Lance Poster for Sale

Instead of a t-shirt this year, the Austin American-Statesman is making this poster available for sale. It shows the newspaper's section fronts covering Lance's Tour de France victories with the one for the 7th win showing most prominent. It's the home paper's coverage of Lance's Tour victories. Cost for the poster is $24.95 plus shipping. Here's the link to order one.   

Creedmore Time Trial Series

The first of 4 time trials in Creedmore starts this Wednesday, July 6th. This is a great way to prepare for the upcoming state time trial or just improve your overall form. It's a great course. The first rider takes off at 6:30. Thanks to John Bartle for all the work he's done in preparing this series. We anticipate a strong turnout. Here are the details.

Luckenbach Ride on Saturday

A reminder that the 8th Annual Luckenbach Ride will depart Saturday, June 18th from Freewheeling @
7:30am (w/15 minute rule in effect) SPECIAL NOTE: please park your vehicle along the wooden fence away from the shop so that we do not occupy Freewheeling customer parking. The ride ends in Luckenbach and cyclists should begin arriving in Luckenbach sometime after 1:00 (depending on the pace and rest-stops of course). A BBQ follows that afternoon/evening at the Tasch farmstead.

The total distance is ~87 miles (one way) and the route followsscenic Hill Country back roads. The idea of the ride is to bicycle out to Luckenbach, have a family member or friend meet you there (obviously they drive out), drink a cool beer or soda under the oak trees and visit a while. And if you choose, go to a BBQ afterwards. The ride and BBQ are open to all regardless of club affiliation. Shorter ride variations and perhaps a "Junior Ride" could begin in Dripping Springs and ride out to Luckenbach (~60 miles) or begin in Blanco (at the Brewery) and out to Luckenbach (~30 miles). Regardless, unless your desire to ride your bike back to Austin you will need someone to pick you up.

Additional details with maps at > http://www.txinfo.com/Luckenbach

Violet Crown Track Day at Alkek

Have you ever thought about racing on the track? Alkek Velodrome is just 2 hours away in northwest Houston. The problem is, you need to take a class to be certified on the track before you can race.
So Violet Crown has made arrangements with the nice folks at Alkek to have a group class on this coming Saturday the 12th. If you take this class you will become a Cat 4 on the track and will be able to race at Alkek and most other velodromes.
The class will start at Noon, but you should arrive by 11 or so in order to get set up. You need not have a track bike: you can rent one for about $5. The cost of the class is $25. If you would like to carpool, there is a large group leaving from the Walmart in Bastrop on Saturday morning. Meet at 8:45 for rollout at 9 am.
If interested, email Jay Bond at jbond@tda.org.
You need not be a member of Violet Crown to attend. Anyone is welcome!

We apologize for the late notice, but it took us awhile to get a firm date and commitment.

Killer Diller - This Saturday

Saturday, October 23rd. It's a race in the Hills and according to the official race website, it's "Texas' Most Outrageous, Bad-Muthah, Mountain-Goat, Hill Climbing, Road Race, Vanderpool, Texas." 50 miles of the steepest climbs, sharpest blind turns, and scariest descents in the Hill country of Central Texas.

The 50 mile event starts at 9:30 and the 30 mile event starts at 9:35. Register here.

STATE TT CHAMPIONSHIP RESULTS

Here are the full results for the ITT that were posted on Txbra.org.

And here are the TTT results .

_______________
weberator

STATE TTT START TIMES

The Carrot - THE STATE TT

Now the Manda TT series is underway, here's the flyer on the State Time Trial scheduled for June 19nth. You can register on bikereg.com . Thanks to Chris Thibodaux for all his work promoting this event.

How to Promote a Bike Race

As all racers know, there are never enough races or at least enough races close to home. We all enjoy our racing and appreciate the people who put the races on and work them, but we don't think much about what is involved in promoting a race unless a promoter makes a mess of things.
In an attempt to promote promoting and to take some of the mystery out of it we have gathered information from people who have already promoted races successfully. By using the strategies outlined here anyone, with the help of some friends, can put on a bike race. All it takes is a little time and effort on the part of a few willing folks for an event to be a big success for all involved. There is even a checklist to make sure you don't forget anything. Good luck and see you at the races.
Unfortunately, the bulk of these articles predate important new developments like TxBra, and widespread use of the internet. If you have promoted races and would like to contribute to this gathering of information - particularly if you can expand on issues like working within the TxBra framework, please e-mail us at Webmaster@violetcrown.org and we will add what you have learned to this list.

