[NCNCA] Women's Races

[izoard at aol.com]

 it helps to consider that you catch more bees with honey than vinegar

Here's 1?additional way to catch more bees.

Build a better bee hive of your own. Consider that if the knuckledragging XY promoters "Don't get it" in terms of presenting racing to Women, please consider promoting a race organized and promoted by Women. It doesn;t have to be exclusively for Women, unlike the old SAFECO Women's Trophy Stage Race of the 80's. Sabine and Lorri know they can do the heavy lifting inside race promotion - and when you're the Piper, you get to choose the tunes. I encourage more Women to?flex the power of their convictions. That doesn;t mean racers have to do it all themselves and give up half your season to promotion?-?most bike racing clubs?are full of members who just want to race their bikes and not deliver numbers and pins or wear orange vests and wave traffic paddles - otherwise they wouldn't be in?a racing team. But there's got to?be energetic non-racing?Women within your network who would relish the challenge. 

More events for Women by Women. When successful you'll have significantly more influence on the rest of the calendar. 




Tom Simpson
Pilarcitos Cyclesports
732 Fairfield Road
Burlingame, CA 94010
www.pilarcitos.com
info at pilarcitos.com


-----Original Message-----
From: Meredith Obendorfer <meredithob at yahoo.com>
To: ncnca at ncnca.org
Sent: Wed, 30 Apr 2008 1:53 pm
Subject: [NCNCA] Women's Races



A couple issues at work here, folks:
   
  1. There are simply less competitive women cyclists. Period. So hopes of 
getting 100 women signed up for any one race is unfortunately unlikely in the 
near future. Even in the region with the most licensed racers in the country.
   
  2. I can't understate the women's 3/4 issue. Because there is no Cat5 for 
women (evidently it's been said that our region can support it, but others 
can't), running a Cat3/4 race for women is like running a 3/4/5 race for men... 
you'd never race men's 3s with the 5's. Give a moments thought to what that 
would be like as a 3 or as a 5. Dangerous, boring or on the flip side, too 
challenging. Additionally, Cat's Hill is a hard and technical race, which makes 
the disparity between the two categories even larger.
   
  3. Personally, if I'm not sure I'm going to make a race, I don't pre-register 
because I know my field won't fill. There are exceptions to this rule... races 
like Snelling (there were TWO womens Cat4 fields this year), San Ardo and the 
Giro. Why? Because these are important (and some of the "easier") races of the 
season. Want to make your race important to the women in the area? Consider 
asking Brooke Kuhn, who runs the BAWC series, to make your race a series race 
(which also means offering seperate Cat 3 and Cat4 races). You should see 
incremental increases in women's participation. 
   
  But the responsibility lies with us as well. As the women's road manager for 
Roaring Mouse, I encourage all our women who will be racing to pre-register for 
races. You'll notice an increase in our women lately not only in numbers but for 
pre-registering as well. Solutions like Lorri mentioned-- higher price for those 
who register later-- also may do the trick. 
   
  I understand your frustration, but instead of sending an inflammatory email to 
the community, what would be helpful is to send an email to the heads of the bay 
area women's cycling community -- folks like Brooke, Lorri, Soni, myself, Sabine 
Dukes, and Evan Evans -- saying "hey! pre-register please!" as it'd be much 
better received. Let me know if you want our direct email addresses, we'd be 
happy you're considering to reaching out to us. We'd, in turn, would tell our 
women to "get on it." We don't need hand holding (especially if we're going to 
bitch about a particular race), but with limited numbers and a long season, it 
helps to consider that you catch more bees with honey than vinegar. Just glad to 
see a dialogue is in place though.

  Thanks again, and on a personal note, I'll suck it up knowing I may get 
dropped racing with the 3's on Saturday simply because I want to continue seeing 
a lower category field at Cat's Hill through the years. Just don't pull me 
please.
   
  thanks,
  Meredith (Mo)
  Team Roaring Mouse
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