Message #606

[Metro Commuter]

to continue - anyone else hate the way longer posts disappear and you can not see what you type...

Grading. With one club you should have a single grading system.  This is not a dig at Brett/Masso or Paul/Lee - all do a fine job.  But it irks me that at present a person has to earn their way up in each club (and part of that is rooted in a notion by some at HDCC that a B grader at KOCC is not equal to a B grader at HDCC, which while I think might be true in a few isolated examples is not true as a general proposition), and that of itself influences where a person races. I doubt few riders who have raced hard to earn a grade promotion welcome having to race back a grade and earn their way up again, especially when it takes at best 3 weeks to do so, and so most will tend to race where they are in the higher grade, all other factors being equal.

Anything else?  With one club, with combined resources, I could see how the purchase of electronic timing bands could be done.  Now that is important for three reasons.  Firstly it lets those TT fiends to get their uber expensive rigs out more often.  Secondly, it might encourage those women and kids fearful of bunch racing to have a go at a form of racing.  Thirdly, it would allow the club to run time trial events that triatheletes could participate in.  The second and third reasons have the potential to dramatically increase the number of people who race.