Vols and riders wanted: Axel Merckx Youth Series, July 20-22

[Lister Farrar]

Hey all. I think I've mentioned it to most of you but just a reminder we are hosting this race this weekend. Olympians and pros Axel Merckx, Ron Hayman, and Martin Vale are all bringing their kids to race here, and kids you know should be in it too.

Please let riders from 11-18 know; registration still available at http://www.amydf.org . The weekend includes more than 16 hours of coaching, races, and casual social picnics and swims.

And we still need volunteers; Chief official is Bruce Tonkin (from this year's tour de Delta and Gastown), but he could use some helpers. Jim Pauly is doing the course set-up, but also needs some extra hands. Coaches are Steve Lund, Axel Merckx, Kurt Innes, and Ron Hayman. Other volunteers are Kate Weber, Dave Shishkoff, Benda and Tom Hobor, Tom Malencynski, Alex Hui, Jim Holtz, and I'm sure I've forgotten some. But we need more!

Lister

Background
Our event in the series focuses on development and social connections, as well as competition. Our thought is that kids will enjoy and commit to cycling more if they connect with like minded kids and get a good developmental experience. Three casual group meals are included in the entry fee.

The schedule is about half clinics and coaching, and half competition. Clinics precede each discipline, so even beginners can expect to get lots of practice in disciplines they are new to. Experienced riders can expect to get advanced tips, and race hard against good competition.

Race groups will be modified to suit age and strength. For e.g., u13 might include newer u15’s. Stronger riders might be asked to move up an age group. The time trial as first stage allows us to seed the riders for subsequent events.

Friday July 20- Technical Time Trial, Western Speedway, Langford
(Note change in start time. A conflicting event Friday evening was cancelled.) The technical time trial is included to test both basic aerobic ability, and technical skills. Coaching before hand will allow riders to learn the fastest lines through corners, when to brake and when to shift.

1 Registration and kit pick up. (At western speedway, southeast gate).

2-4 Technical Time Trial Clinic
Coaching on riding a time trial with corners, braking and accelerations. Approximately 3 km course with several bike handling challenges.
Coaches: Steve Lund, Kurt Innes, Ron Hayman, Axel Merckx

4-6 Picnic Dinner (riders and coaches) and swim Thetis Lake

6-8 Technical Time Trial Competition
2 attempts for each rider. Combined time for results.

Saturday July 21 Track Cycling, Juan de Fuca Velodrome, Colwood
Hosted by the Greater Victoria Velodrome Association. Approximately 25 bikes are available for loan, but we expect more riders than this. Please bring track bikes if you can get one. We have a plan to share them over the clinics and the races, but the more bikes the better.

9-11 Half the group- velodrome clinic with 2000, 2004 Olympic coach Kurt Innes
Half the group- road cornering clinic

12-1 lunch (riders and coaches) and speaker, velodrome clubhouse

1-3 Half the group- velodrome clinic with 2000, 2004 Olympic coach Kurt Innes
Half the group- road cornering clinic

3-5 Picnic dinner (riders and coaches), and swim at Thetis Lake

5 warm-up

6-9 Velodrome competition. Events modified to suit age, ability, and experience. Older stronger riders will have different events than beginners.

Sunday June 22 Criterium Omnium, Windsor Park. Oak Bay
Hosted by the Victoria Wheelers. Windsor Park is 1.2 km circuit with 3 90 degree corners around a park in Oak Bay, used often for races for all abilities. This race is hosted as part of a regular series called the VCL. The program is a series of shorter events to allow development of skills and a chance to make mistakes. Riders seeking more are welcome to ride the races after the omnium in A or B categories. All races finish by 12.

(Times to be confirmed)
7:30 course closed to traffic, warm-up

8-10
Tentative program
Street sprints (4- rider heats over 200 meters) Minimum three rides per rider.
Scratch races (5-10 lap races in a bunch)
Barrel race: Multi-lap race around cones like the rodeo event, in heats of 3-5.
1 lap tt

10 to 12
Regular VCL races (B is typically 40 minutes plus 5 laps, A, 50 minutes plus 5 laps.)

