gsteinb

did a brief search and found a bunch of studies on cycling being more dangerous. don't care enough to explore whether they're true. I've already naturalized and far excelled at how I live this.

I drive way less than I ever did though. There are weeks where I don't leave my house.

I know more people than I should who have died or been hit and run in cycling accidents. I know one person who died in a car accident. Anecdotal? Sure but the safety features on my van far out numbered the safety features on my BMC. Plus I get a better workout with less prep and post training time. And no soccer mom is going to pick me off doing 60 in a 45 while texting and driving her kids to school.

Psimet2001 

People keep sending that link to me. I have tried on like 4 instances to attempt reading it. Every time I get a little in and just have to walk away. It's immensely pollyannaish - naive. There's plenty wrong and there's plenty of solutions. Fact is we're in an immense downswing that is affecting racing and the industry as a whole.

Will we come out of it? At this point not many think so.

As far as track - it's shown immense growth recently albeit doubling a quarter still leaves you with only $0.50.

I am personally working on a large project for track that I hope will have national implications that could actually affect the long term outlook of the sport in this nation and foster actual development of our future racers.

Accepting applications from billionaire philanthropists. We have a few who have committed to giving us meetings but that's it. As with all things cycling I am not the first to try and I won't be the last. Hopefully it will be big enough though that people in 20 years will be like, "No they tried that already. it had some serious early success but then people just didn't want to do it. that was around the ultimate rise of e-sports and the death of actual sporting. Remember that?"

Doge

So when I raced...(early 80s)
I lived 40 miles from work. I'd ride M,W,F pretty fast (no Strava to prove anything). In 6 years of this I had 4 car incidents (collision/blood). One was all my fault.
I was riding the OC Coast Hwy, via Newport Beach, up Harbor Blvd and too stupid to know I could die. But I didn't. It was actually a big adrenaline rush, and I had almost monthly non-incidental contact with a car (cut off, bump). I was single. I am fortunate not to have any permanent damage from that. It was a race crash that that made be quit racing (vs my carrier) ,
My son - I sent him South. Still higher risk than I would have liked, but a fraction of what I dealt with. These days, it seems worse. I just may be less stupid (not a BF troll comment).

topflightpro

I too have tried reading it several times, but have not been able to finish it.

burnthesheep

I agree, it may be unfair to compare this to running and triathlon.

I think why I even thought of that though was the media people in these articles pointing out cycling groups hiring people with strong links to the running world.

I have to decide, in the current environment as-is, what I'm going to do and just go do it. Kind of put up or shut up and let it fall where it may from there. Being sure to forward links to events that are going on or sharing them and such and try to be supportive.

I'm itching for a local DPTT. Really hope I'm not out of town on work for it.

Psimet2001 

Had a co-worker and extremely accomplished racer who was killed in a head on when the oncoming car never saw him because of the sun behind him. Still chose to turn anyway. 25 mph. Killed him instantly. He had just moved to Oregon from the midwest. His family (wife and 2 children under 5) had joined him (finished with relocation) that week. Company we worked for left the family out there and didn't help pay for any funeral arrangements or help with anything. While most wouldn't expect a fortune 500 company to do any of that anyway it was part of the reason I left. They relocated the family and then left them stranded there without any support, half a country away from their own family and support network.

It was covered in some form in velonews IIRC. That was something like 12 years ago. Impact from that is still hitting me. Once or twice a year I keep meeting people who knew and rode with him. I even met his parents last year at a race. Also his sister.

It never goes away. Even though I wasn't there and never saw the scene or pictures from it I have this immensely detailed vision of what I feel it was like and I replay it over in my head a lot.

It's part of why I lose my head when drivers complain about cyclists who don't obey traffic devices. While I agree that everyone should it baffles me how drivers don't see that cyclists are always the one that pays for the mistakes no matter who makes them.

topflightpro

Finally read the whole thing - or more thoroughly skimmed it.

