But I want my kid racing NOW!

So this post is going to be a bit of topic change.  I had been going to split my attention over the next little bit dithering on about developing track (and tracks) in Canada and on the topic of women’s racing.

Recent events however have given me pause to think (this alone is a rare occurance) on the topic of youth racing. Specifically on pre-junior and even pre-cadet racing, and when and how are the best ways to get kids into the sport.

Ain't my fault your kid brought a knife to a gun fight



It’s not a subject I had previously given a lot of thought- I've always figured the ideal pipeline invovled kids getting into riding in their early teens riding heaps and gradually racing and travelling more each season.

Not surprisingly this happens to be how I did it.  I've never really debated the merits of racing at ten before.

I began riding in 1994 and racing in 1995 as a cadet sport (however they moved the age categories around in 1996 and I was actually a cadet for three years- so retroactively I suppose I was what used to be called a minime). In that first year I did exactly 3 races- a novice category road race (for unlicensed U17 riders I believe) and two mountain bike races, the High school Mountain Bike Championships at Hardwood Hill and the Fall Festival Mountain Bike race at Holiday Valley.

What was interesting to me- and even a touch surprising, was that as I pondered the topic I discovered that I wasn’t overly romanced by the concept of creating National Championships for younger riders- even though I am a hudge advocate of accesable low frills grass roots racing.

I'm agaisnt it for a couple of reasons:

• It doesn’t make a lot of sense to start putting the burden of travel on kids (and their parents) that early.  Canada is a big country and it gets financially ugly pretty quick.  If these kids are going to go anywhere in the sport they will be playing this unfunded travel game all through Junior and likely into U23.

• I’m not convinced it helps the kids outcomes.  Yes European and the United States have youth categories down to U10.  Does it help? Aside from the fact European nations have different geographic realities, can anyone document to me that the kids doing well in the youth races have any correlation to the kids winning U23 titles when it begins to REALLY matter?  If you want examples look to the US and feel free to google: Ceclia Potts, Matt Kelly, Walker Ferguson, Megan Long, Josh Thornton, Ryan Miller – all of whom were heralded at young ages as future super stars.  All all of whom fizzled in the senior ranks.  Even Mike Creed never lived up to the thirty some national titles he won in various junior ranks.

Millie Tanner has been crushing the 10-12 year old TT's so hard Spider Tech folded

their team and just gave her a stack of unmarked bills.  For realsies.

• You are better off focussing on creating a lot of affordable local and grass root events- the more kids you expose to the sport, the greater the chances of finding the next Ryder or Pendrel.  This years OBC Cross series made a big effort to tailor their events to young riders and the results have been palatable – with thirty odd kids participating.  Do these kids really need to make a trip to Vancouver to “develop?” 

The Ontario High School Mountain Bike Championships I mentioned is an interesting case study of an excellent championship style event for young riders.  For nearly twenty years it has offered a short distance event for midget, junior and senior, boys and girls.  Although not a real high school championships (OFSSAA it ain’t) it traditionally gets (by Ontario MTB standards at least) very large fields.  It is a fantastic event for kids to gain entry into the sport, and ha quick look at past champions shows Evan McNeely, Laura Bietola, Andrew Watson and Ryan Dey as former champions.  Recent years have seen 300-400 participants, and if my memory is accurate fields were once much larger.  The participation rate is likely due to the emphasis on the team categories- kids that already ride or race are encouraged to drag out friends to field teams, and new kids are exposed to the sport.

A young McNeeley at Hardwood.  I jacked this from his blog.

Hopefully he neither reads mine, nor is litigious.

In my mind this is the direction we should focus youth racing in- regionalized events that limit travel to a reasonable distance. Events like the Highschool Championships and Ontario Summer Games expose a broader cross section of kids to racing than might otherwise enter cycling and create races that are prestigious and important for the PARTICIPANT – not their parent.

I feel bad for the young riders and would be racers at this past weekend’s National Cyclocross Championships.  Lacking categories of thier own many of these riders had the message hammered home to them by well meaning parents that they were getting screwed by the big mean Cycling Canada and the evil Cycling BC.

What those kids missed was not just a chance to race, they missed a chance to revel in the environment of elite racing. 

