Doge

I do. Very much so.
USAC should stay out of developing riders directly / mentoring.

USAC should not be a coaching organization, USAC should be a competition authority.
They are conflicted more than most USA Olympic sports authorities I know of.

USAC coaches, over enforcing equal competition (junior gears).
USAC selects on arbitrary measures (power files over winning) they think matter.

I don't see either as the best job of a national sport authority.

I'd rather USAC takes all the development money and put it towards ensuring a fair playing field.

Racer Ex 

I agree with the underlying subtext in that USAC wants to be the clearinghouse for all things cycling. Or mostly the clearinghouse for the money, and that they are totally conflicted. And that they should be doing one job or the other. But right now they are using amateur competition as a revenue stream, running the show, and mostly running it into the ground. And running off competition in the amateur racing market.

My point is that if you're going to be the Center for Disease Control, you ought to be involved in inoculations.

And yes Matthew, people still get polio so obviously the vaccine is worthless.

Whatever. Folks need help with stuff they know where to PM.

rickbuddy_72

Very interesting topic @Psimet2001. And a lot of good, well thought out replies.

Before I go on, I'd like to give props to my two mentors, Ken Nowakowski and Paul Mough, two absolute monster racers in their day who took the time to develop young riders even though many were weak and new to the sport.

Of course, many of you know that Ken went on to do a great job coaching the Marion University cycling team. Paul passed away from kidney cancer in 1993. As I'm getting back to the sport I miss him like I'd miss breathing. The support I got from those two is immeasurable.

Just imagine if I showed up today for my first training ride wearing, as I did, cut-off jeans, running shoes, a polo shirt and hairy legs -- I'd be laughed at and dropped immediately. But not with my club. Rider development was very important with us. Heck, the club was so small back then we needed bodies in the peloton. And we found some good ones.

I've read some posts in this thread about the support and training at the tracks, and I endorse that. I got drawn back into the sport shooting photographs of races at the velo. After shooting a couple of events I'd download jpegs onto my iPad and pass it around to the athletes to see if anybody wanted to purchase the shots for a low, nominal fee. The only reason I charged anything was to cover gas and lodging. Eventually the photos got into the hands of a Women's Masters cyclist/Team coach, who declared that I really knew racing strategy -- I did more than shoot individuals; I shot the race and anticipated strategy. Immediately, she took the iPad and shared those photos with her team, using them to coach her riders.

As the riders from various teams were discussing strategy, I added my $.02 and saw one young woman's eyes open, jaw drop and declare, "You sound just like my coach!" Though our racing years were 30-40 years apart we had the same mentor/coach. So, yes mentoring is fairly strong on the track. Maybe, it's that trackies are simply more passionate about their sport, and they are eager to share that passion. Or maybe that's because if you get dropped on the track, the pack will catch up to you soon?

Over the last few years of photographing races, and then looking for a team with a strong track presence I've noticed three things that may affect this modern lack of mentoring: 1) The growth of racing-only teams, 2) Triathletes, 3) USA Cycling coach program.

Back in the day, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, when we motor paced behind velociraptors, many of the clubs that had excellent race teams also had a strong recreational/tourist base. Paul Mough used to regale me with stories of the Woverine/Schwinn (Schwinn? I told you, velociraptors) club's Wednesday night social ride that slowly wended its way through Detroit-area residential neighborhoods. Everyone would ride, from Olympians to new, fresh-faced kids impressed by the size of the large, colorful group and the elite cyclists slowly passing by their homes. Once the pack got to a local ice cream stand, the racers would take off and train. More than one of those kids grew up to be some of the strongest riders in the nation then turned to race in Europe and the Tour de France.

At KBC, new riders could join in well-structured tourist and recreational rides at a pace that suited them. They'd learn group riding skills and as strength and riding skills developed they'd move up to faster rides. Eventually they get to a point where the knowing would suggest it was time to shave legs and get a license.

As I grew stronger I eventually wore the mantle of Race Captain. One of my responsibilities was to make sure newbies didn't get discouraged. If that meant going back to bring the cyclist back into the pack after a hard jam, so be it. And if it meant helping a weak prospect back home, I'd do that too. It's nothing more than paying it forward.

Another one of the early members of the KBC is Dr. Mike Murray, who runs and coaches at the Alpenrose Velodrome in Portland Oregon. How a team 150 miles away from any velodrome produced two Velo directors and coaches, I believe, came out of that supportive environment within the KBC. I love this quote from a news article about Mike in the Portland press:

" ... what amazed me most wasn't his mind-boggling knowledge about the sport, the facility, the racers, the records and the minutiae -- it was the subtle but obvious respect that he garnered from every single person in the track-racing community.

And as hulking, tattooed sprinters duked it out, I realized that what makes track racing special in Portland isn't just that we have one of only 20 velodromes in the country -- it's that we have one of the most active, supportive communities anywhere."

That's what you want to hear about any club.

