to be a nice weekend before registering. A few years back we had registration open in January, and a grand total of three people registered in the first four months.
So what do people want? Without a doubt, the CX race continues to be very popular and is relatively easy to set-up and run, and it continues to generate a profit. We've also seen gravel grinders and winter fat bike races pop up all over the place. None of those require any special permitting, large numbers of volunteers or law enforcement. You can hand out peanut butter for prizes and people are thrilled. Regarding 2018, if we want to hold an event with little financial risk and a high upside to make a profit, that the OCC membership will actually participate in, then boiling things down to just the fondo is the easy choice. It's slightly more complicated than the fall century or the 70.2, requires no special permits or law enforcement, and only takes a handful of volunteers to run. People get a bib and a finish time, so it can almost feel like a race, without the associated logistics of a race. |
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