Topic Title

My thoughts coaching

The challenge with this is if an individual is 'educated as a club coach' they will be swamped with questions, phones calls, emails as members seek to improve 'do we have such a person in the club' its a big sacrifice.

One alternative is to post information via the discussion board/website/cliftonite we could have a fitness Q&A section in the Cliftonite

Publish facts sheets on endrance, speed, chaingangs, nutrition, recovery, bike position, etc

This maybe a more manageable method of giving advice and improving

There are a couple of club members that maybe prepared to get invloved with this.

My thoughts

I know this is about the club future but this is what Id like to see.

1. Contine to offer club rides and events as previous years
Add a fun event to our calender targetting a wider audience, Im happy to organise 'with others assistance'

2. Support the key group members (Juniors, club riders, road racers, TT, MTB etc) in pursuing their 2 wheeled ambitions what every they may be
Some of these groups need more support than others

3. Establish two annual social events -

Ideas;
Summer BBQ
Dalby forest fun ride & picnic
Coach trip to Manchester velodrome or TDF stage in 2007
These are key to building inter club relationships & understanding

4. Support for the racing team (RR-TT-MTB) - entries & travel etc - I had targetted MTB NPS in 2006 but could not justifiy the cost of travelling around the country to participate.

"'newcomers to TT FAQ' section on the website "

I agree this would be useful. I think a "newcomers to road racing" FAQ would be good too, setting out the requirements for BC, TLI and LVRC competition. I'd be happy to rough this one out, but know next-to-nothing about TTing, so someone else should pick that one up...

Steph - text on the front page altered to remove the bit about 'first claim' and hopefully make it less confusing.

How to Ride a Clifton TLI Time Trial - turn up with your bike, pay £4 to enter on the line, pin number on, start in numerical order at 1 minute intervals, go like hell following the well marshalled and signed course, finish at the black & white chequer board, check result, go home.

Steph - it doesn't get any more low key than this or any easier to take part. I'm trying to work out your reasoning with this argument about not having your time published? Are you saying you will go quicker if it isn't? At the end of the day you will still know how you have done whether your times published or not. You have to be honest with yourself and satisfied that you have done the best you can - and hopefully come back the following week and try & improve. You are racing yourself more than the other competitors. I'm not sure Arthurs reasoning about competing in the womens event is strictly correct as men & women appear on the same result sheet. However you will be able to compare yourself with the times of the blokes (aswell as the women hopefully!) over a period of time, and hopefully see an improvement as technique and fitness improve - you must get some motivation & satisfaction from that? Besides there may well be men or women riding of a similar standard to yourself who would be happy to see their results published - why deny them the competition?
You will also get respect for just turning up & doing your best regardless of your times.
So for the resons above, Everyone who rides will have their times published.

Having the option of riding without having a time published was a suggestion, and it was a reason that I didn't enter this year. That's all. I could be alone having views of being intimidated by that, in which case it doesn't matter. As you all race and are very comfortable with the whole thing but are wondering how to attract more people into it, I thought you'd be interested to hear a reason why someone doesn't race, and what might be done to encourage them. But I see your point, it's a race and that's that.

So lets think up some other way of gauging progress and improvement for those of us who aren't competitive and don't want to enter races.

Well whatever, Steph. Elsewhere on this discussion board you were complaining about having to race a shorter distance in a mountain bike race as you wanted to be competing against the men over the same distance because you reckoned you could beat a few. Great fighting talk. Whereas in a time trail you are worried about having your time compared to the mens in what is a shorter and probably less technical event than a mountain bike race - and it is a race even if it is for charity. You seem to have fairly exacting requirements? Call me old fashioned but the pains the same whether its a mountain bike race or a time trial or whatever? Just pay your money and take your chance.

Paul,

Whatever. You obviously haven't understood what I've been trying to say at all. As a club are you interested in a viewpoint from people who aren't involved in the racing scene or not? If you are not, then clearly I'm wasting my time.

As for having 'exacting requirements', I'm just tossing around ideas because I heard a rumour that the club had asked people to do that. If you can't tell that I'm genuinely interested in looking at ways of doing things differently to appeal to more than the 'regular gang' and not just whining about cycling not being perfect then something is very clearly wrong. Like other people, I may not be the most eloquent of writers but I hoped at least you'd get the idea!

At least I'm expressing an opinion (and partially playing devils advocate) which is more than about 90% of the other members of the club are. Hmn. I wonder why no-one else thinks their ideas will be listened to?

Steph - since I also disagreed with the idea, here's my reasoning.

As a club, yes, we want to encourage non-competitive riders, and yes, we really do want your views.

The point I tried to make is that a time trial is inherently a competitive event. If one removes the competitive element from it, what you are left with is something different., and then the competitive riders have lost something.

Another reason is the paperwork! I think it would make the admin unnecessarily complicated, however - I personally wouldn't have a problem if a rider didn't want his or her name going in the Press report (I guess there could be all kinds of reasons) but they would have to make their position clear before the event.

On an earlier point - the paperwork on the night. The best way to reduce it is for people to pre-enter the series, otherwise day licence's have to be filled in for insurance reasons. Maybe if people took a few away with them to fill in before they arrive?

And we do need to get more women riding this series - I'd like to ride a few (depending on babysitting!) but I'd hope not to be the only one?

Our press/publicity this season probably just reinforces the outside perception of cycling clubs as a lycra-clad macho clique. I'm sure this ain't just Clifton - there just aren't many women racing on bikes (apart from triathlon). Is it an image thing in our sport? or something else.