Tri-athletes. I know there are a lot of great, courteous, wonderful people who have come from the tri world -- God bless you -- but there are also a lot of jerks. My KBC club is 50 miles away from where I live, and there is really no race presence here, but we do have tri people going out riding and sometimes I ride with them. They are the biggest squirrels I've ever ridden with. They are strong, and because they are strong they won't listen to anybody. Every year, it seems, a member of that group ends up crashed with a broken collarbone. One jerk I rode with simply had no concern for clearing anybody's front wheel as he jumped ahead of others. He'd never listen. It took all my forbearance not to stick my knee into his hamstring and introduce him to Mr. Ditch, just to let him know that even though I'm old and slow I've had enough coaching and been in enough chariot-race finishes to take care of myself. I'm not a dirty rider, but I do know I can dish out what I'm getting from some jerk. In my opinion USAC needs a new category for these riders, call it Cat-T, and let their crashes weed out the squirrels.

Now, I think the USAC coach licensing program is a good thing. What seems to hurt though, is that those who used to mentor for free are now charging some good money for their services. I don't fault them for that -- they've worked hard, paid good money to learn and get certified. However, I see in another post, a new rider writing that he had to pay $300 a month for coaching. Good for the coach, but for that new rider that's money that could be spent on new equipment. So the mentoring and coaching never happens.

And just one more thing @Psimet2001. The KBC race team, Clark Logic, no longer has a track presence, so I went looking for a team in the Chicago area that had a good track program. I joined the team you sponsor because it reflected the developmental philosophy that I saw in the strong clubs that developed strong riders. Thank you for your support.

--Rick

Doge

I was thinking it was the death of this thread and then I saw mentorship is alive and well in SoCal!
Mentor.JPG

Psimet2001 

Holy crap - I posted this and ran back to building and renovating the shop, etc. I say a few emails saying I was quoted so I was thinking there was 3-4 responses - not 3-4 pages.

Good stuff. I'll have to dig through each post to make sure I have the full post comprehension. In general though I would probably want to bring a couple of you guys on to the podcast. A lot of this stuff came up on the podcast in the first place. Kenny Labbe first started talking about it IIRC. If you guys race a lot of regional stuff you probably know Kenny as an announcer but some may remember him as that one guy who was racing for Postal who actually worked FOR postal as a letter carrier.

He's announcing a ton of races in the area and larger NCC races here regionally. Also like Snake Alley and the Iowa Memorial weekend stuff. I announce some with him, have him announce my stuff, etc. This last year he even announced the whole Chicago Cross Cup series. He was always a roadie though and grew up here, racing here and mostly with and against Robbie Ventura.

Other guys bringing it up are Wayne Simon. Wayne has been around the sport since the 80's. Won a masters road championship like 5-8 years ago or so. Was Masters cross national podium 3rd to Tilford leading into Louisville, etc. Wayne Was one of the early guys coaching guys like Robbie V and Mike Heagney back in the day. Wayne still mentors a ton and the guys he brings under his wings typically turn pro or make the decision not to fairly quickly. He's not a "welcome the cat 5 with open arms" kind of guy. That's me. He's a "teach them how to race- don't bring me your watt meter talk or your article from coaching for success dot com. I'll talk to you on the phone for 5 hours a week, tear you down, teach you what you're doing wrong, and teach you how to f'n race your bike otherwise you're an idiot.".

We had Wayne and local return to racing guy - Kevin Moncrieff on the podcast this last time. Kevin is interesting too. He raced on the US junior worlds team with Hincapie, Lance, Julich, etc. Soon after he just walked away from the bike. He talks a lot about how that was right as drugs hit the scene big time. He has come back to racing in the last couple of years starting back as a 5 with predictable results. His job as a pilot, his recent shoulder surgery, and his general like for not getting hurt has him re thinking the whole thing though.

Then I look at guys like Joel Friedman. Many of you guys know that back around 2008 or so I met up with Joel Friedman - Younger brother of Mike Friedman who was racing for Garmin Chipotle / Beijing olympian, etc. We got Joel into riding and racing. An absolute natural of course. won everything he wanted to with seriously little to no actual training. He had the mentorship there - hell Brad Huff was calling him after his first race asking him how he did before we even left the course. Yet when he got up to the cat 2 level he languished. He then raced for Wayne who turned him into what was going to be one of the next stellar names to come out of the US...but he just imploded. Lost his love for the sport and walked away. I talked him into downgrading a few years ago and to this day he barely touches his bike.

SO mentorship isn't necessarily a requisite or cure all, but I found it interesting how much some of the older guys talked about how that culture of mentorship is fairly absent. I was riding and "racing" junior back then and I remember there being a hierarchy on rides and it intimidated the hell out of me. I vaguely remember some people reaching out to help but I moved away from racing for a long time after that so I really can't say.

mollusk

LOL!

I was once one of the old guy mentors on a newly formed racing team that also had a few other old guys that were very good back in the day (had National reps). I wasn't one of them, but the other guys were.

One of our up-and-comers that quickly made Cat 2 never did understand crosswinds. I would often tell everyone else on the ride that he was practicing his "guttering skilz" when he went to the front.

I am now retired from racing (I miss that) and race training (I don't miss that), but occasionally meet up with my old teammates on the road and ride with them for a few miles.