Showers available after race for out of towners driving home.

[David Hill]

I can help out for at least some aspects over the weekend, depending on the need, and assuming Thomas makes it through his first day with the 11-15 group

[Lister Farrar]

Thomas did great! We did overdo it a bit with distance/time, as Jim and I indulged our enjoyment of exploring a bit too much. Ended ended up doing a bit of march on Guadalcanal trying to find a trail. Swim and ice cream seemed to heal it. I think Thomas kept the falls in single digits, and never once complained. Tough kid; his bike weighs almost as much as him. For anyone that worries about kids keeping up, the u15 cross rides are strictly no-drop, and and range over fields, beaches, trails, stairs, and whatever we can legally string together. Yesterday was PISE, hydro right of way, south end of Hartland, Prospect Lake, with several, umm, explorations.

[katew]

^^ This post is useless without a Garmin trace.

[Lister Farrar]

Race Team update:

Still need folks: picnic shoppers and servers, marshals, reg and results data entry.

Details:

Thursday
Equipment pick-up, Jim Pauly. Could use a helper.

Friday
Set up, take down and return: Jim Pauly, Dave Hill (He needs helpers at 9am Friday at Western Speedway)
Registration:(kit prep, numbers, pins, TT start list, etc) Kate Brown, needs helpers
Coaching clinic: Steve Lund is leading, Axel Merckx, Ron Hayman, Kurt Innes helping
Picnic dinner at Thetis: Kate Brown. Needs helpers
Race: time keepers, Bruce Tonkin, Bruce Falk
Marshals: Need 4 adults to control course crossings. No traffic control required.

Saturday
Track coaching clinic am Kurt. Needs helpers for rental bikes.
Picnic lunch: needs a shopper and server
Cornering clinic: coach (tbc), needs 4 marshals
Track pm clinic: Kurt. Needs helpers for rental bikes.
Picnic Dinner at Thetis: Needs a shopper and server. Use Kate's shopping list.

Saturday track competition (flying 200, standing 1 lap, team sprint, scratch race, plus optional extras)
Chief commissaire: tbc
MC: Brandon Thompson, Kurt Innes
Race director: Dave Shishkoff
Secretary: tbc
Assistant race officials, Michael Cooper, Brenda and Tom Hobor, Jim Holtz, Tom Malcynski (tbc), Alex Hui (tbc)

Sunday (hosted by Victoria Wheelers)
Criterium omnium (street sprints, miss and out, scratch race)
chief commissaire: tbc
Other officials, Bruce Falk,
Results data entry: needed
mc: Kurt Innes, Brandon?

[Lister Farrar]

Online registration may close Thursday. Registration will be accepted Friday on site.

[Lister Farrar]

Kate is inviting volunteers over for a salmon bbq, after Windsor Park. Sign up to find out where!

[katew]

Weekend report from the registrar's point of view:

http://kateweber.com/2012/07/25/axel-me ... th-clinic/

(I'm told some kids were there and did some cycling and stuff, but whatever)

[Lister Farrar]

Great report Kate. One thing I can safely add is that Kate was a huge part of the success of the event. Can you imagine creating a registration system to handle newbies that don't know what a license is, then creating a start list, (all providing your own equipment (printer, computer, etc.). Then dropping all that to go shop for a picnic for 40? And make it look easy. And hosting salmon bbq for a unknown quantity of volunteers? Thanks Kate.

So here's my report.

First some back ground. The Tripleshot 3 Day in the inaugural Axel Merckx series was a bit of an experimental animal. When I had been in discussions about youth development, I had heard stories from Olympic coaches like Dan Proulx and Kurt Innes that kids stuff should really look quite different than adult stuff. And should focus on skills, not fitness, and have a healthy fun and social component.

