Prospective Local Mountain Bike Race Series August-September (interest needed)

[Plantains]

Yeah I don't mean like close them I guess... I mean the trails are open where I've raced, but people just aren't on them. There will def need to be signs at the trailheads though. People never have dogs on leashes.

[Toaster]

As far as I know this is basically the same course as the MTB race for Prairie Rose State Games last year and I don't think there were any issues at all with having the two way sections.

I'm up for trail maintenance pretty much whenever it fits into my schedule. Just let me know when it's going down.

[Sal Atticum]

It is the same course, according to Jeremy.

Good news on the insurance front: it looks like we'll be eligible for USAC insurance as a training series.  What this would mean is a lower profit margin for the club because of USAC licenses ($10/day or $30/year per rider), but potentially more riders from the area.

The other option may be UND insuring us, but we won't know until next week whether this is a possibility.

[Plantains]

We could also just have a ride at your own risk at all times super waiver?

[sanders]

if that is a doable thing to do i'd say to do a ride at your own risk super waiver

[Sal Atticum]

It's Turtle River that's requiring us to sign off saying that we have liability insurance...so they'd have to be okay with a super waiver.

[Plantains]

Oh, then we'll probably need insurance.

[Sal Atticum]

Any ideas for a name on this series?

[Plantains]

"Christmas is in December so come break your bikes now so you'll have time to figure out what to put on your Christmas list mountain bike race."

[Sal Atticum]

How about a day of the week?

Great Northern's CX race mimic series starts in September for who knows what reason, on Wednesday nights.  Do we want to run Thursdays, or Tuesdays, or just do Wednesdays here and not worry about what's happening down there?

[redtailin]

what is the proposed date (s) for this?  also, DC mentioned something about you guys used host a MTB race at Maplelag and were (maybe?) doing it Sep. 11?  Anything confirmed yet?  Im not racing in the END-AR this year, but looks like I will be volunteering during it, if there arent any date conflicts.

[Sal Atticum]

Unfortunately, I'm still waiting to hear back from UND to see if they can cover us for insurance.
Right after I posted this I got a call back, and they can't cover us with insurance unless we're hosting the event at a UND facility.  There are some other ideas out there right now that I will have to track down this afternoon if I have time.


Until we have insurance, I don't know if we can schedule anything.  The consensus is that a) most people here want to do END-AR instead of Laddies Loppet at Maplelag (they are on the same weekend), so b) if we were going to host at Maplelag on a different date we'd have to fund our own officials, which money we probably wouldn't make up in race fees.  Hence the race series at TR idea, for which TR requires we have insurance.

The soonest I can see something happening would be the week after next, but I have no idea if that's an accurate projection or not and I may be dreaming.  If you've got any ideas or want to help out in general let me know.

[redtailin]

Yea, let me know what I can help out with and Ill do what I can. As I'm sure many others do too, I would really like to see this happen.

[Sal Atticum]

Okay, it's looking like good news on the USAC front, I just need to check some things relating to fees so I'm sure.

[Sal Atticum]

I'm waiting for people to suggest
- whether or not this is still a good idea (consider this from a planning perspective, not an "oooh, I get to race!" perspective)
- which day of the week would be best (when do people have class and/or work?)
- which week we should start (september has 5 weeks in it this year, by the way, but we start to lose sunlight towards the end)
- how much of a discount (think %) we should give for people doing trailwork and/or volunteering
- should we discount kids (how can you say no to that?)
- a potential flyer design

Basically, I need at least a few other people to commit to putting this on.  I know nobody's here (well redtailin and Plaintains are), but if you're coming back, put some thought into it. 

If anyone wants to help out, you can help
- plan (see above)
- help register people and take times and numbers at the finish line
- help set up any signage we need (especially "race in progress, watch out" signs)
- organize people to do trailwork on a certain day and liaison with Jeremy about it (so we don't mooch too much)
- design the flyer
- get the word out to anyone who might be interested (shop people, high school kids, the bmx club, adventure racers, people in your classes, etc.)
- take and post photos every week (ideal if you're looking for blog material)
- learn how to do USAC paperwork
- communicate with current and potential sponsors about prizes and/or foodstuffs
- remember things that should be on this list but aren't