Campus Dakota

Group Memberships => UND Cycling => Topic started by: Sal Atticum on June 24, 2010, 07:52:51 PM

Title: Prospective Local Mountain Bike Race Series August-September (interest needed)
Post by: Sal Atticum on June 24, 2010, 07:52:51 PM
A couple of us have been talking about having a mountain bike race series at the end of the summer and billing it as both a "get your ass in shape for END-AR" and "come see what MTB racing is like without going anywhere" sort of thing.  If you're interested in racing, great, now read on.

It's summer, so a lot of people from the club aren't around.  What we need for this type of thing to happen is people who are willing to get involved right now.  If not, well, DC is about to go incognito into double-eye, Mario and Tiff are about to leave us all for more job-rich climes ("Is this heaven?" "No, it's Iowa"), Sandman and Doublefist are having one of their deals where they go away for the summer, website extraordinaire Ted is staring into a laser in the Sierra Nevadas, does Chad even own a mountain bike?, Yost and I are scheduled to be gone for non-overlapping periods of time, and everyone else . . . well, if I haven't talked to you it's because I haven't talked to you, and I apologize.  For the record, I'm out of the moon boot and able to ride (although I won't be breaking any hour records anytime soon).

I quoteth from the DC:
The bottom line is this... we KNOW that people in grand forks are very bicycle oriented. We see this EVERY DAY when we see new people on the roads, the turn outs at the TT's/Tris/Newman/adventure races and to be perfectly honest, it makes me really mad*. In the end though, we need to bring people some convenience.

I think our plan should be this...

(I haven't looked at any dates)
Contact the people at TR and see how they would feel about us doing some trail maintenance.
Host a 6 week MTB race at TR. Depending on the dates, we could start this mid July (2 weeks in July, and 4 weeks in august) Market it as a GREAT way to get into some shape for the adventure race. Offer a $10/week or $45 for the series? and 1/2 price for trail maint?
Then
Tell Yost and Ted to stop being idiots and check the message board**.
Host a CX series (6 weeks) (2 weeks in sept, 4 in oct) Mountain bikes welcome. Talk to Greendahl and run a 50/50 between greenway CX course and TR CX course.

Sanders, we would run this the EXACT same way "normal" MTB races are run. (Beginner, Sport, Advanced) Anyone can officiate. If we get alot of demand, we can run the CX races as USAC, because it would GREATLY help the ND/MN riders for upgrading.

We need to do things this year more than ever to help GROW cycling here.


Inspiring, innit?

Since we're in the planning stages, we need to talk to Turtle River State Park about actually doing this.  Ranger Steve, are you listening***?  What does UND Cycling need to do for Turtle River in order to make this happen?  Regarding trail maintenance: we need to do some if we're going to host races, hence the discount for showing up to do heavy lifting (which is STILL great training for END-AR!).  Do we talk to Friends of Turtle River about this?  We also need people to officiate (i.e., write down numbers as people cross the line) on a rotating basis, someone to organize trail stuff, people to figure out a course (if we get TR approval), etc., etc.

Those of us who are around will do as much as we can, but hosting something like this (which will be awesome) will take more time than the few people who are interested can spare and is a great way for YOU to get involved more in the club (did I mention hosting races is really fun and something you can put on your resume?).

If you have any ideas ("hey, you guys should have a kids category"), offers ("I have ten acres of land and you guys can build trails for free"), or really want to help out so you can race (maybe there's a volunteer deal we can run), please post a reply.  It would be great to get this thing going!


*This is fairly normal.  Many things make the DC mad.
**Granted, he didn't know Ted was out of state.  Toaster's board karma explains the rest.
***I've never actually met Ranger Steve.
Title: Re: Prospective Local Mountain Bike Race Series July-August (interest needed)
Post by: Plantains on June 24, 2010, 10:02:38 PM
1. Chad does own a mountain bike. I know this because he calls me at 9pm the night before a 10 hour mtb race to ask me to rebuild his bottom bracket, and then doesn't even do the mtb race :P

2. I knew Ted was out of state, but my memory lapsed.

3. There is no 3...
Title: Re: Prospective Local Mountain Bike Race Series July-August (interest needed)
Post by: Plantains on June 24, 2010, 10:08:00 PM
4. Logan has stitches for running into a wall, jumping off of a wall, trying to go through a wall, or a wall fell on him? I have been unable to translate his Alaskan vocrabulary.
Title: Re: Prospective Local Mountain Bike Race Series July-August (interest needed)
Post by: Plantains on June 24, 2010, 10:09:06 PM
5. I'm not mad... I'm intense.

6. lol @ asterisks.