They got to miss out on watching 3 of Canada’s 4 Olympic MTB representatives in action.  They missed the chance to wander the tents and see how some of this country’s fastest riders warm up and get ready for racing.  To geek out on what tires people were running, and all of the other bike nerdery that comes with that age (seriously ask any cadet in any race parking lot what the best fork/tire/carbon wheel is- guarantee the kid had put more thought and research into his answer than any homework assignment he’s ever been given). 

These kids missed the change to have a former World Champion sign their t-shirts.  They missed the chance to just immerse themselves into bike racing when it is all new and exciting, and frankly, just a little bit bigger and shinier than it will be when they are older.

Yes these kids did a race. But they are probably also stoked about this part.

(Copyright Pedal)

If these kids are going to be future champions then they will be champions.  And not because their parents forced them, or because they were the Under -11 female marathon XC champion of Canada.  No, they will be champions because in addition to being talented and dedicated athletes, somewhere along the line they will have fallen in love with racing bikes. 

What I vividly remember from the first “big races” I went to, a Canada Cup in 1996 at Hardwood and Nationals the following year, was not so much the racing. What left an impact was getting to the see proverbial stars of the day and getting to soak in the environment of an elite bike race.  For that reason probably the most memorable race I did as a cadet was a non-Ontario Cup points race at Scanlon Creek.

This almost completely insignificant race was used as part of a pre-Atlanta Olympics training camp.  In attendance were Alison Sydor (then reigning World Champion and soon to be Olympic silver medalist), Warren Sallenback (who would go on to place top-15 at the Games) and Lesley Tomplinson.  It was super exiting to have big time pros at an everyday race.  To this day I have a picture (a real one – remember film?) of myself and Alison Sydor.  She was even kind enough to sign my Rocky Mountain Bikes t-shirt. 

Nope no Rocky Mountain bikes there.

 

Which was gracious given that she rode for Volvo Cannondale at the time. And that I had a truly horrible bleach job.

No apologies if this post seems overly nostalgic.  Someone declared on a recent online forum that we can’t grow the sport if we keep looking at the past and not the future.  The irony is the poster had no idea about Canada’s recent youth cycling past. This person argued blindly that we needed youth categories at Cross Nats. 

We’ve had those categories before.  The first National Cyclocross Championships I rode were in Cadet in 1996 and the category has been held at nationals several times since.  And that first Canada Cup I went to? It had over a thousand racers.

Amongst these racers were a staggering SEVENTY Cadet Sport boys and another THIRTY Cadet experts.  So maybe we can learn something from the past, because we sure as hell don’t have 100 cadets riding mountain bikes in Ontario anymore.

An Oldie on Velodromes

This article first appeared in Pedal Magazine in June of 2008.  I thought I would re-post it, as it sets the stage for a number of follow up posts I plan on writting about building velodromes and developing track in general in Canada.  Also it nicely highlights the fact  I over use the phrase "much has been made of":

Much has been made of recent proposals to replace the Victoria Velodrome located near the Juan de Fuca Recreation Centre with an all-weather new stadium complex for soccer, football and rugby teams.

The 333m velodrome, located near the municipalities of Colwood and Metchosin, is a legacy of the 1994 Commonwealth Games and is one of only seven velodromes in Canada “ three of which are concrete, two are indoor facilities, and two are outdoor wood tracks. The Victoria track has held up well over the years, benefiting from its resilient concrete surface and Victoria's mild winters (maintenance is largely limited to pressure washing the moss from the banking in the spring). It's clearly a durable facility with low-cost maintenance needs, but would be very expensive to replace. Its banking is both shallow enough for beginners to ride slowly, yet steep enough for riders to motor pace, making it accessible to a wide cross section of riders. Since the Commonwealth Games, the track has hosted provincial and national championships as well as a Word Cup event and several American Velodrome Challenges (a North America-wide series).

Much has been made in recent years of the fact that the Victoria velodrome lacks a tunnel in its infra-structure and that it's not a 250m track. The lack of a tunnel did indeed mean that Victoria was unable to continue hosting World Cup track events after 1996. This is now a moot point, however, as the World Cup events currently use indoor 250m tracks because the races are scheduled during the North American winter (the one venue that differs is Moscow which is an indoor 333m velodrome).

