Ever wondered what it actually means to volunteer as a sports director for an amateur cycling team?
Organise the pre-season preparations (Winter-training)
This means coordinate with the riders what kind of workout their individual coaches have prescribed and set up a schedule that brings them all under one single program. You would say this is impossible? You are right, almost. We agreed to have one long endurance ride per week, every Sunday morning, from October to February, in order to build team spirit and offer the opportunity to simulate a race situation. The riders ride out as a compact and disciplined group into the Surrey Hills, approx 90mins from West London, to our selected 10K training circuit which includes a 10-15% and 2km long clinb. The squad is riding 5-8 laps in 3 different groups, "full gas", "medium" and "zone2". The riders chose the group they want to ride with, aligned with the instructions through their individual coaches. The "full gas" group simulates a race, the other groups or more interested in consistency. After the agreed number of laps the groups reassemble again in one single compact unit and ride back to West London. The route varies between direct or undulating, taking more other climbs in, too. The ride usually lasts between 4.5-6hours or 130-160km. Mostly, the rides get concluded with a social coffee stop at the end. This means, for friends and family, you won't be seen back home before 2.00pm, likely significantly later.
Organise the team-kit for the following season.
You can only do this, once you have determined who is on the team. You need to order the whole set with the individual sizes for every rider. This is Jerseys, Shorts, hoodies, gloves, socks, bottles and hats.
Once you got all the stuff, you need to hand it to them. Handing over usually is a great opportunity for a photo shoot.
Team photo shoot
Find a photographer that matches the budget. No budget, find one who does it as a favour, but be aware that this often brings copyright issues.
Find a time that suits every rider AND the photographer
Hope for good weather, as the worst is looking at dull lit team photos for the rest of the year
Hand out team-kit and do shoot, with sponsored products (for the sponsors)
Prepare social media release
Announce the team on FB, Twitter, Instagram using the team photos and CV's
Release goals for the new season and key target race events
New Season Team meeting
Organise venue, date and agenda
Target Event calendar set-up (pre-season)
Have a look at my spreadsheet on Google docs. For next season you can assume the same events (slightly changed dates though), its just the question of adding in a few more events where there were particularly long gaps. This would mean increasing the radius of action slightly.
Team set-up (get all the riders details, set-up rider details on BCF website)
Following our discussions the pool of riders will rise to around 20 riders. We all felt that team selection should be more race specific and form specific. This means that the best suited for a specific race should be preferred for entry. Last year, I sent a link to the spreadsheet to all riders before the start of the season and they had to mark the races the “preferred” racing (green with an “X” and the ones they were available for but not so keen (just green) . They also had to mark dates they were absolutely unavailable (red). For every race I had to make sure to have a full team of 6 + 1 contingency. Really important to remind the riders all the time to update the spreadsheet, ensuring it reflects any changed availabilities or preferences.
Race-Entry (including team selection)
Usually via BCF website, with a few exceptions via RiderHQ. Most importantly, race organisers vary in their approach to deal with entries. Some of them accept entries on first comes first served. Others make a selection for acceptance after an entry closure date. Those often cause the weakest riders being denied/rejected. The most stupid thing is, you as the manager who enters the riders, don’t even get informed if your riders made the selection. You then have to enquire who actually got in and who didn’t. Sometimes this becomes clear only a few days before the race. Don’t expect your team to tell you if they got in or not on their own behalf. The facebook page proved very useful to get feedback from the riders and saved some emailing traffic.
In some cases the acceptance rate is so low that you need to write an email to the organiser or better call them and tell them an amazing story about the riders they rejected, about our wonderful club and how you have seen little Ben’s development since he was four and that he had prepared throughout the entire season to race THIS race…you know what I mean.
You then just have to take account regularly and send an invoice to Wendy to get your money back. I did 3 collective invoices over the year and reimbursement was always spot on, thanks to Wendy’s great support.
Pre-Race preparation and strategy
Every Friday before raceday we had a race-tactic preparation meeting at the “Dynamo”. Important to have ALL racers of the day there. Usually more show up, just to be part of that discussion, give their 2cents, but also, be part of the social energy. I usually printed the route map and profile on an A2 sheet or had handouts for the guys. Sometimes we had a laptop and looked at the course in Google streetview, but technology was not really needed. Just need to know where the important rises and descents are, the important corners and of course, where the break will be going… Start-list should be available, too. Crucial to identify potential strong individuals but also ear-making the important teams in order to develop a race-plan, together with the squad. Everyone who races on that day should know what his job is, before leaving the Dynamo.
Raceday
We have got a bottle cooler box (in nice blue), take riders personal bottles and prepare additional “neutral” bottles, one set with energy/electrolyte mix, the other set with water only. Have gels attached to them with a rubber band or tape. Numbers of bottles required by riders vary EXTREMELY, I was shocked that some riders get on with just the bottles they take from start of the race, others need 5-8 additional bottles…quite concerning sometimes.
Handing the bottles is a bit of an art, particularly if the receiver is not particularly well trained to receive them. So you need to find the best spot for handover, where riders are slow. This sometimes means arguing with the BCF commissar, because some of them are stupendously stubborn and want you to feed your riders in the most dangerous locations. If you ignore the commissar, the team might be DQ’ed, if you find other DS thinking same as you, get organized, speak to the race organizer who then will speak to the commissar and stubbornness sometimes changes to acceptance.
Neutral services are not always a given. If there is a neutral service following the race, make sure they have got out LD set of wheels, clearly labeled as “LONDON DYNAMO” in the boot. Otherwise park the wheels next to you so riders have to make the wheel change at feed stop. If you have enough helpers, someone may be able to follow the race in the convoy, although that again needs a special permission. Rusty and I think Ray know how to obtain this through BCF. After the race the riders come together to get their recovery shake, I usually have them available right there at the finish. Other teams often look rather envious when our FGS bar opens and the Dynamo riders can enjoy a nice recovery shake together, right there.
Post-Race
A good chat after the race is important, was the raceplan executed? How well was it executed? what went well, what didn’t, where were opportunities? Unused ones? If something is to be celebrated, celebrate right there. Those are the moments this is all made for. It is super important that everyone leaves the place satisfied, happy and positive. Everyone needs to get his credit for what he did. It must not leave tainted memories.
In the following days remind the riders to write a race report to be placed and the LD website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram
next race
Sponsorship
This would usually be part of the job too, trying to bring in sponsors, keeping the existing ones happy, etc. (Un)fortunately this part of the job is not required at our club, as we try to be independent from commercial sponsorship. Trying to find sponsored, or discounts on products like helmets for the team this year turned out to be an utter waste of time. There is just very little interest to throw any kind of money onto a club based team.