Is BC racing dying?

OffTheBackAdam

One of my clubmates took his first look at the BC calendar.

"Just looked at 2013 British Cycling racing calender and was shocked to find only 2 RR's (Lincoln Grande Prix and a juniors only 1) planned for the entire East Midlands division which covers Leics,Derbys,Notts,Lincs and South Yorks. WTF happened in the 30 years since I last looked at BCF handbook?"

Where will the Cavs & Wiggos of the future race?

Herbsman

OffTheBackAdam wrote:

One of my clubmates took his first look at the BC calendar.

"Just looked at 2013 British Cycling racing calender and was shocked to find only 2 RR's (Lincoln Grande Prix and a juniors only 1) planned for the entire East Midlands division which covers Leics,Derbys,Notts,Lincs and South Yorks. WTF happened in the 30 years since I last looked at BCF handbook?"

Where will the Cavs & Wiggos of the future race?

Are you talking about the online calendar which currently shows very few of the races that will actually happen next year?

maryka

You guys need something like the Surrey League up there.

Herbsman

2013 Season League Races

The following clubs / teams have indicated their intention to promote League races for 2013.
Beeston RC
Derby Mercury RC
EMEG Derbyshire
EMEG Leicestershire
EMEG Lincolnshire
EMEG Nottinghamshire
Leicester Forest CC
Nottingham Clarion CC

More events to come as plans firm up for next season.

East Midlands Road Race League

That's at least eight possible races

joe.90

surely some events haven't even been planned yet.

i was hoping there would be more races, with the recent successes of British cycling. i know this year trying to find a race at the weekend was becoming difficult.

amaferanga

Next years calendar is nowhere near complete yet. Look at results from 2012 if you want to get an idea of how many events there are.

Jim C

The darley moors are on already.

LegendLust

OffTheBackAdam wrote:

One of my clubmates took his first look at the BC calendar.

"Just looked at 2013 British Cycling racing calender and was shocked to find only 2 RR's (Lincoln Grande Prix and a juniors only 1) planned for the entire East Midlands division which covers Leics,Derbys,Notts,Lincs and South Yorks. WTF happened in the 30 years since I last looked at BCF handbook?"

Where will the Cavs & Wiggos of the future race?

I thought South Yorks (the old North Mids Div) was in Yorkshire DC?

ju5t1n

Whilst it’s true that most races aren’t on the calendar yet, it’s also true that there are far fewer road races than there used to be. E.g. with the loss of the Tour of DoonHame the BC Premier calendar is down to just 6 races. There were 19 in 2000

maryka

ju5t1n wrote:

Whilst it’s true that most races aren’t on the calendar yet, it’s also true that there are far fewer road races than there used to be. E.g. with the loss of the Tour of DoonHame the BC Premier calendar is down to just 6 races. There were 19 in 2000

I would be interested in hearing why this is. I wasn't around in 2000 so I have no idea what the racing scene was like then. But if I look at, for example, women's racing in the time that I've been living and racing in the UK (2008 to now), I can see a definitive trend towards women's "teams" starting up and women leaving traditional clubs in droves to join them -- usually for some free kit and entries in return. Most of them consist of typical cat 1/2/3 riders, full time jobs, etc. Certainly not elites heading for stardom (though admittedly some of the teams are high level).

The one notable thing about these teams is that they generally don't promote races on their own. Not sure if the same could be said for men's racing, but the people promoting races seem to be club folks, drawing on the volunteers their club can provide. If more and more higher end racers (people who would race E/1/2s) are leaving clubs to go ride for teams, and fewer and fewer teams are involved in promoting races, who is going to put on races at the E/1/2 level?

My own club is part of the Surrey League and we promote two races for them. At the moment we have no cat 1s or elites and even if we did, they would leave to join another team. So we (me really, as I'm the organiser) choose to promote a 3rd cat and a 2/3 road race as those are the races that appeal to most of the racers in my club and in fact will cater to the great majority of racers in our region (4th cats aren't allowed to race on the open road under Surrey League rules).

So while I think that the demise of the Premier Calendar is lamentable, I do wonder who is expected to fill in these gaps as organisers. If BC is happy to run a system with lots of small but powerful teams dominating the top races, but not promoting races on their own, then they should step up within the regions and find some organisers to put on Premier Calendars, and pay them.

Tom Dean

There was a very good post on this recently: http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=40041&t=12876991

maryka

Thanks for the link, I missed that thread.

Veloriders thread is good too.

Wonder if the mods can join these two BR threads? Worth keeping the discussion going.

sheffsimon

LegendLust wrote:

OffTheBackAdam wrote:

One of my clubmates took his first look at the BC calendar.

"Just looked at 2013 British Cycling racing calender and was shocked to find only 2 RR's (Lincoln Grande Prix and a juniors only 1) planned for the entire East Midlands division which covers Leics,Derbys,Notts,Lincs and South Yorks. WTF happened in the 30 years since I last looked at BCF handbook?"

Where will the Cavs & Wiggos of the future race?

I thought South Yorks (the old North Mids Div) was in Yorkshire DC?

It is, and we have http://www.nmrrl.org.uk/ now under TLI rules, was under BCF rules in the 80's.

But in general, we have lost a lot of events in the old North Mids area.

Tom Butcher

As pointed out the East Mids scene is actually as healthy as it has been for the last 10 years or so - it isn't great - but the EMEG have at least got together and put some races on and set up a league - the reason they needed to put their own races on is that there weren't enough clubs putting on races to make a league viable though!

I've stuck races on in the past including last year - not sure if I will in 2013 (it's possible mine is the Derby Merc one mentioned above ). I'm in a large club but the number of seniors racing is fairly small - and of those that do many do their own thing training and racing so there isn't really much feeling of community to it. As noted any women that race inevitably join teams - so no incentive to put on racing for women - most 1st cats or above join teams - even 2nd cats join teams. Same thing happens in the local cross league where many half decent riders jump ship to a local shop team or whatever - they are even talking about restricting numbers next year but no mention of restricting riders who don' t ride for a promoting club.

markos1963

Things around here are actually getting better. We have just learned that the Elvedon estate has agreed to let local clubs use their private roads for racing next year. That means 5kms of undamaged roads with no traffic! Already a five race program is planned, for Youth, Ladies and E,1,2,3,4 adult classes catered for.

https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/event ... -1#summary