My team ran a cyclocross race last October and we’re doing it again this year. The guy on our team who organized it last year moved to San Diego and so I’m taking over most of the duties of organizing it. Unfortunately I know jack shit about organizing cross races, and the dude who did it last year is tough to get info out of. I don’t mind doing the legwork and filling in the blanks, but I don’t want to miss something big and find out we’re fucked on race day. Here’s the stuff I thought of or came across when filling out the permits:
[list]
[] Get USAC race permit (in-process)
[] Get permit with local park (in-process)
[] Get on local cross association’s race calendar (done)
[] Get sponsors/merch for winners (I did this part last year)
[] Map the course
[] Rent some port a potties
[] Get some food/drink vendors (no booze, permits/insurance are too expensive)
[] Arrange for race officials
[] Arrange for neutral race support
[] Make a flier and distribute it to shops/etc
[] Promote it on the team website
[] Set up pre-reg
[] Get volunteers for course prep and teardown and make sure some of them have cars/vans to haul shit
[] Do stuff from the USAC checklist (like contacting the closest hospital)
[] Get supplies for race from cross association (tape, stakes, barriers)
[] Talk to park manager to get trash cans set up
[/list]
I’m going to be doing as much as I can over the next couple of months, I’ve found that big companies need lots of lead time to sponsor stuff.
Anything I’m missing? Hopefully this can help other people out too. Thanks.
Is there not a local series to become a part of? Most of the races in GA are in the Georgia Cross Series. We generally don’t have food vendors or neutral support and the series has a set of stakes and barriers that moves from race to race. Sometimes the individual events have sponsors, but the series as a whole also has sponsors. If you aren’t going to be part of a series, how about calling whatever local cross organizations you have and ask them?
We are part of a series (http://www.wicycling.org/), so we’re getting the stakes, barriers, race numbers and tape from them. There is one series sponsor but they only sponsor the stuff I just mentioned. We’re on our own for sponsors for merch, vendors, neutral support, etc: vendors are optional-but-appreciated around here but most people expect there to be some sort of neutral support. One of my teammates knows the guy who does SRAM support here (and SRAM is also a team sponsor) so that should be simple enough.
Talking to the series organizers is definitely a good call–thanks for the suggestion–but I want to make sure I’ve got it at least 90% right before I do that.
I work for the parks dept. what makes us happy and excited about the race is a commitment to clean up afterwards including straw/seed application on the brown ribbon. I think we provide the straw and SeattleCX provides the seed.
We also do an extensive walk through with the course designer and make sure any sensitive areas are avoided for example:
Access points for other park users
Playground equipment
Areas of poor drainage
Dangerous obstacles, one was incorporated in 2009 but someone broke a collar bone so it was avoided in 2010
During the walk through you last year you could see where the reseeding was done the previous year and it looked great.
[quote=scrub]Some suggestions from a different point of view.
I work for the parks dept. what makes us happy and excited about the race is a commitment to clean up afterwards including straw/seed application on the brown ribbon. I think we provide the straw and SeattleCX provides the seed.
We also do an extensive walk through with the course designer and make sure any sensitive areas are avoided for example:
Access points for other park users
Playground equipment
Areas of poor drainage
Dangerous obstacles, one was incorporated in 2009 but someone broke a collar bone so it was avoided in 2010
During the walk through you last year you could see where the reseeding was done the previous year and it looked great.[/quote]
No beer cuz the parks make you get a ton more insurance and stuff, it’s a big hassle. Maybe next year but I have enough on my plate now.
Interesting about the straw/seed thing, I’ll ask the parks people about it. Probably after I get the permit though so they don’t freak out and think the park is gonna go up in flames.
As for the USAC thing–I think we have to go through USAC for our series, plus it’s nice to have the liability insurance handled.
[quote=tjayk][quote=scrub]Some suggestions from a different point of view.
I work for the parks dept. what makes us happy and excited about the race is a commitment to clean up afterwards including straw/seed application on the brown ribbon. I think we provide the straw and SeattleCX provides the seed.
We also do an extensive walk through with the course designer and make sure any sensitive areas are avoided for example:
Access points for other park users
Playground equipment
Areas of poor drainage
Dangerous obstacles, one was incorporated in 2009 but someone broke a collar bone so it was avoided in 2010
During the walk through you last year you could see where the reseeding was done the previous year and it looked great.[/quote]
