BBC September Meeting Minutes

BBC September Meeting Notes

Attendees:

• James Thompson
• Rich Scaduto
• Todd Backes

Survey Results:

• We have a clear winner for Sunday 10/13 at Ellicott Creek Park.  Group ride in the northtowns plus food and awards at a park pavilion after.
• We had 18 members submit votes:

Best New Rider nominations:

• Brian Kayes
• Earl Cantwell
• Josh Stewart
• Julius Bernard

Most improved rider nominations:

• Earl Cantwell
• Jim Oakes
• Josh Stewart
• Gary Ho
• Alex Aronne

Sportsmanship Award nominations:

• Scott Collins
• Erin Haskell
• Gary Ho
• James Thompson
• John Roden
• Moose Imam
• Joe Giovenco
• Jim Oakes
• Max Schneider

Will put out all these names in a vote on Friday’s email.  Last year we allowed all nominations to be put for a vote instead of thinning it down, especially with this year’s sportsmanship where a number of people each got one nominating vote

Season in review:

• Positives:
  • Fireball series was an excellent addition to the club calendar this year. Lots of racing opportunities and skill development for those coming regularly, especially in the B’s
  • Engagement of new riders was much improved through Fireballs and group riding
  • CX offering is massive, opening the club to entirely new riders
  • Group ride collaboration with the NFBC went very well. A good number of the weekend rides were well attended.  The Wednesday Night North ride particularly got a strong BBC following this season, especially for our newer riders
  • Plan2Peak Skills Clinic was fantastic
  • Solid number of USAC race offerings
    • Resurgence crit offering lots of additional fields opened us up to have better attendance, which helped the increasingly expensive race break even
  • Strong communication via weekly emails and social media
  • All USAC races broke even despite rising costs
  • Hiring security for club races guaranteed marshalling presence at all corners, well worth the investment
  • KAV vision level partnership and the helmets coming into the club.  Plan2Peak skills clinic, Kanberra and local bike shop prizes.
• Improvements
  • Plan2Peak skills clinic happened the same time as a club race, next year won’t be an issue by planning a spring/summer date during the off season
  • Add women’s fireball race, run same time as Men’s B field starting 30 seconds behind.
  • Looking for and encouraging members to start new teams to increase the amount of teams within the club over the long term. Info provided on how to register a team within the club’s USAC license plus info on how to connect with clothing stores like Jakroo or Verge
  • Looking to redesign the BBC club jerseys for 2025

Main Topic tonight- How to improve the club race scoring (BBC Sunday Series and Fireball).

• It has been noted especially in the A series that the dynamic of having two large teams has contributed to negative racing tactics (ie. Get members of each team up the road and have their teammates shut down further attacks). This has been an issue raised from members of the two teams themselves plus those on other smaller teams or racing solo.
  • We are looking at eliminating the team series for next year (already agreed upon by both big teams)
  • We are looking at trimming the number of club races on offer back to 2023 levels to maintain high engagement per race
    • 8 Sunday Series races total, 6 road races, 2 time trials, with each rider’s lowest two races dropped
    • 10 Thursday Fireball races total, with each rider’s lowest two races dropped
    • We also noticed that racers maintaining interest for season-long competitions has also been a challenge for some. Attendance especially in the A field is very high in the early season and trails off in the latter part of the season.  This year, it was high in the beginning, low in July then picked back up in August.  Because of this, we are also looking at proposing splitting the season points in half
      • First half of the season would get its own set of trophies
        • 4 Sunday Series races with each rider’s lowest race dropped
          • 3 road races, 1 TT
        • 5 Thursday Fireballs, with each rider’s lowest race dropped
      • Second half of season would get its own set of trophies
        • 4 Sunday Series races with each rider’s lowest race dropped
          • 3 road races, 1 TT
        • 5 Thursday Fireballs, with each rider’s lowest race dropped
      • Full season championship would get its own set of trophies
        • Sum total of each rider’s first-half and second-half season points
      • We are also looking at breaking down the scoring for more age groups in the A and B races, similar to how we started with master’s carve out scoring in the A field in 2023.
        • In 2023, we introduced “pull-out” scoring for the Master’s 50+ and Women who were racing in the A field. You earned your points against the full A field, but your points would go towards your respective leaderboard instead.  For instance, if a master’s or woman got 4^th place in the A field, they would get 9 points, and those 9 points would go towards the Master’s or women’s scoring instead.  Therefore, you were competing against the whole field to earn points against your age bracket.  This helped the race dynamic so everyone was still competing against each other.
          • 2025 proposal: Everyone in the A and B fields would compete as the main group but the points they earn would go towards the following age brackets for men and women:
            • 10-17
            • 18-25
            • 25-34
            • 35-44
            • 45-54
            • 55-64
            • 65+
          • These categories are largely congruent with USAC master’s categories in most races except for national championships (where 5 year brackets are used). Though we are looking to break up the scoring, we don’t want to break it up too much
        • Sample 2025 schedule (exact races to be determined, based on 2024 races):
          • BBC Sunday Series First half
            • Marilla, Island Fireball, Island TT, Langford (each rider’s lowest race dropped)
          • BBC Sunday Second Half
            • Corfu, Shero, Island TT, Island Fireball (each rider’s lowest race dropped)
          • BBC Thursday Night Fireballs
            • First half- 5 Fireballs between first week of May and mid June (each rider’s lowest score dropped)
            • Second half- 5 Fireballs between end of June and end of August (each rider’s lowest score dropped)
          • Both series get full series champions in each age bracket using the sum total of their first and second-half season totals.
        • Still a work in progress but has a lot of promise for 2025