Thursday, March 11, 2010

March 10 Road Commitee Meeting

The meeting started at 5:10. There were not enough cross organizers present (although many did get back to me via email) for me to feel comfortable with the discussion on CROSS cup races so that will be at the next meeting.

On the Cross side I was advised that Red River racing has announced the race will be at Harbour View. That should be an interesting venue.

The balance of the agenda went like this:

CUP races:

April 25; Spring Classic
May 2 - Fog ITT
May 8, 9, 11Woodcock Stage Race
May 15 Darlingford Road Race
June 15 Stony Mountain Crit
June 20 - Portage Double Header
July 18 Alter Ego ITT


Scoring: 1st 30, 2nd 25, 3rd 22, 4th 20 and then down by one point. Each racer can drop worst result (we recognized that while MTB does not do this, and obviously we want to have people encouraged to attend races that there are situations where a TT flat for example could cost an entire season)

A racer who is an organizer, or commissaire within a cup race (and does not race but actively participates as organizer or commissaire) will receive 3rd place points.

If a racer is moved between categories, i.e. 5 to 4, or 4 to 3, they can do the following with Cup points: Elect to transfer points up to category however points will be credited at 50% towards the new category Cup points. Or they can elect to leave the points behind and start again in the new category. If they have sufficient points to win the previous Cup category then the remain eligible to win.

ROAD FORMS:

There are still in prototype form, but I the first one done seemed to work.

COMMISSAIRE ISSUES:

I am happy to say that after my email we have had a significant interest in running the commissaire course this year. We will likely be partnering with Saskatchewan to run the course, and with luck will be able to run the Course late March, early April.

We will work towards keeping a list of who are commissaries are, their “levels” and contact information.

We are also working on a program to encourage commissaries in coming forward, see for example above race points calculations. We also considered the possibility of the Road Committee paying for general memberships (in the following year) for commissaries who commissaire in 3 races.

More will follow once we have a training date for this.

RACER MOVEMENT:

A subsection of this was a discussion about racers moving up (and down) between categories. We have come up with the following formula:

Entry: All racers entering the sport, or have not held a licence in the past 5 years, will commence their first race in Category 5.

Racers will then move up after earning 100 “podium points” which are earned as follows: 1st 30, 2nd 20, 3rd 10 (no other placings will be counted). Once a rider has 100 points they will be expected to move up to the next category. Movement would still be subject to a veto by the Road Category Committee

Racers can also move upon their own request, in writing, to the Road Co-Ordinator. These applications will be considered by a committee consisting of the Chief Commissaire Road, the Road Co-Ordinator, and the Provincial Coach (The Road Category Committee). The decision of this Committee will be final.

Racers can also be moved between categories based on the sole discretion of the Road Category Committee. The committee will provide the racer 7 days notice of its consideration to move the racer (up or down). The racer may provide written argument in favour of his/her position which will be considered by the Committee however all such decisions will final after the Road Category Committee makes it’s decision.


OTHER:

Whether the Assiniboine Crit series should run as A/B categories arose. We decided to leave this to the Commissaires and Jayson.

THE NEXT MEETING WILL BE TOWARDS END OF APRIL.

Monday, March 8, 2010

March Meeting

We will be having a meeting at 5 pm at 145 Pacific on March 11, 2010, the new home of cycling (and other sports)in Manitoba.

The agenda is as follows:

1. Designating Cup events for the 2010 season, hopefully including cross events (will only do if there are a minimum 3 cross organizers present) – and rules.

-proposed rules: Scoring should be higher for first place: 30 points first, 25 second, 22 third, 20 fouth and then the rest go down by one point.
-If a the designated organizer does not race at his/her race but does attend as organizer then he/she would be credited with third place points. (The idea is to not penalize an organizer of a race if he/she needs to help out at own race)
-Should we have drop worst result as with last year? The argument for this rule is that if a person misses a race because of personal reasons, or DNF’s, they would still have a chance at winning the overall. The counter argument (and I note that I won last year largely because of the dropped result situation) is that this is to encourage participation and therefore dropping a result is counter to that idea.

2. Discussing the Road Forms
3. Discussing the commissaire issues: It is difficult to put to fine a point on this, but here is the situation: Last year there was no new commissaire training in Manitoba on the road. This year we have a possible course to put on but need to gauge interest before I can determine cost and whether we put it on. One possibility is to use Skype to save a considerable amount of money by not having to fly in the trainer.
Yes, you read that correctly, fly in the trainer. This is a major problem because currently there is only one person as I understand it in Manitoba who has the proper CCA approved qualifications to train commissaries. This is a MAJOR problem because we have essentially put all of our eggs in one basket. This year we are unable to use the local MB trainer so we must look elsewhere and are doing so.

Cycling needs four things to work in this, or any other Province: Athletes, Coaches, Commissaires, and Volunteers. If one of those four pillars collapses the other three will collapse quickly thereafter. Each club which is an “A” level club commits to having, as part of its agreement to get Bingo money, to having a commissaire. That can be met by a commissaire in one discipline, i.e. Road, Track, or MTB. A part of this means ACTIVE commissaire. Commissaire are paid positions at races. This means that if a club has a volunteer commissaire (as an example) the club can pocket the money which would normally be spent on the commissaire.

Please ask within your ranks as to whether anyone wants to be trained as a commissaire. The reality is that without commissaries there cannot be any racing.

4. I would also like to discuss moving between categories.
Proposal one: Each racer moves up or down at end of year based on Road Cup results – I see a problem with this in that attendance can dictate results (many of the people who did not do well as an example in Cat 3 Cup last year still need to be Cat 3);
Proposal two: Chief Commissaire Road, Provincial Coach and Road Rep will discuss movement between categories. The problem with this is that Cup race results would be potentially on the line in a move up. One possibility is that a rider could keep their points from before but be in ellgible for an overall win, (this unfortunately means it could effect results in the lower category), or the person just forfeits their points and moves up. Moving down could be done in a similar fashion.


If you already have people in mind, or people are interested and want more information on the process please contact me at this email address, or bring up names at the meeting on Thursday.