Starting a Womens' Cycling Team (cycling & Tri.)

[VeloVT]

Unfortunately I don't have any advice, but I applaud you for starting a team. I wish someone would do that in my area -- I don't have the experience/knowledge to do it myself (fairly new to cycling, never raced and am registered for my first sprint tri at the end of April), but I'd sure join up if someone with more experience decided to start a team.

Good luck!!!

[Eden]

I only know a little bit... If you want to have an officially recognized club you need to register it with USA cycling. (www.usacycling.org may be able to give you some more information, but it may not be easy to tease out of all of the stuff on the site...) some good info on this page.. http://www.usacycling.org/news/user/story.php?id=91

Doing this has some benefits and responsibilities. If you register your club you can race in team kit with sponsors (otherwise you can only have plain kit or just your team name and would still be considered an unattached rider), but as far as I know your club also has to put on one event per year to retain its club status - small clubs can co-sponsor events - or at least I've seen it done around here. Around here we also have professional race organizers that do a lot of the work - the team then supplies its name and lots of volunteers to work the race.

[smilingcat]

I think a good way to start is to create a cycling club and advertise/put up posters/by word of mouth at a LBS: "women's cycling club looking for new members..."

A lot of cycling clubs are organized as social club, fitness related club, touring club, MTN biking club, or have a common goal as its stated purpose.

Once you have a club started, you could probably get a deal going with the LBS for discounts... Lot of clubs have some association going with LBS. All the clubs I used to be associated in the past had a "sponsorship of sort" with LBS. We got discounts, occasional freebie help etc.

RACING BUT NOT DEADLY SERIOUS (what??):
public races are races where you don't need a USCF card. you just walk up and sign up for the race. They post times, place finishes and other stats. For this you just show up and "race". No special thing required. And many of these are held in conjunction with serious race events.

Such as:
here in So. California, season opener starts with Redland Classic with stage races for the pro teams (Colavita, T-Mobil...) Along with the pro stage race, USCF races are held and also for the public race.

Sea Otter Classic is another big one in Monterrey. They too have the pros, the USCF and the public race.

IF YOU ARE SERIOUS ABOUT RACING:
Once you establish a cycling club, some of you might want to get a license from USCF and start racing.... (at some events, you can get a day of the event USCF license just for that day) From there, I'm not sure of the procedure in getting the club registered as a racing team.

To seriously race, the organizers will require you to have USCF card. Check with USCF in how to go about this.

And as always my information can be out of date or slightly wrong so take it with a grain of salt.

comments form current USCF sanctioned riders??

Organized club rides are fun.

Shawn

[Eden]

I don't know about the east coast, but around here we have few races that don't require a USCF (now USA cycling) license - a few TT's and a Tuesday night circuit race series are about what you can find, but beginners can almost always purchase a one day license at the race for $5, so it is not entirely necessary to be a member to race. It is definitely not mandatory to be on a team to race, but it is mandatory to have your team registered in order to race as a sponsored racer in any of the USA Cycling races. For a newbie that doesn't know any better and shows up in a pro replica shirt - no one is going to kick them out of the race, but we did have a club up here told they would be banned from racing if they didn't register - they had an official kit and sponsors.

A thought! - to make it easier to start up is there a men's or co-ed club that might be interested in having a women's division? My team started out as co-ed, but when the women started to outnumber the men it was decided to split off into two separate clubs.