There is nothing revolutionary or groundbreaking in there. The one thing he doesn't address is money. Those big events and downtown crits cost a lot of money. Racing doesn't make enough to generate the cost associated with many downtown crits - hence the less expensive rural and industrial park events. Road is dead because no one wants to pay the massive cost for putting on big cool events. Sponsors bailed with Lance's doping revelations and never came back. And they're not going to.

Psimet2001 

I think that is why I keep hating this thing. I remember a friend sent a link when I had my drink on and i read a tiny bit an started a tirade back at the friend who shared the link. there was a lot of "really? does he seriously think we haven't tried to do that? Where does the money come from?" etc.

I have no patience for lectures about how to run races from people who have never run them. Instead I am just cancelling my races and telling others they can step up and do it themselves.

gsteinb

Any lawyers in the house? Can we sue Lance for ruining our sport? Or does that run afoul of double jeopardy laws?

Radish_legs

He inflated the sport, then he deflated it.

burnthesheep

I had written a long response, but instead will keep it short. I've messaged some folks, and there is a lot going on that we on the outside don't "get" about what it's like for you guys to put something on.

However, the quote above doesn't seem very helpful either.

I've recently been informed about some of the challenges you all face. And it sounds like it sucks.

It's not that the know nothing nobodies deserve any kind of say in how stuff goes on. We don't. It's just that the know nothing nobodies make up a pretty large contingent of people not showing up.

I work in manufacturing. Systematic problem solving is our life. So, it's in that spirit I tend to post a lot of things that might sound nonsensical to folks on the inside of bike racing. In other words, it's our life's work to solve lots of complicated and often nonsensical problems involving lots of personalities, interests, and agendas. Forgive me if that bleeds over to talking about a problem statement of "why is participation in road racing in decline".

gsteinb

Psimet2001 

I worked in manufacturing for quite a while. Was a lean manufacturing manager, operations guru, Value Stream manager, complexity reduction and production analyst, Materials and supply chain guy, etc. who got to travel internationally to lecture, rationalize and conduct plant closures, create and implement capital projects ....to help eliminate other plants, etc.

Only saying that because you brought it up. When someone would sit in a manufacturing engineering meeting at a plant during a kaizen event and spout off a bunch of Pollyanna like ideas without having done an ounce of research into what has been tried a lot already I'd pretty much put them in the team with other people who could actually perform otherwise our chances of getting done by Friday were null.

If you want to know the constant struggle that occurs you can get a pretty clear picture of it by listening to my podcast. If you still want to care about cycling then don't.

As you can see from the career background I mentioned I am actually dedicated to the idea of constant incremental change and am not adverse to completely dumping the apple cart, ripping it apart and creating an apple juice stand from it.

but.....let's just take "having a band and making it a party atmosphere" as an example.

People hate cyclists. People love cars. People love freedom. People HATE when their roads are closed. I ran a race in the downtown here WHERE I have my shop. It was 4 hours of closure that started at like 2pm. The local Mr. Potter Millionaire was held up trying to get to his private club on Friday for his evening dinner at 4pm (he's old). so he got out of his car and yelled at the 50 yr old woman working the corner telling her that he would make sure there would never be another race in downtown ever again. The town waited until the planning meeting the following year and then decided to tell us, "never in the history of this village had there ever been a single event that has created more complaints. You will not be holding it this year or any other year so long as anyone here has a say about it." - translation the old man told them to crush it and they did - confirmed off the record later.

Because people hate cyclists and love their roads it becomes impossible to find places that will let us hold the races. We have one crit where every year there is a vocal resident who complains to the mayor about how he is "held hostage in his own home". He can actually park his car outside the course (4 houses away) and walk to and from his car as much as he wants all day. Yet he is a prisoner.

Where we have to resort to for our local stuff is tiny neighborhoods that barely have enough room for parking and basic race infrastructure. Finding a location for a band, negotiating and paying for the permits, the band, the electrical, the stage, etc becomes daunting. Dealing with the noise complaints makes it impossible. We even have to get signatures from all of the residents for a noise ordinance variance just to have a PA with an announcer. Now if you want a band you need some beer. Just goes hand in hand. Welcome to that minefield of legalities, insurance, fees, licenses and permits. Paying everyone with an interest and everyone with their hands out.

