Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. I was down in Albuquerque visiting with the in-laws, and managed to get away for a good 67-mile ride with the NM Velo Sport club on Saturday. These guys are actually ramping up the off-season training already, and the pace was certainly faster than I’ve been riding recently. A really nice 12-person rotating paceline made short work of those miles.
Club Meeting
We had a good club meeting last week, lubricated with a little PBR. Highlights:
· Fiscal report for the year-to-date was presented (see attached). Also, the financial outcome of the Cyclocross race in October. From a cash perspective, we lost money, but this was by choice as we wanted some good cash prizes. In the end it was money extremely well spent as we had 84 riders over two days, and a lot of great publicity for the club, both in the press and by word of mouth. I’m still hearing about the races from folks over in Durango, so kudos to Lance for being chief instigator and the driving force behind ‘Cross in Dolores. Also to Doug, Steve, Jeff and our two Scotts for all the work they did on behalf of the club. Not to mention our local sponsors: Dolores Grocery, Dolores River Brewery, Karen Libsch and Cortez Primary Care for being our onsite doctor, and Michael Engleman of the US Women’s Cycling Development Program for providing the Queen Prize of the event, a women’s Giant frame.
· The role of Sol Cycles: Scott is going to pull back a little from ‘title sponsor,’ as this hasn’t produced the business results he was hoping for. Most club members just bought nutrition products, so Sol will continue with those discounts (more below on membership benefits).
· 2009 Sponsors: We will confirm with our current jersey sponsors their continuing support for 2009 (Osprey Packs, DRB, Cortez Primary Care and USWCDP). Taz Vass at Dolores Grocery has indicated he would like to provide support, as has the Hollywood bar. Scott P and I will follow up with them.
· 2009 Jersey: With little time to re-design the jersey before we want to place a clothing order for spring, we decided to leave the basic layout the same (same placement of Sol Cycles and Ciclistas del Rio logos) and simply add in logos for the two new sponsors (Grocery and Hollywood, assuming we get them on board). Currently, there are 3 sponsors that have 2 logo placements each – Osprey, DRB and Cortez Primary Care. So it will be easy to substitute 2 new logos. We’ll see which sponsor ponies up the greatest contribution to see who remains with 2 placements.
· 2009 publicity: We discussed effective ways to spread the word about the club and the Sunday rides. Most would be put into place next spring as the weather warms up and people start thinking about getting on their bikes again:
o Continuing with the KSJD community calendar and adding the KSUT community calendar
o Placements in the Cortez Journal, Dolores Star, Rico Bugle and the Mancos paper (what is the name of that rag?)
o Getting same papers to run articles about the club
o Placing flyers at local businesses
o Aggressive word-of-mouth campaign.
· Some other ideas:
o Host a Dolores River Days Fun Ride
o Choose an event or two that we ride together as a club. The Iron Horse tour is an obvious one, and there was a lot of enthusiasm for the Telluride-Moab tour.
o Develop a women’s / rec ride. This will take some serious outreach to bring out the rec riders when the weather is good. It can only help foster more bike riding in the Dolores valley!
2009 MembershipWe decided to collapse last year’s dual-membership levels into a single membership, mainly because Sol Cycles’ reduced participation provided little incentive for the $60 level. Membership will be for the calendar year 2009, regardless of when it is paid. We may decide to provide a reduced cost in the second half of the year (say, $10 if joining in August or after), which we’ll revisit in our summer meeting. Membership will be $25 and will provide:
· Club jerseys at Sol Cycles @ cost+10%
· Participation in clothing orders for custom Ciclistas gear @ cost+10% (Jan order for spring, June order for late summer)
· 20% off all bars, gels and nutrition products at Sol Cycles
· Insurance through USAC for group rides (I will investigate to find out exactly what USAC provides)
· Partial cost of entry fee for a club tour (tour and amount to be determined).
I will be sending a membership form out to this list later this week. They will also be available at Sol Cycles. You can hand-deliver them to Scott at Sol, mail them to Sol, or mail them to Ciclistas, along with your check (addresses will be on the form). Memberships paid for with this form will be good through the end of 2009.
If you have any questions about the club, any comments on the above, or any suggestions, I would love to hear from you. 2008, as our first full year as an organized club, must be considered a huge success. Though small in numbers, we had consistent turnout for the Sunday rides all through the year, and with this weather, we’re still out on the road. We had good results in races from Grand Junction to Silver City and all points between, on the road and on the dirt. The highlight was certainly the USAC sanctioned ‘cross race, drawing racers from all over the Four Corners and receiving accolades regarding the course, the organization, and the prizes. And above all, we had fun riding bikes!
(just checked the weather, and Sunday looks clear – so 11am at the park!!)
Michael
During a ride with Michael H. a few weeks ago, he brought me up to date on the clothing changes. Because Sol is pulling back from their commitment, I decided to throw a Ciclistas del Rio logo together as an option to replace Sol in the major spots of the jersey and his logo can move to a smaller spot.
