Originally Posted by
grwoolf
All of these races had unseasonably warm/dry weather, which makes the drop off seem strange. Maybe people are looking to suffer in the cold and rain this time of year.
Our participation seems to fall off on nice summers, mainly because the MTB trails dry out quicker and the potential racer pool spreads out. When people have a lot of options for recreation, they don't always go for the ones include descriptive words like "suffer", "pain", and "road rash". I don't understand this mentality, but I support and defend their right to express it.
We're changing up our race series for a lot of reasons this year, but one of the reasons is to try to draw in multi-sport athletes or riders who don't focus on the road. Organizing our calendar to sync with others (e.g. TTs a week or so before big triathlons) is one of our efforts to get more bodies in the door. A weekly crit series to get some sort of rhythm to our often stop-start road season. Free race entry with the purchase of a road bike at local stores. Outreach to the local military bases (a fit, if transient population). Trying to create a more inclusive atmosphere like the local 'cross series (without all of the costumes)... I have no idea if any of it will work, but we recognize we need to start focusing on the lower levels in order to have a sustainable top. It can't hurt to try.
I remember when I started racing it was completely by accident. It didn't occur to me that amateur bike racing was "a thing", and I'd been riding on the road for a few years by that time. A lot of people don't realize it's an option at their level of fitness, even if they know it exists. I figure out of every 10 people I see exposed to racing, maybe 1 or 2 will stick with it for a year or more. Maybe a couple out of 20 will really catch the bug. We're making the push to get as much exposure to as many of those oddballs as we can.