Moreover, it's important to recognize that these features do not mean that Victoria cannot host international track competitions. In fact, it's only World Championships, World Cups and Olympics that cannot be held on such a surface. Many of cycling's most popular track events are held on non-250m length tracks, including the Ghent 6 Day, the Tasmanian Christmas Carnival and the West Indies vs. the World Series in the Caribbean. The Lehigh Valley Velodrome, the famed T-Town track, is the most successful track in North America and relies on a bridge over the track similar to what was used when Victoria hosted a World Cup event in 1996. Last summer T-Town hosted a series of UCI events that awarded precious UCI points to successful racers and drew riders from Canada, the USA, New Zealand, Australia, Trinidad and Denmark, just to name some of the countries participating. The recent Pan American Championships in Uruguay that saw some amazing Canadian successes were also held on an outdoor concrete track.

There is no better example that track quality need not be a barrier to the quality of events it can host than the prestigious Tasmanian Christmas Carnivals. These annual meets held between Boxing Day and New Years draw international fields vying for large prize purses on decidedly unorthodox tracks. While one Carnival is held on the Launceston Silverdome an indoor wood velodrome (with a seemingly bizarre length of 286m) the bulk of the racing takes place on dead flat 500 meter tracks around cricket fields. The lack of uniform 250m tracks doesn't inhibit the likes of Ben Kersten and Shane Kelly from putting on displays of speed and power that wow the thousands of spectators that pack the stands each night. It should be noted that the that the popularity of racing on the poorer tracks played a significant role in supporting the building of the Silverdome – an excellent and facility with a very fast surface, despite its unorthodox length.

What Victoria does provide is a versatile racing and training surface that is accessible to a diverse assortment of age groups and ability levels. The track allows for some excellent elite level racing and training. It's perfect for motorpacing without requiring the use of a specialty electric derny, and at the same time, is a facility that is safe and un-intimidating enough to teach primary and middle school groups to ride on the track with their mountain or BMX bikes in a supervised setting that introduces them to bike safety and rudimentary racing skills.

Cycling BC youth coach Dan Proulx has taught several youth and school groups to ride the Victoria track over the years and commented: "The Juan de Fuca Velodrome is one of the best tracks to teach young riders on. Most children are able to ride the track within ten minutes of arriving at the velodrome. The ease of use and safety of the track are some of it’s key features. The kids were always thrilled with their experience and many have gone on to become track riders as adults. The Juan de Fuca track is the best track in Canada for it’s suitability to both young children and elite riders."

Proulx also noted that when he lived and coached in Calgary he would annually take a group of junior cyclists to Victoria each spring to benefit from the track facilities as well as Victoria ideal riding routes and moderate climate.

In terms of the life and maintenance of concrete velodromes, the Argyll Velodrome in Edmonton Alberta is a legacy of the 1978 Commonwealth Games and is both older and has weathered far harsher winters in its long life than the Victoria track. It is nearly identical in length and design to the Victoria track. Most recently, the Argyll track provided a suitable home base for Lori-Anne Muenzer's campaign for Olympic Gold in 2004. There are few tracks in Canada and it is unlikely that that number will increase significantly in the near future. Building a new velodrome is undeniably an expensive capital investment. It is therefore extremely important to preserve those existing tracks that we do have in this country, especially if it's a track with relative low cost of maintenance. It would be a tragedy to destroy a track such as the Victoria velodrome to replace it with another playing surface that could be located elsewhere. Velodromes are simply too scarce a resource to condone this planned demolition.

The programming and community engagement at the velodrome in Victoria may not have been utilized to its full capacity in recent years, but it has all the facilities and attributes that it needs to be an important regional hub in track cycling, especially as the nearby Burnaby Velodrome continues to grow in terms of both participants and events. This is not to suggest that the Victoria track has been dormant, for it hosts a series of learn to ride and race clinics, plus several races a year, including the BC Provincial Track Championships. It also serves as a valuable training ground for Pacific Sport athletes, local cyclists and triathletes. Rather, it is to suggest that greater coordination among the various cycling facilities has much to offer towards increased track usage. A few years ago, making use of coordinated planning with other tracks in other regions, the American Velodrome Challenge events attracted many riders from as far away as Quebec, Oregon, Washington, Alberta with even a contingent of New Zealand riders racing at the events.

