We Did It
It was a great day! Sun was shining, racers were racing, and fans were snacking. We even got two of our own Geese / BCC on the podium!
We had a ton of help from friends and family to make this happen, and I’m super thankful for all those that volunteered, as well as all that came out to race. Thank you for making a successful race day!
The Attendance
At the end of Part 1 I predicted my next post would be about panic over prereg numbers. It wasn’t, because I didn’t have time to write about it, but I assure you the panic happened. At two weeks out there were 29 registrations, including my own entry and two for the kid’s race. And in this count, one person in an additional field counts as two registrations, so really maybe 20 people. At that time reg had been open for six weeks 
.
Thankfully, the pre-reg really ramped up in the final days, and on the day of, we got another ~20 that registered on site. The final tally was 88 unique racers (probably ~110 registrations, if you count like BikeReg).
The Dollars
So, how much does it cost to host a bike race? That answer will vary wildly, even for local racing, based on the venue and rules/regulations/permits the municipality requires, but I’m going to bare all for what this one cost, because I believe sharing some of the struggles and needs the racing community has right now can help improve.
| Thing | Cost |
|---|---|
| City Permits | $212 |
| USAC paid staff | $291 |
| USAC permit | $95 |
| USAC insurance | $557 |
| Other paid staff/services | $1240 |
| MCF fee |
|
| Barricades | $375 |
| Porta Potties | $488 |
| Lunch for volunteers | $244 |
| Prizes | $240 |
| Snacks for all | $305 |
| Total | $4048 |
Our registration fees stepped up in price as we went. If you were in early on BikeReg, registration cost just $20 for junior fields and $30 for adults. Then it stepped up $10 after a few weeks, and day of cost was $40 and $50 for junior fields and open fields, respectively. As you can see in the earlier registration graph, nearly no one took me up on the early registration discount, so almost all were in the $40-50 range. In the end, the reg fees we brought in were a few hundred dollars short short of breaking even, but MCF offered some money to cover snacks and waived the per-racer fee (thank you MCF 
), and with that, it all worked out to about exactly net $0.
What’s Next
If you’re hanging around the Minnesota road racing scene at all, you’ve probably heard of some of the struggles. And if you haven’t heard, you probably didn’t need to be told anyway. The state of road racing in Minnesota could be better. For example, besides the state championships, Ken Woods has been the only other weekend race in Minnesota for years (until this summer 
), and it’s kinda 50/50 on whether a promoter will end up in a charitable position when it’s all over and spend hundreds (thousands?) of their own to host a race.
To keep this race scene happy and healthy, we really need more people coming to races. Talk to your friends with bikes and see if they’d like to race. Should we have more clinics? Regular groups rides as that racing “gateway drug”? Cheaper reg? (Note we tried giving away a few free women’s reg, it didn’t really work out.) How do we do this and what do we really need to strengthen the sport? I’m not sure, but it’s a regular topic of conversation and we’re remaining optimistic and trying things.
Anyway we got a lot of summer racing ahead of us yet, I’ll see you out there!
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