A local crit anymore will draw 200-300 if it's popular. Roughly 15-20% of entries are usually comp'd (I'm a pro master who is important - stroke my ego and I will show myself at your race), given at discount, used to lure volunteers, etc. If entries are $30/each that's roughly $7k. 1 cop for 6 -8 hours costs us about $1k. If you have a band and beer you're going to have to pay for 2-3 cops at a minimum. Barricades are $800 (required by Illinois DOT for closing a road) food for volunteer and officials is usually $500-$1k. USA Cycling rider surcharge for 300 is $1200. Officials are anywhere from $200-$600 depending on how many you need, etc. Numbers are like $150-$400 depending on how in depth you go. PA, Stage, Announcer, hay/straw bales, etc.

It's a good year if I break even on an event to only lose $1k. That's with eliminating payouts for all but the top race.Typical purses for paying top 3 in every race or a traditional model where you make 3rd place the same price as the entry brings you to roughly $2500+

This is the bare minimum that can be done and paid for-sustained for multiple years. "get sponsors"...yeah that works for a year. maybe 2. Then they move on. There is simply no return.

Running races take place first thing in the morning and don't occupy the streets for the whole day and in many instances the streets remain open. Think of another type of event that closes the streets that doesn't have a wide base of philanthropic money as support or special interest baking them up.

Now we race virtually every weekend.

How does Intelli do it? Massive sponsorship that they are on the verge of losing from year to year. They look for areas and then talk a local group into spending $20k with them. "Give us $20k and we'll host a race here. It will be great. Your local businesses will love it and it will bring people to downtown." They keep all of the registration money for themselves. The local groups find the volunteers, pay the cops, pay for permits, etc. All they do is show up and put on the race and produce marketing material (big job for sure - not saying it's not - just they have offloaded the most difficult parts of running a local race). After a few years the governmental body that is paying for all of this decides there's no return and they pull out. That's why these races go from venue to venue. At least with Intelli they pay all of their bills and don't piss everyone off like Superweek did.

Even then the turnout for Intelli is getting smaller it seems.

Tour of Elk Grove - I used to work in a factory that was a block from where the race was held. Almost ran over Horner as he was riding back to host housing after pre-riding some of the course one day. I got to see the sponsorship proposal. I roughly remember them looking for $250K. They were already getting over $200k from a local hospital and something like $30k-$40k from the town itself. All of this because the mayor wanted to do it and was a cyclist. WE ONLY succeed where we have cyclists who are in control of spending money and can help. Ever. Intelli BTW sponsors because Doug Zell - the previous CEO/Founder/etc is an avid cyclist/racer and now started the Allied company to produce bikes as well. He has consistently written large checks to support cycling year after year after year. Without him most of this crashes and burns.

Elk Grove happened until the village board out voted the mayor. no money - no race. Huge party atmosphere. Garage parties and lawn parties throughout the course. Involved the whole community....but it cost money and closed roads and brought zero actual real return to the community. Impossible to defend.

Also - attendance at these large events is usually down every year as well. Events like Tulsa have probably grown as racers seem to be targeting only the mega large events anymore. You can't start a large event from year one - you have to build it. You have to build it on the backs of a lot of promises of value creation and return that just doesn't happen.

The fact is racers will race when they want to. I remember super sketchy Superweek races back at the peak. Races started over 2 hours late. Most were shortened ($50 for 20 minutes now and that was like 2007 or 2008). They were dangerous as hell. Finishing straight was curvy and meandering walking path that wasn't even 3m wide. We all lined up and yelled for them to take our money. Riders were sent to the hospital but racing happened and fields of 40 and 50 were common. Cutoffs for the 5's at 50 or 75. Multiple 5's fields.

We didn't have to have bands, etc. We WANTED to race. Right now people DON'T WANT to race and compete. When they do they will find races and compete. It will happen again. Until then all of this discussion is fun for some and super frustrating for many of us as we know it's a bit like peeing into the wind until the basic desire to compete returns. The only debate that seems to be the most interesting is whether or not the lack of competitive drive is a generational thing or not and whether it is actually going to return.

