Friday, March 28, 2014

Where my riders at?

I'm off to rock get pummeled at the Gorge Roubaix and don't have much to blog about.  But I know at least 2 people are hitting that refresh button repeatedly and I feel guilty for the resulting frustration the feel getting nothing but Tim Hanks popping up for the last few days.

So for your amusement here are some rapid thoughts about the state of cycling (all of which I have actually thought about but am too lazy to go old skool 538 on)


  • Why is the road scene shrinking?  Well two basic thoughts:
    • Is it shrinking or does it just seem that way because we had a huge spike in participation *and* we have more fields?  I remember when the 1/2/3 race at Sequim was combined..... 
    • For the vast majority racing road requires a willingness to suffer for long periods of time for the reward of watching some else win.  Or to put it another way the pitch is "hey come spend your day riding super hard so I have someone to ride with before I crush you in the finish"
  • Why does USACycling suck so bad?
    • Do they suck?  As a promoter I can say that I've seen a lot of attempts to make things easier and better for cyclists and promoters.  The challenge is they are huge and don't always have a good grasp of what life is like for your average promoter.  To be clear, I am not your average promoter.  I am not doing it for a living but I promote enough that I'm sort of a professional amateur.  The tools & rules being developed are great for me and likely awesome for truly professional promoters.  Teams putting in one-off races?  Not so much.
    • I don't think USACycling as a whole understands that it's the team doing one-off promotions that are the backbone of the sport.  I'm not making a normative statement; I'm making a positive statement.  They just are.  Increasing the barriers to promotion is great for professional promoters in CA and CO were there are plenty of races and competition for a large pool of racers.  But for the rest of the country promoters aren't making enough money for a rent-based system.

As you may notice, my default is to question the premise.  Have at it in comments or teh facingbook.

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