Our regions road racing is in a serious position folks!
We are getting to a stage where our road calendar is in serious trouble. The last 5 or so events have been seriously close to the wire for getting enough volunteers and officials (who are also volunteers!) to enable the event to run. This is league and non league events.
I’m not talking about event promotion here, so don’t want the usual keyboard warriors to jump straight on the band wagon and say ‘What about events for me’ or ‘it’s not promoted on social media’. Participation numbers dropping is a separate issue, even if some of the reasons overlap.
As a region, we have been trying to highlight the importance of the need for riders/club members to step up and help by becoming an accredited marshal and helping share the load. Apart from a few, who are greatly appreciated, this has not happened. Hence the calendar we put together for this season is now in trouble.
So, now more than ever, is the time that as cyclists who want to race, we need to take a hard look in the mirror and ask ourselves the question – ‘Do I give back to the sport that I take so much from?’ Because the reality of our regional amateur sport, is we seem to have lost sight of what amateur sport is, and our regional sport, like it or not is the most basic form of volunteer amateur sport.
The reality of amateur sport is that there is no organisers and riders, just riders. We’re all cyclists (of some form), the only difference between an organiser and a ‘serious racer’ is that one is a cyclist that also organises races and the other is a cyclist that doesn’t. There is know them and us at this level, no organiser and racer at this level, just amateur cyclists.
One of the scariest things you seem to hear riders saying in some of the online debates into events is ‘I’m the paying customer’. This has to be a worrying view?
Yes, there is always organisers who enjoy the whole process of organising and volunteering and go way above the basic requirements of an amateur race, but that does not change the fact – That if the current way of most people just taking from the sport, expecting others to organise, and not putting anything back in doesn’t change, then it will continue it’s steady decline until there’s just, at best, closed circuit races to race.
Some possible reasons for the serious lack of volunteers
• Club structure has changed significantly over the last 20 years, gradually culminating in the large traditional type club, either becoming a large club on paper, but a shadow of themselves due to the demise of club nights / social side etc, or drastically decreasing in size or even disappearing completely. This I guess has been aided by the internet and digital / social media platforms of communication. We could talk for hours I guess on the pros and cons of this, but at the end of the day, in this realm, it has made a more insular and anonymous club world, where it’s harder to understand the importance of volunteering and stepping up to do their bit.
• Club structure – There seems to be quite a large increase in the number of small ‘race teams’, which from experiences the leagues have had, they often don’t have enough members to organise an event.
• Rider/Racer Outlook – Also a contributing factor seems to be the increase in ‘serious racer’. Here’s where I personally think the crux of the problem lies. Having organised my first event over twenty years ago, with events ranging from CTT time trials, youth Go-ride races, regional & national events and latterly the South East Road Race League and assisting with Surrey League, I’ve a reasonably good insight.
Also, for someone who used to race and now coaches riders, I fully understand the mentality of the ‘serious racer’, which there is a big increase in lately.
There are two main moulds of this rider. One, puts massive levels of commitment and hard work, juggling everything around a job, family and many other commitments of family life.
The other is a young rider dreaming of being a Pro.
You can fully understand the outlook of these riders, especially when there is so much information thrown at riders nowadays from companies needing to sell products to make them faster, putting a big emphasis onto purely the racing side of cycling, then also throw into the mix, the coach that constantly tells them the importance of recovering between training & racing.
But here’s the thing that seems to be forgotten by many cyclists at present. The cycling world we operate in at a regional level is the most basic level of amateur sport and is run by the regions cyclists, not a band of commercial organisers.
I know the trickle-down effect will always cause people to want to aspire to get better and emulate riders at the top of the sport. The problem now seems to be the number of riders that seem to think they are already some kind of Pro and that they are entitled to a race calendar.
Requirements in place from BC / Local Authorities / Police have now created a situation where there is no way around not having the required number of volunteers.
• With the roads in the South East region becoming so busy, the requirement to run with accredited marshals, NEG and often a large number of static marshals has become compulsory, meaning that without these volunteers, the event just cannot go ahead.
This is not about why rider numbers are down. Although possibly connected and some crossovers, this is a separate problem and discussion.
• Although the issue of falling participant numbers in most events is a separate issue from this, it’s no coincidence that many of the same issues and reasons apply for to the decrease.