Psimet2001 

Oh - forgot Gelncoe Grand Prix. Huge race. USA Crits/NRC many years. Used to be my surefire way of assuring I would see the pros every year. Hell I got to be in their commercial one year. They had a guy who does national campaigns for companies like comcast come in and shoot it on his free time because he was a local and liked cycling.
Their race director (Jon the guy in the video who is in the suit) is an amazing soul who did more work for the local cycling scene than any of us deserved - but he moved on and had to pass the reins. They ran it last year without him. Attendance was dropping like a rock over the last 4-5 years. Huge payouts but they couldn't afford the start fees and transport for some of the teams like they had been in the past - result : teams didn't show. They didn't have the money to travel and it was usually the day before Philly.

Rough budget was something like $150k-$250k. they had block parties and expo, and a food truck collection of like 10 trucks. Always a celebrity name as a starter or announcer. something like 500-600 kids in the kids races. Crazy.

They raised immense amounts of funds for schools even taking to supporting schools in at risk neighborhoods (mine in Elgin) towards the end as there was only so many smart boards they could buy for the Glencoe schools.

They called it quits for this year. The GGP is no more. The work to generate the funds. the hand holding, the low turnout, etc. All factors. They say they might take some time off and come back but I just don't see that ever happening.

Downer's Grove - home of the national criterium championships for years and years - gone. Evanston - Gone. Glencoe - Gone. Elk Grove - Gone.

I was charged with trying to find a place to hold our state crit championships this year because the race that won the bid decided to fold. We have like 6 crits left in the state outside of intelli. all but 2 of them refused to even bid.

I'm sorry but a BS article from someone who has no real concept of what is truly going on is not going to save the sport. It's going to be shared and make everyone feel shiny and new during winter while they are training but will melt in May.

Psimet2001 

...and a note about that commercial. The guy in the red kit was on the podcast last - he closed the bike shop that he owned that had been open for something like 40 years because the $ was just disappearing. The Cheetah guy - Wayne Simon - owns Enzo's Cycling Products. Has basically stopped racing citing the refusal of USA cycling to curb out of control doping in the masters ranks. Moved to Reno and still kicks asses on group rides and still makes amazing chamois cream. Jon in the suit moved and no longer promotes races. Nate in the polka dots who is happily married is still happily married but broke his pelvis and took a bunch of time away from racing - hope he's back this year. ..

.....and then my sorry ass - still fat and still not fast and still plodding along at 1/32 of the net worth of any of these guys who has left the sport.

Radish_legs

welp, that was a nice pick-me-up for the day. LOL.

Radish_legs

Part of the issue here is that people can get a race-like experience at their local hammerfest for for free. Every week. Multiple times per week. Sure it's not scored. Sure it's not "official." But then again, who cares. Nobody I know probably remembers a single podium I had in "real" races last season. And guys in these hammerfests are more likely to be friends and more likely to watch out for each other and not do dangerous maneuvers.

Same thing with the demise of local rallies for charity. Most of the guys I know never do them. Don't need to pay $40 for a sketchy group ride. Don't need to pay $150 for the Hincapie Fondo on local rides we go on anyway.

Psimet2001 

Agreed but in reality those rides were there before and were always options. At his peak of popularity Hincapie could have charged $300 for a fondo and gotten it. It was during a time when we wanted to still race...for real.

burnthesheep

I appreciate ALL that. Seriously. We don't get a lot of insight into things like this chatting on the local hammer ride or whatever we do. That's a lot of typing! I'll pop in to watch/listen to some of your stuff.

Honest question, does anyone every try to piggyback events, collaboration? I'm sure there's good reasons it's not done and has been tried.

Just a question.

The TT series in Charlotte folded this year. I did attend it before they refunded the money. I can't imagine renting CMS out was cheap or easy, but it was a fantastic experience. Yes, I've done a DPTT also. Nice group. I'm waiting for the next meetup, I was out of town on work the last few.

