Smithers MINNEAPOLIS

Let us not forget the significance of this day.

Most of you need no reminder. But for the rest, on this day, 100 years ago, the Germans invaded Pearl Harbor.

• MCF banquet will be held at QBP on 1/27/07. No guest speaker has been found yet. I nominate Hollywood Henderson.

• Tour of 10K Lakes looks to be back on the schedule for 2007. That’s awesome news. Same format as 2005, criterium, 2 road races and a final TT.

• Super Rookie proposed a grant/loan program to help with the promotion of races. $500–1000 will be available to clubs in 2007 as a loan for race promotion. This loan has to be paid back to the MCF within 10 following the event. I would like to see this loan turn into a grant someday but it is a great idea and is exactly the kind of thing the MCF should be doing.

• An USA Cycling official is coming to conduct a moto-ref clinic. So now we will have a bunch of moto-refs, which is fine. So long as these refs do not become an added expense for amateur race promoters I see no problem. I just hope that because a resource will now be available it will not become an additional critical requirement for road race promotion.

• The State Crit will be at the Capitol instead of Northfield for 2007.

• Kenwood’s bid to host the official USA Cycling Minnesota State Cyclocross Championships was spiked because Kenwood is not an MCF club. I don’t have a problem with that. The rules are now set and everyone knows them. Kenwood can still host their race at Bassett Creek, it just won’t be the state champs unless they play by MCF rules.

• The MCF is going to loan the velodrome money to buy another storage container for racers to store they bikes in. This loan will be paid back within two years by income raised in renting out storage spots. After that the income is all surplus for the track. This is another great idea.

• StartBikeRacing.com/Beginners Racing Clinics/Youth Recruitment – I still debate whether this should be an objective of the MCF but I have covered that in previous posts.

• It’s not on the minutes but the Excelsior Crit is coming back for 2007. You can thank Excel Cycle for that one! 5/13/07

• The Birchwoods are promoting a new road race on 8/11/07. No word if this is on the old State Championship road course or a new course.

• State Road race is on 8/25/07 on the Avon MN course.

• LGR is promoting a cross race in Blaine on 11/4/07

I am going to wait and see how the rest of the racing calendar fills out before I announce the 2007 RADIUS track racing series.

The rest of you need to crank up your propaganda campaign.

As Strats has stated, Bike racing is a very intimidating sport. It costs a lot of money to take up the sport, it takes a lot of time to train for the sport, there is a lot of intrinsic knowledge regarding bike racing that a novice racer is simply not going to be able to pick up on their own.

But reality is that the money and the training are the “easy” part. These are things that a novice racer will have already taken care of if they wish to start racing. The hard part is acquiring the knowledge that is needed in order to effectively participate in a bike race.

How do you in a group? How do you ride in a paceline? How do you pull through without destroying the paceline? How do you need to ride when you are in a road race versus a criterium? What are race tactics and how can you use them to your advantage?

A novice bike racer, with no other alternatives, is going to eventually figure out all these things on their own if they keep at the sport long enough. But it will take a good long time and, in the mean time, could result in getting dropped a lot or crashing or getting yelled at by their fellow race competitors. Not much fun for someone just getting into an already intimidating sport.

When I first started riding I was working at a bike shop and I would go out and ride with the manager of the shop each evening after the shop closed. He was my mentor for the first couple of years that I got into the sport and he basically taught me how to ride. He yelled at me when I did something stupid and he told me when I was doing a good job and he taught me how to be a safe and smart bike racer.

Back in the day, before the internet and before ProCycling and Cycle Sport magazine and before OLN and before World Cycling Videos, the only way to learn about bike racing is to find your own mentor that would show you the ropes and teach you the sport.

Now days you can pick up a Joel Friel book or check out the internet and get all the information you need on training by heart rate or watts, what is the super light equipment to ride and even get some advice on race techniques and tactics. But reading something and having someone tell and show you something are very different things.

So I have been thinking about the idea of starting a new bike race mentor coaching business. I think it’s great for those who have done some group coaching but, in order to really be effective, I think it needs to be more of a one on one coach/client relationship. The focus would not be on training or equipment as it is very easy to find this information on your own. The focus would instead be on technique and tactics and the practical aspects of being a “better” bike racer.

My hesitation to actually starting this business is:

• Am I really qualified to teach anybody anything?

• Would anyone really be interested in this service?

• Do I have the time to take on a project like this?

So, for now, I am still just thinking about it.