There is perhaps no better testament to the role that the Victoria Velodrome has played in developing cycling in Canada, than in 2004 when Victoria last hosted the National Track Championships. Two of the riders that won events there were winning their first ever national titles. Four years later, those two riders, Zach Bell and Gina Grain, have won more than a half dozen titles between them, and will be representing Canada in the track events at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. For both of these riders, Victoria was an important stepping stone in a journey that will culminate this summer at the Olympic Games opening ceremonies. Canada does not have sufficient sports resources that we can afford to destroy existing, low cost, flexible racing and training centres. Hopefully, this wonderful facility can be preserved so that it can continue to generate future generations of internationally successful Canadian riders.

Where Have all the Stage Races Gone? Or why you should know the name Marianne Martin.

Past Commonwealth Games Road Champion, super sprinter and now team manager Rochelle Gilmore called out in the media this week for a Women’s Tour de France that could be held in conjunction with the men’s event.

 Wait if it's a new idea how is Marianne Martin celebrating in 1984??

The irony of course is that nearly twenty years ago women raced an 18 day Women’s Tour de France that was held right along with the Men’s event, with the women finishing 2-3 hours earlier than the men each day.  The winner was American rider Marianne Martin, who beat out Dutchwoman Heleen Hage by 3 minutes for the maillot jaune with fellow Yank Deborah Schumway in third.  Martin also won the QOM classification. I have to admit that before starting to write this I had never heard of any of the three.

The event was held during the last two weeks of the men’s event (In which a young Greg Lemond placed 3^rd). The women covered 616 miles (991km) over 18 stages, with Martin leading them home with a time of 29 hours, 39 minutes and 2 seconds having taken over the lead on the 14^th stage.  Interestingly enough the American women were riding for the North Jersey Women’s Bicycle Club as the USCF didn’t send a team - the Tour conflicted with the LA Games.  Teams from England, Canada, France and the Netherlands all took part.  In 1985 the race became truly international when a Chinese team took the start line.

Even Jeannie Longo was young in 1986

Sadly the event sputtered out over the years.  It was first separated from the Men’s event as the Tour Féminin, and then lost the rights in 1997 to call itself the Women’s Tour de France, becoming instead the Grande Boucle.  By the time the event coughed its last death rattle in 2009, it was a four day event that in the words of winner Emma Pooley was more of a “Petite Boucle”

Oh snap. The Brit dissed in French.

What is mind numbing to people that have followed the women’s side of the sport is that the demise of the race seemed to trend directly opposite to women’s racing on the whole.  In the twenty years since those women’s raced onto the Champs-Elysées the sport has made monumental strides in terms of professionalism and depth of field.  The length of the Olympic road race has grown from being the only cycling event for women with 45 participants racing 87 kilometres (they did two laps of the marathon course) in 1984 to racing 140km in 2012 (the IOC has kept the field small however).

Nowadays 8 Emma Trott's could fit in the gaps these

 women are leaving between riders.

Women from Europe, North America, Asia and Oceania now vie for World titles in a breadth of disciplines.

And yet the big tours have shrivelled up and died.  The Tour de L’Aude which had grown from a small race around one location to the premier women’s stage race in the world has folded up shop and the Route Feminin suffered a similar fate.  L’Aude had been the site of considerable Canadian success with Denise Kelly, and Sara Neil scoring back to back podiums in 1989 and 1990, Linda Jackson taking the overall GC win in 1997.  Interestingly all three women are still involved in the sport with Kelly working for the CCA, Jackson running Tibco and Neil working as an enforcer for Trek-Red Tuck Racing.

Name the ground breaking Canadian Women hot of a Tour de L'Aude TTT win (Hint Jackson's not in the photo)

The Giro Donne is currently the only marquee “Grand Tour” for women’s cycling, having been first held in 1988.  There is no other 10 day stage race in the world for Women. (It should be noted that if a women’s Tour were to be held in conjunction with the Men’s event it would actually clash with the Giro Donne).

Maybe the time is right to reverse the trend- this summer’s Exergy Tour provided an excellent showcase for the best women racers to strut their stuff (hopefully the titles sponsor’s financial woes are being over reported.  And it reminded people of another demised event the ground breaking Ore-Ida/Powerbar/Hewitt Packard Women’s Challenge held in the same region (who’s history is deserving of its own blog).