I do see quite a few sprint triathlons around. There's already timing mats, bike storage, yada yada.

Somebody has the permit, somebody has the road (maybe), and there's timing on site.......Dumb question......but collaborate a TT?

Another dumb one. Local non corporate fondos. Zoo or nightmare to wave start some race categories off the front?

Psimet2001 

We have collaborated with a lot of other races in the past to help save costs. Usually that just means another crit and we'll turn it into an omnium with overall winners. For the Chicago Cross Cup we have trailers that have almost everything you need to put on a cross race complete with stakes, snow fence, generators, heaters, tents, etc.... but it's been assembled over the last 12-15 years and we as a series charge every promoter who uses it by the rider count in addition to the usac fees, etc and as a part of that series a ton of people get comp'd /free entries.... like SRAM who we specifically never get any direct benefit from.

As a part of the ICA (local USA Cycling Association) we have a race promoter trailer that has some community purchased materials. A stage that is modular. Lots of cones and signage "race ahead". Vests for volunteers, rudimentary podium. Then as a group we had a registration and race day "software app" written a long time ago that works with the USAC rider database and our chosen reg platform (BikeReg) and controls everything day of. It allows all of us to use the same system so we all get fast with it. If you've ever done races here and then gone to do a race in Wisconsin you can see the immediate difference. You can be in and out of reg in a minute or two here....not so there.

We pooled resources and have computers we own that run the reg system, printers, ink/toner, a finish lynx camera system for results, etc. We pool and collaborate a lot.

I was race director for a duathlon once. I was talked into it. I had to contract with a timing company for it. Only like 2 timing locations and disposable race number based chips. I think I paid like $2k-$3k just for timing services. At one point I was looking into buying a setup to use for our races and then do running races with it on other days just to help pay for it.

Having my omnium setup allowed me to cut the $500 for straw bales in half which ended up making one of the races break even.

Radish_legs

What about weekly weeknight crits? We have 4 of them in the Dallas Fort Worth area. Tues/Wed/Wed/Thurs. I think they are making money? You can race for as little as about $20 at the minimum + bikereg fee. Say 100 riders paying an average of $27 (many do 2 of the crits). That's $2700 gross. Payouts are small. Pay the officials. Pay for the venue. Riders have to buy or rent their own timing chip. No police needed.

topflightpro

It is possible to come out in the black from races, and weeknight crits or small series often do. BUT, they are often on small or closed courses. I believe your series is in a park? On such courses, you eliminate a lot of costs, particularly the big ones of police and street closure. If it only costs a couple hundred bucks for the course, then yes, races can break even or turn a profit.

Psimet2001 

Every race is different but in general I haven't met many promoters that I would consider to be making money from what they do. I haven't seen a race that has stopped going on because it had too much money, and I don't know of many races that have lasted more than a handful of years.

Joan Hanscom was the promoter behind USGP for cross and was the promoter for worlds in louisville. We knew her before/during all of that and after she moved up to Chicago to find work and raced on our team. Normal unassuming Joan. Shoot the crap with us, ride, etc. Then she'd show up at a UCI race and there'd be a line of pros all waiting to talk to her. "You have to bring USGP back. We need it. We have to have it here in the US". "How much will it take?", etc.

"$500k. Get it cash in hand and I'll talk. $1 short and we're not talking."

"Rob spent 6 years of my life living off of roughly $6k a year. I'm never doing that again."

She's not a god and I have argued with her plenty. She's been off and on my list of people I do and don't acknowledge when I see (hell that happens with everyone in bike racing) but she will ALWAYS have my total respect.

UmneyDurak

Also not all weeknight crits have things like permits, etc.

cmh

I was talking to the vice pres of the group I work in, and her family bought a smart trainer + zwift account as an xmas gift to the whole family this year. This is an athletic, and upper middle class family that didn't do a significant amount of cycling previously, but the kids are on alpine ski race teams, traveling baseball, x-country, dance so they are into fitness. Now the whole family is tracking their wattage, and the older boy (high school senior) has started zwift racing and is interested in trying real life bike races. Maybe zwift will save our sport in the USA.