How to create 'a team'

OK...so after yesterdays ride I was thinking....'I volunteer for an ecology center and you know....I think it would be kinda cool if they had a cycling team...."

so does anyone know how you go about starting a team and getting jerseys ordered etc? Are there liabilities that the center would need to know about? I saw another jersey at the ride, which was another local nature center...and it made me start thinking....how the heck do you start/approach someone about this stuff?


think. think. think.

Do you want to start a race team or a club type team?

There are liability issues involved in leading rides, promoting races, etc. so beware of those. If you are doing a race team, you can use US Cycling or NORBA insurance, but you have to be officially members of either USA Cycling or NORBA and then you need to sign up for their insurance, etc.

As far as getting sponsors, that can be the easy or hard part. Usually, a sponsor will donate a certain amount of money to put their name on a jersey. Remember jerseys and kits are rather expensive, most companies that make them have minimums, so you have to order a certain amount, to get prices. If you don't they are really expensive.

Anyway, there are a lot of things involved in starting a team and I can't list them all here, but be careful with liability issues, you don't want to put yourself personally or your home or assets at risk.

If you just want jerseys there are many sites that do custom design work.
http://www.google.com/search?q=custo...ient=firefox-a

For creating a racing team, my team did the following:

First you need to create a proposal. This will be used to mail to or drop off to potential businesses and companies you would like to have as sponsors. In it are things like:

-brief description of bicycle racing,
-things your team can do for this sponsor by wearing their logo,
-advertizing advantages for the sponsor,
-objectives for the team,
-sponsorship opportunities (i.e. title sponsor, co-title sponsor, presenting sponsor, equipment sponsor),
-last year's placings,
-your upcoming race schedule,
-team's budget,
-team roster

Hope this can help get started :) Good luck...