It also had Patrick Demspey as a podium girl.

After all it turns out Greg Lemond might not have been the first American to win the Tour de France.



A TREATISE ON DEVELOPING INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S RACING: PART 2

Having talked about re-structuring women’s pro teams yesterday, I’m going to take a sharp right hander today and talk about the single thing that drives me the most bonkers when people discuss promoting women’s cycling. And by “promote” they mean try and tart it up.

This is the same sort of logic that has led the head of FIFA to call for skimpier outfits in Women’s soccer, rather than say, refs that can call handballs correctly.

 

2) Don’t Bring Sexy Back.  Leave Sexy Alone

Philippe Gilbert is not sexy; he does not need to be. No one expects him to be.  They just expect him to smash fields under his heel in major one day races. (Disclaimer: If you have a pirate fetish Gilbert might turn your crank)

  Similarly no one says “Hey Mark Renshaw - you know how you can get over the whole ‘can’t sprint for yourself’ career hurdle? Turn up the dial on your sex appeal!”

I stand corrected. In that helmet, the dial is already at 11.

Yet when people talk about promoting women’s cycling there is always a demographic that jumps up and down with their hands in the air talking about capitalizing on women athlete’s feminine wiles.  They may mean well, but what they are proposing is a recipe to undermine the sport. So to those people I say:

Please put your hands down and sit in your chair.

When you try and market sex appeal first and foremost you any gains in exposure and sponsorship dollars come at the loss of long term credibility.   

And when you try to market a women’s team or the sport as a whole – you are going to face the exact same trade off.  Rock Racing tried- and not surprisingly their women’s team was taken even less serious than their men’s team (which they built with the more conventional formula of heaps of cash and dodgy foreign riders).  Not only is the broader industry and general public not really engaged with women’s cycling, no matter how hard you try and hot it up, but the best women rider’s have no interest in riding for a team where that is the marketing hook.

You need some sprinting skills to back up hair like that.

This isn’t to say that riders can’t be more marketable because of their looks- this is a reality of celebrity, and one riders like Boonen and Cippollini have traded rather heavily on in their careers.  Emma Johannson is a rider that balances being both blazing fast and a stone cold fox.  But she is first and foremost one of the best riders in the world.  That she is attractive is just an addendum, her ability stands on its own (Note: At this point my wedding ring began to glow a faint red colour and burn with an angry heat).

You don’t get the World Cup Leader’s jersey for being a hottie. Or even the novelty flower bouquet.

At the end of the day a rider like Ina Teutenberg might be just as marketable because she represents the opposite. One can admire her for the exact reasons one admires her male counterparts, she is simply an excellent bike racer.  She can win field-sprints, ride breakaways, and is the consummate team player. She is a brick solid-trucker cap wearing-mullet sporting-beer swilling-ass kicker. 

And that is way more awesome than a picture in Maxim.

note: In yesterday's post I failed to mention the Infinit Women's Team which is another great Ottawa region women's team working hard to promote the sport. Apologies for the oversight!

A Treatise on Developing International Women’s Racing

There has been considerable discussion recently on how to best develop and promote women’s cycling at the international level.  Because I have absolutely no lever to affect actual change, I’ve decided to write a series of blog posts about it.

Obviously the first step is to have healthy grass roots and junior programs at the local level to feed into the national scene.  In my own backyard there are groups trying to do just this: the Ottawa Bicycle Club is one example of a great junior program trying to engage young girls.  And the Stevens p/b the Cyclery Team I’m involved with is a fantastic women’s team trying to bridge the gap from the junior and provincial ranks to the North American level.

However that’s not where I’m going to focus my attention on.  I’m going to look at the top elite racing scene.  Because oddly enough, I’m kind of an expert on women’s racing, albeit a self declared one.

I don’t declare it lightly.  I have followed it on a daily basis at a provincial, national and international level with a possibly obsessively compulsive level of interest for over a decade. I have DS’d teams at World Cup and UCI events, and have watched literally hundreds of women’s races from the local to NRC level.

Now I want to put forth the disclaimer that my experiences are someone mitigated by the obvious fact that I’m a dude (astute readers will have already noticed this).

I don’t claim to understand all of the adversities and double standards that women racers live with.  But I do claim to have witnessed most of them.