7. :colbert:
Title: Re: Prospective Local Mountain Bike Race Series July-August (interest needed)
Post by: Plantains on June 24, 2010, 10:09:53 PM
8. I quadruple posted so that you'll be very excited when you see there are many responses to your excellent post. It will most likely be a let down...
Title: Re: Prospective Local Mountain Bike Race Series July-August (interest needed)
Post by: Plantains on June 24, 2010, 11:04:22 PM
9. Hahaha Beek... u tricked us good!
Title: Re: Prospective Local Mountain Bike Race Series July-August (interest needed)
Post by: Sal Atticum on June 28, 2010, 03:41:39 PM
I've been thinking about more ways to make this a fun time.  It would be great to have swag to give away every week (wink wink to our sponsors), but even if people wanted to bring booty to contribute to the winner's purse it would be pretty fun (plus you'd never know what you were going to win!).

Also, t-shirts.
Title: Re: Prospective Local Mountain Bike Race Series July-August (interest needed)
Post by: Sal Atticum on June 29, 2010, 02:26:00 PM
I was thinking of sending an email out to all the email addresses we've been collecting.  What say ye?
Title: Re: Prospective Local Mountain Bike Race Series July-August (interest needed)
Post by: Mario on June 30, 2010, 09:26:20 AM
DO it!
Title: Re: Prospective Local Mountain Bike Race Series July-August (interest needed)
Post by: Plantains on June 30, 2010, 09:49:53 AM
To gauge interest. Yes. But I might wait until we have some form of ok to host said event. It will look better if we can get permission from TR, that way if the event doesn't happen it's because of something we can control.
Title: Re: Prospective Local Mountain Bike Race Series July-August (interest needed)
Post by: Sal Atticum on June 30, 2010, 02:11:54 PM
I emailed Ranger Steve, but I think I'll try to get Toaster to go and see him with me to talk about this sort of thing.
Title: Re: Prospective Local Mountain Bike Race Series July-August (interest needed)
Post by: Plantains on June 30, 2010, 02:58:35 PM
Bring monies.
Title: Re: Prospective Local Mountain Bike Race Series July-August (interest needed)
Post by: Sal Atticum on June 30, 2010, 03:28:58 PM
Bring monies.

I was going to bring my winning personality.
Title: Re: Prospective Local Mountain Bike Race Series July-August (interest needed)
Post by: Plantains on June 30, 2010, 05:08:38 PM
Bring monies.

I was going to bring my winning personality.

Def bring monies.
Title: Re: Prospective Local Mountain Bike Race Series July-August (interest needed)
Post by: Alaska Unicyclist on July 01, 2010, 10:08:02 PM
ok guysss. sorry i have been away form the board, no excuse.. its just a different world when i get up here, and biking just seems to be in the distant past.. its coming back to me now though!!! I have nothing to add to the posts previous, just giving u a heads up and saying im reading everything now.. :)
Title: Re: Prospective Local Mountain Bike Race Series July-August (interest needed)
Post by: Plantains on July 02, 2010, 10:03:25 AM
When r u back there sir reads alot?
Title: Re: Prospective Local Mountain Bike Race Series July-August (interest needed)
Post by: Alaska Unicyclist on July 02, 2010, 11:04:16 AM
I'm not quite sure, I will be flying into Minneapolis 7-10 days Before classes start to purchase a 4 wheeled motorized vehicle, then to the GFK ASAP.
P.S. When do Fall classes start??
Title: Re: Prospective Local Mountain Bike Race Series August-September (interest needed)
Post by: Sal Atticum on July 11, 2010, 02:49:04 PM
I met with Jeremy at Turtle River this morning to talk about hosting events out there.  He seemed generally receptive to the idea as long as we make sure we don't conflict with other trail users.  Essentially, as long as everyone plays nice and doesn't knock down anybody walking their dog, we'll be okay.

Dates:  We talked about the end of August through September.  Anything midweek is better (fewer people around), so Thursdays are a definite possibility, unless Wednesday TTs stop around then, in which case people already have time slotted out for cycling.  Start time will depend on how much daylight we end up with by the end of the series.

Course:  We talked about a loop somewhere between 4-8 miles, with people doing one, two, or three laps (or something to that effect) depending on category.  Attached is a course Jeremy suggested that works out to around 4.4 miles (starts/finishes at the chalet).  If anyone has a good idea for a loop, post up.  We can use the chalet by the sledding hill as a staging area so we get bathrooms, an indoors, etc.

Monies:  All that Turtle River is worried about is getting their $5/vehicle fee or getting people to purchase annual passes ($25 and good until May).  If we want to incorporate this into our entry fee, we can work this out with TR but I think that would be extra hassle.  IMHO, we should keep entry low and give discounts for doing the whole series and for doing trail work, as well as letting those riders who would classify as "junior" race free.

Trail work:  If we want to do trail work, all we have to do is get a group together, call Jeremy to schedule a time, and he'll direct us what to do.  There is stuff that needs to be done now, and they have some tools.  Ideally we could make this at least twice a month while the weather is good.  As an aside, TR is working on a master plan for their trail system to plan for future trail movement, so the more help we can give, the faster we can get new terrain to play on (Jeremy's thinking about some technical stuff).

