Thread: Team advice
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Old 11-16-09, 10:42 AM
  #3  
carpediemracing 
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Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Tariffville, CT
Posts: 15,405

Bikes: Tsunami road bikes, Dolan DF4 track

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In this area there are a few teams focused on developing new riders. This means working on riding skills, team tactics, and training in general. One holds a weekly training series in the summer, and the in the Bs (4s and 5s) the club's A riders (2s, 3s, and stronger 4s) ride with the Bs, giving advice etc.

They're focused enough that one guy left the team to start his own team (for other reasons) but left his son as a member of their original team, the weekly series one.

If there are a few clubs out there, you may be able to find one that has some more focus on education etc.

If not, you can usually find a frustrated old timer that feels that there needs education, and team up with said old timer and make your own program, within your current team or outside of it.

As more an editorial, I see a lot of racers accept the status quo. If one does that, one can't complain about anything. If one tries to change things, and things don't work out, that's a different story (and could be long and involved).

Running a club is time and energy consuming. Even motivating members to participate can be difficult. It's up to the individuals to get things done, and if they can't, perhaps it's a sign to move on.

I "ran" my own club for many years, from 1990 or so to 1997. When I closed my shop I stopped the team, but then revived it to race for my own race series. A bunch of folks joined, mainly friends, even after I expressly stated that I would not do anything other than get kits every now and then (no meetings, no rides, etc). I realized that this wasn't productive in the whole scheme of things so I joined a team local to the race (but not to me). This year I joined a team local to me. We have group rides, meet every month (40+ of the 60+ members have shown for the last couple meetings), have a meet-n-greet coming up, and have some skeletal outline of next year's schedule. I hope to run riding clinics, to encourage members to race the track, and to participate with the team in the local summer crit series.

cdr
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