So if you can forgive a guy going on about what he thinks needs to be done to promote girls racing bikes we’ll begin.

1) The Structure of Women’s Pro Teams

One argument that is often put forth is that the women’s infrastructure should simply be grafted onto the men’s – both in terms of team and racing.  This idea certainly has some real benefits, but it also brings with it shortcomings. Let’s discuss the team aspect first and revisit the racing component at a later date.

Just look how well these Canuck teamates were getting along in 2003!

Actually this picture is kinda creepy. Manon wins in not having to give a dude a piggy back.

Joint Teams

There are big pluses to running a pro women’s team in conjunction with an established World Tour or Pro Continental Men’s program.  One of these is cost savings, the women’s team benefits from access to vehicles, team bases and facilities and behind the scenes staff that can all be shared amongst the team.  Additionally the women’s team benefits from being exposed to a more established professional environment in terms of expectations and behaviour- this was commented heavily by riders in interviews during the HTC team’s lifespan.

Also it is relatively cheap to do so in terms of a big team’s budget.  For example the entire women’s Garmin program ran on less than the cost of the men’s team anti-doping program.  In recent days Willier has been tossed aside as the bike sponsor of the Lampre team because their current commitment of €1.5 million and 130 bikes annually was out bid by Merida.  For frame of reference a few years ago Canada’s only female UCI team operated on roughly a fifth of that amount of money and a tiny fraction of the material support.

HOWEVER- the catch is that history has shown over and over again, that if the men’s team encounters any kind of financial difficulty, that the women’s team is gutted to keep the men’s program afloat.  It happened with Garmin, it happened with the Autotrader.com women’s team which allegedly saw almost their entire budget injected into Mercury.

 Hey ladies, Jonathon called- yeah you need to give that money back.

The bottom line is that in the current environment a women’s program run in conjunction with a men’s team will not be the priority and is likely to suffer because of it.  That said I don’t know anything about the nuts and bolts of how the current Green Edge set up is run- maybe it is a sign that they are moving past this barrier and onto more equitable footing.

A Proposal for 3 Categories of UCI Women’s Team

Part of the biggest challenge facing women racers looking to take steps towards being full time professionalism is the massive uncertainty surrounding the current team structures.  At the moment there is one classification of Women’s UCI team- and this runs the spectrum from well run and funded operations like Green Edge and Specialized-Lululemon to what are essentially club teams that are just struggling to get riders on the start line for a full racing calendar.

This is muddied even further because some well run set ups (especially in North America) don’t register with the UCI.  Optum is an example of a team that is thriving without any UCI registration. (As a side benefit it means that riders on non UCI teams are free to race for their national federations at major UCI events).

There has been calls from some top riders that the UCI needs to mandate a minimum wage for women.  And one one hand this makes sense, and the best women in the world undoubtedly deserve that level of support and security.

But the truth is that this measure would bankrupt many (if not most) of the current UCI team set ups.  And while these teams may just be scrapping by and many are not paying their riders- they are still playing an important role in developing women’s cycling.  The UCI simply can’t adopt a measure that would force even more women out of the top level of the sport.

What is needed it a two tier set up- the lower level would essentially be the status quo.  All of the same standards and fees as imposed today.  Essentially it would function like the men’s Continental class of UCI team.

The higher tier would be akin to a World Tour level, and with it would come the minimum wage, as well as calendar incentives, and other organisational guarantees.  This second tier would give reassurance to the top women when they signed contracts that they would be paid a living wage and could expect a certain increased level of professionalism from the team.

Now you notice I have proposed 3 categories and only two tiers? The third category would be teams affiliated with major men’s teams (Pro-Continental or World Tour) and would functionally be the same as the higher tier I proposed earlier.  The difference would be solely to the organisation of the team. 

There must be some mechanism that would allow the UCI to show preference or give registration breaks to World Tour teams that had twinned men and women’s programs to create an incentive for having a women’s team.

The best one I have come up with is a ranking incentive.

The women’s team should count as a fixed number of UCI points towards the Mens team’s World Tour status.  This might make a lot of financial sense for some teams- as the cost of a big name rider is often more than the entire budgets of top female teams. 

Heck - it beats hiring and then firing an Iranian; which was Lotto’s strategy to get into the World Tour last year.