Cath

I would be interested in hearing other opinions re. Coaching

My thoughts are:

There appears to be a lot of debate in this area at present re. different techniques / best practices
There are an increasing number of people offering services with varying qualifications / experience
The main growth area seems to be "personally tailored" programmes

This doesn't fit well with the concept of "club coaching"

And professional services do not appear to be cheap

I was suprised that a point i raised before the "futures" meeting appeared to be contentious: that the club may wish to target support for certain riders or that the potential benefits of sponsorship may not be "universal".

It seems to me that coaches have always worked with individual riders and in some cases built up long standing and v fruitful partnerships - sometimes across club boundaries. I would have no objection to employing someone to work with our best road racers. It wouldnt benefit me directly. But is an example of something we might ask a potential sponsor to finance? And i think we would all benefit "indirectly" from club success, increased profile, possibly more sponsorship.

However i do think we could offer the "average" club member some "coaching" support e.g. advice on position, "general" advice on recovery from illness, contact points for physio in extreme cases etc

For new riders we could offer introductory notes on how to start racing, how to enter, what to expect on the day, a few tips on pacing effort for the testers, practical sessions for the road racers as we discussed earlier

From a mtb point of view i think the majority of people from a road background are v poor "technically". Maybe an example of something we may wish to finance would be a days "taught" session covering basic skills, weight distribution / positioning / spotting lines to take etc?

But a lot of this would have to come from members stepping up to offer support in the areas they have experience

The only other thing i did wonder was whether with our recent success we might qualify for regional BC programmes? Are there any??

There's definitely a bit of a consensus above about doinmg some jargon busting - first claim members, TLI, BC, BCF, RTTC, CTT, CTC, UCI. As in all pass-times, we get a bit close to it and chuck around these terms with abandon. So great contributions - thanks.

TTFN

OK, treading carefully here, and trying not to perpetuate one aspect of the discussion over all the others......

Can we turn Steph's comments around a little? Steph, you are suggesting that you would like to ride a TT event, going off at minute intervals, as fast as you can, but not actually take part in the competition? The courses are fairly straight forward and not a challenge to "get 'round". So what's left? Why ride? I'm not being sarcastic or anything - I'd like to get to the bottom of what you (and other people you may be representing) want. There maybe another kind of event we can invent. Or maybe we need to explain how you and others can "get your kicks" from other stuff we already organise.

Genuine question.

Just a reminder that we can all discuss this stuff the old fashioned way tomorrow night (8th). Nick's email message:

Just to confirm the venue for the meeting is Derwent College of the University, room D/112. Meeting to start at 7.30pm. If you are unsure of the venue please call me or meet outside the main entrance of the College at 7.25.

All,

I thought I'd add some comments from a slightly different viewpoint, although I feel less qualified to comment being only an occasional attendee.

1. People join clubs for a variety of reasons; social, common interest, a way of competing etc. Cycling has also got lots of fields now; TT, Roadracing, club riding, Sportif, MTB. It strikes me that if we want to increase membership, without trying to be all things to all men, we simply increase the coverage of activities in some way so people don't simply get the impression that to join in that have to race.

2. Personally speaking, I'm probably sitting somewhere near Steph's point of view. My serious competing days are long behind me by I still love challenges so I tend to ride for pleasure and aim for events throughout the year that I can train for (Sportifs, Audaxes and MTB events being my current favourite). I also love the club runs (when I do get out) as, like most cyclists, I prefer riding with others than alone.

3. I ride regularly with some fellow parents that are not in the club but would probably join if they weren't intimated slightly by the thought of racing. These are fit riders (1 did the Etape 2 years ago and they all completed the Etape Du Dales this year in good time) so presumably fit within our target audience. Like me though, full time jobs and full time kids tend to limit available time every week.

4. I tend to agree with Nick on the youth side of things. I'd love to get my lad into serious cycling but I'm finding more success by making it 'fun' at the moment but getting out MTBing. The thought of spending hours on a road bike holds little attraction for him but hopefully keeping his interest in cycling will give him the option to transition later, if he wants.

5. Regarding new members, how about appointing someone to concentrate on new members? There's lots that can be done to recruit, encourage and keep new members that often takes a low priority during peak racing season, and that could be why people feel slightly alienated and leave. I remember my first run with the club. I turned up at the square and was confronted by a fairly intimidating bunch and was largely ignored. Then everyone started heading off in different directions and I just followed someone that I thought I might keep up with. Luckily, I picked the right group I've been in enough clubs before to know cyclists can be an insular bunch at times. If I was a true novice I'm sure I wouldn't have come again. I only takes a smiling face and a quick explanation of what goes on to make you feel welcome (which Rob's very good at I must add) but if we had something targeted at new members like a welcome pack and got there phone number to call them when they got home to make sure they were OK it would just give a good first impression.

6. Speaking for Gill on the ladies side of things, she'd love to ride more but doesn't want to road race. She did the Lightwater MTB race at the weekend and rides with Kev occasionally, but always complains that she can't find like-mided women to cycle with. Perhaps making the club a little broader might naturally attract more of the fairer sex which will, in turn, make it more appealing for new female members.

I guess the points I'm trying to make are that there are a lot of 'serious' cyclists out there, some ride just for pleasure, some like to 'compete', but not necessarily race, and some are potential racing members. It could be that the club does just want to focus on being a racing club in which case most of the above is probably of little interest.

Enough for now.

Paul