Friday, March 17, 2017

Practice Crit Survey

As we look to make improvements and increase participation in the practice crits, please help out and take a few minutes to respond to the Practice Crit survey:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/HBJPV9G

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

The 2017 Practice Season is Almost Here!

It will not be long before the first practice crit of 2017 is here (although it may not look like it with all that white stuff out there!).

The Practice Crit flyer will be ready soon, so look for it posted here and around town!

Some relatively significant changes are in store for this coming season:

- The Brazen Dropouts will be taking over the reigns from the Trek Midwest Team (be sure to thank Trek Midwest Team members for their hard work the past three years).

- We will keep a leaderboard for both the A and B races, updating and posting it each week, with the podium finishers at the end of the season winning some awesome prizes!

- We are also hoping to link up with Strava so that we can keep track of fastest laps, fastest average lap time, etc. and post weekly and season-long results.

- We will hopefully include some clinics for those looking to further their crit racing skills.

- We plan to make available an on-line sign-up for corner guard volunteering.


A few reminders:

- The crits will again be held on Wednesday evenings, with the B race starting about 6:30 pm, and the A race starting about 7:10 pm.

- The first crit of the season will be held on May 2.

- The practice crits can be used to upgrade from Cat 5 to Cat 4.

- Review past posts for more detail about the location, races, etc.

- The blog will be updated more regularly once the season gets a bit closer (and that white stuff is a distant memory).


Finally, the Practice Crit Committee is considering raising the entry fee from $5 to $10 (it has been $5 for almost 20 years!). The are several reasons for the potential increase:

- the cost of the porta-potties (which we have to have) is about $1500

- City of Madison street permit is about $300

- USA Cycling race permit (that includes the insurance we need to hold the race at the UW Research Park) is about $175

USA Cycling surcharges ($2.50 per rider per race day)

- there are also miscellaneous supplies that need to be purchased each year (e.g., radio batteries, safety pins for the numbers)

The local areas teams - Trek Midwest, Brazen Dropouts, GDVC, MadCity Velo, Neff Cycling, and 801 W Madison - are all doing their share to provide some financial assistance, however, as you can see from the list, there are quite a few expenses that we need to cover, and the $5 entry fee, along with the lower number of racers we have had the past few years, makes it difficult to cover everything. Nothing is definite yet, this is just a "heads up" for now.