Promote! by Dave Henderson
10 Tips to Make Your Race a Success by Pam Udall
Thursday Niters: Promoting a Week-night Series by Jeff Austin
Promoter's Checklist by Renee Orr and Mike Beck
Trofeo de Walburg Overview by Pam Udall
Designing a Race Flyer by Dave Henderson

Promote!

This article was originally in the Violet Crown News

by David Henderson
Racing in Austin is at a turning point. I know it sounds melodramatic but it's true. For years the same people have been putting on the races and, one by one, those people have moved away from promoting.

Those of us who have been on the local scene for a while can remember years when we raced every single Thursday during the summer. On the weekends we had a Best-All-Round series consisting of a criterium and time trial on one weekend and a road race on the next. We could race three to five times a week and multiple times per day on some days. In July we would race about every other day and go home to watch the Tour de France on ESPN. It was easy to commiserate with the plight of a TdF racer when you were fatigued from racing yourself. But people's interests change and enthusiasm wanes with time.

Bill Glaze used to put on quite a few races by himself. We always complained about his cheap prize lists. He would give inner tubes as prizes and the joke was that the prize for first place was an inner tube and second place was two inner tubes. Then he got tired of the complaining and stopped promoting and we were stuck with fewer local races. A race with cheap prizes is better than no race at all.

Another promoter who fell by the wayside is Steve McLean who now works at Bicycle Sport Shop. He promoted the dreaded "Bike Doctor" races. One criterium course he used had a diabolically steep, leg breaking climb. Diabolical is a word that seemed to creep into the conversation when talking about Steve's races. He was famous for waiting until late in the race to give out all the primes. The pack would already be fatigued and Steve would ring the bell every lap for the last three or four laps. It wasn't so much the fact that he saved the primes for the end of the race, as much as the way he grinned when he saw the forlorn look on the racer's faces when they heard the bell. It does make it easier to pick at the end of the race if everybody is strewn around the course. Steve eventually drifted away from road promotion.

When these two stopped putting on races we still had Jack Pritchard. And promote he did, single handedly filling the gap left by the others who's promoting efforts had ceased. He worked an amazing number of hours to put on an amazing number of races. With a little help he was putting on a spring and a fall Thursday night series. During the summer of '97 his help drifted away and he was left to do it himself. He put on the spring and fall series and at the end of the season announced that he too was through. One person can only do so much for so long before enthusiasm wanes and the excitement and novelty wear thin.

During this period of intense racing Austin racers did well when pitted against others in the state. We would go out of town and find that the plethora of local races had a beneficial effect on our results. One year at the Zilker Park Criterium, which was put on by George Kissinger, I was talking after the race with a rider from Dallas who was lamenting his lack of fitness and saying how he hadn't raced in weeks. I laughed as I told him that this had been my fifth race that week and it hadn't seemed all that fast. Now Dallas has races all summer long and they seem to do well when they race around the state. It is not a coincidence that Violet Crown was beat out for club of the year by a Dallas club.

So here we are at the beginning of another season of racing. Who will promote our local races now that all the old promoters have gone out to pasture? We did see a glimmer of hope when Jeff Austin from the Texas Premiere Masters Team organized the fall Thursday night series at the end of last summer. It was good to see a racer who is relatively new to the area and a team that is only in it's second year take the reigns to ensure weeknight racing. But what of weekend racing? What about our own club? Who will take the baton and run with it? Will it be you?

This is the reason for this issue of the Violet Crown News. The promotion theme is a way to disburse the information available on promoting. Someone needs to step forward and put on races. You don't have to do it alone and they don't need to be big races. Little one day weekend races are a good way to start. Or maybe a Thursday night series because right now no one seems interested and it looks as if we won't be racing locally this season. You don't have to do it alone. Talk to your friends and you will find out that they want to race also and together you can divide the tasks and make it easier on everyone.