Now since the typical multistage weekend adult race is a TT (rather an obvious fitness comparison context), criterium (scary corners, many dropped early and riding alone) and a road race (dropped for longer), that didn't really seem the way to go. Plus, closing roads, or worse, putting 11-14 year olds out in traffic to share the road, seemed less than ideal.

So last October when I was asked if our club wanted to do an event in the series, I proposed a technical TT (the twisty, turny, but fully closed course), a velodrome day (coaching first, then several short races), and a criterium omnium (several shorter events with points added for a result) at Windsor Park.

The reception was lukewarm, as others in the series grappled with how to fit their races into existing adult events, or had different resources and road availability. First the decision was made to go with an adult format (TT crit RR). Then after more discussion, each race went with it's own format. Eventually Vancouver had to bow out because of time conflicts (Westside classic). Penticton, so far, has a traditional format.

And ages were debated. I think there's a big difference between 11-12 year olds and 18 year olds, if only because 18 year olds can ride cat 4 quite easily with a little training. But the series became 11-19. Gulp. What would THAT look like? I pictured Evan or Taylor wiping out little kids, or skidding off courses designed for 35 km at 50+ kph.

The Axel Merckx foundations principals, Axle and Jodi Merckx were supportive, but really just as unsure as me about how to make this work. Axel runs a u23 development team in the US, so he wants prospects, but he has an 11 year old daughter, so he certainly could see both sides. But we all said, what the hell, lets see what happens.

However, the long debate about format (and ages, and dates) took me into the busiest part of my year with the school series, VCL races, and Tripleshot junior season. So while courses and permissions got booked early, filling the committee lagged.

And even more of a challenge is how do you handle the huge disparities between early and late developers? Kids with experience and kids without? At our race, we had 5 kids with flat pedals (!) ranging in age from 11-15. Half had never ridden a velodrome. One of the strongest was 13! So in the end we went with the tech TT by age, then created A, B and C groups by TT time for the other races. I think it worked. Except maybe for officials and volunteers who have this curious desire to know what events and groups are actually going to be run.

To be continued. Gotta go coach.

[David Hill]

As a parent of one of the newest, youngest (and definitely the smallest) riders who took part in teh Axel Merckx youth series, I have nothing but rave reviews for the event, both in concept and delivery.

While it clearly was a "learn as you go" event, from my perspective it was a great success, and the kids for the most part didn't seem to notice any of the hiccups. It's like my "wedding theory" - you fret and sweat over every detail when you're planning your wedding, but you're the only one in the crowd who knows that the chrysanthemums were supposed to be dahlia's, and that the bridesmaids were supposed to be wearing lilac, not lavender... as long as there's a couple gettin' hitched and free booze, it's a raging success to the rest of us!

My son Thomas literally started riding a road bike 4 days before the start of the weekend, and had to learn about clipless pedals (chipped tooth to prove it), shifters, fixies and Lister's Great Mountain Bike Adventures in the interim. Yet he got right in there and learned a ton, made a bunch of new friends, met a 10-time Tour rider and Olympic medalist, received world-class coaching and extraordinary encouragement from a community neither of us knew existed, and moreover cemented a love for a sport he had only previously associated with a bunch of weird middle-aged men with a penchant for stinky and garish spandex... (I think of it as a side benefit.)

(Oh yeah, and winning a draw for a pair of Oakley Jawbones didn't hurt either!)

So hat's off to Lister, and great thanks to KATE, Jim, Curt Innes, Ron Hayman, and all the other organizers and volunteers (oh and to Axel and Jodi too). We have signed Thomas up for the Penticton event at the end of August, and not JUST to get the free kit (although that helps).

And yes, Kate, "shopping like a man" is a compliment of the HIGHEST ORDER. Costco in-and-out in 25 minutes??? Are you kidding me??! Almost makes me want to buy a membership...

Thanks again!