Insurance:  The club will need to sign a waiver to TR saying that we have liability insurance for these events.  DC, I thought you mentioned that we could get insurance through USAC for non-USAC races, but I am unable to locate that information.  I am going to email Missy at Student Orgs to see if we qualify for some sort of UND insurance, but is there any other way to get cheaply insured, by having SBS be the official host or something?

Cyclocross:  Jeremy was open to the idea of CX as well, later in the fall, as long as all our barriers can be moved off the course after the race.

Additional thoughts:  Any sort of food vendor might be welcome at these kinds of events.  I didn't discuss this possibility and I'm not suggesting we grill burgers ourselves, but if one of our sponsors wanted to chip in for pizza, it probably wouldn't be a bad thing.

Jeremy offered to come in to a UNDCC meeting whenever we have one again just to meet some people and talk about TR and this sort of stuff, at the very least so we have more than one or two people in contact with him.

That's how things stand: need course approval, need a start date, need insurance info, and need volees for trail work.  If you can help out with any of these things or would like to learn how to help out with any of these things, post up!
Title: Re: Prospective Local Mountain Bike Race Series August-September (interest needed)
Post by: Plantains on July 11, 2010, 08:49:10 PM
I dunno how the course is at whatever labeled section, but I am NOT in favor of running a section of trail that is 2 way unless it's wide and taped off. I am ALSO, not in favor of "closing the trails" per se, but there shouldn't be any people on these trails. If people are racing, people can't be out there with dogs and such... that's insane.

Someone should email Larry to inquire about possible ways to get insurance. Otherwise... it might be worth running it USAC and just making people get the damn licenses... I'm sick of this crap where we need to go crazy trying to find ways to make it cheap when generally the easiest (and best) solution is just to have people actually get a USAC or one day license.
Title: Re: Prospective Local Mountain Bike Race Series August-September (interest needed)
Post by: Sal Atticum on July 11, 2010, 09:21:10 PM
That section is quite wide.

The most anyone can do to "close the trails" is to 1) put up signs at the trail access points and 2) tell everyone who comes into the park that races are going on.  We can do #1 and Jeremy said they would do #2.

Someone else is going to have to do the math on whether we can afford to do this USAC, aside from not having an official anywhere near here, because I'm reluctant to spend more time on this unless there is more interest expressed.
Title: Re: Prospective Local Mountain Bike Race Series August-September (interest needed)
Post by: Plantains on July 11, 2010, 10:22:43 PM
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.
Title: Re: Prospective Local Mountain Bike Race Series August-September (interest needed)
Post by: Toaster on July 20, 2010, 08:14:58 PM
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.
Title: Re: Prospective Local Mountain Bike Race Series August-September (interest needed)
Post by: Sal Atticum on July 30, 2010, 03:18:20 PM
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.
Title: Re: Prospective Local Mountain Bike Race Series August-September (interest needed)
Post by: Plantains on July 30, 2010, 07:23:54 PM
We could also just have a ride at your own risk at all times super waiver?
Title: Re: Prospective Local Mountain Bike Race Series August-September (interest needed)
Post by: sanders on July 30, 2010, 07:32:59 PM
if that is a doable thing to do i'd say to do a ride at your own risk super waiver
Title: Re: Prospective Local Mountain Bike Race Series August-September (interest needed)
Post by: Sal Atticum on July 30, 2010, 08:47:43 PM
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.
Title: Re: Prospective Local Mountain Bike Race Series August-September (interest needed)
Post by: Plantains on July 30, 2010, 11:48:01 PM
Oh, then we'll probably need insurance.
Title: Re: Prospective Local Mountain Bike Race Series August-September (interest needed)
Post by: Sal Atticum on August 01, 2010, 12:46:44 PM
Any ideas for a name on this series?
Title: Re: Prospective Local Mountain Bike Race Series August-September (interest needed)
Post by: Plantains on August 01, 2010, 01:53:25 PM
"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."
Title: Re: Prospective Local Mountain Bike Race Series August-September (interest needed)
Post by: Sal Atticum on August 03, 2010, 12:29:21 PM
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?
Title: Re: Prospective Local Mountain Bike Race Series August-September (interest needed)
Post by: redtailin on August 03, 2010, 03:17:50 PM
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.
Title: Re: Prospective Local Mountain Bike Race Series August-September (interest needed)
Post by: Sal Atticum on August 03, 2010, 03:37:18 PM
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.
Title: Re: Prospective Local Mountain Bike Race Series August-September (interest needed)
Post by: redtailin on August 03, 2010, 09:52:46 PM
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.
Title: Re: Prospective Local Mountain Bike Race Series August-September (interest needed)
Post by: Sal Atticum on August 07, 2010, 10:12:27 AM
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.
Title: Re: Prospective Local Mountain Bike Race Series August-September (interest needed)
Post by: Sal Atticum on August 10, 2010, 12:26:20 PM
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