Mike Murray
The first thing that you need to recognize is that most riders in Oregon
were OBRA members even when the races were organized through USCF. Another
point is that there is reciprocity in membership between the FIAC
organization which currently are OBRA, ABR, ACA and NCNCA. This means that
a membership in one of those organizations allows you to compete in the
other organization's races without purchasing another membership.
There are a couple of questions raised by your note:
- Is USAC making the sport of bicycle racing better? From my point of view
as a racer for nearly 30 years, event organizer and velodrome manager for 15
years or so was that they were really only taking money from me, returning
little and for the most part getting in the way of my efforts to improve
bike racing locally. Your opinion may vary.
- Is it reasonable that USAC take money from local racing in exchange for
few services and then use that money to support elite level cycling services
such as Olympic training camps? Personally I think that the money to
support elite level services should come from the money that USAC receives
from sponsors and the USOC. I think that the majority of money that they
raise locally should be returned in services to local programs. This way
the local programs can improve and grow the sport.
If USAC were to recognize points obtained in OBRA races for upgrading then
they would make it more likely rather than less likely that an OBRA rider
would attend a USAC event. At this point if you are considering going to a
USCF event both the need to purchase another membership and the inability to
ride in an appropriate category are both disincentives to attending the USAC
event.
Obviously the ideal situation would be if there were only one bike racing
organization and that the costs for membership were as low as possible and
the benefits were as high as possible. The alternative organizations began
to offer races when cost of USAC participation began to exceed the value of
the services provided. In the past USAC offered more services for less
money. At this point they offer little more than liability insurance.
Since it only takes about 1000 rider/days per year to make it more cost
effective to insure your event outside of USAC there are starting to be
several other organizations in addition to some individual race organizers
that are offering races independently from USAC.
Although many people have cast the OBRA/USAC schism as a political item it
is really an economic issue. For the races that I organized this year
avoiding USCF sanctioning saved over $3000. This is money that I can use
towards putting on a better event. If USAC is interested in getting back
this business they need to begin to offer some services that justify these
costs.
Mike Murray
-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Hammer [mailto:spine-@yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2000 5:36 PM
To: mmur-@teleport.com; ob-@topica.com
Subject: RE: FW: [OBRA Chat] RE NORBA
so you are saying that i should spend $20 for obra
membership and $20 for ABR and another 30 or more for
USCF. That is getting a little out of hand. oh, and
on top of that in ohio we have a man doing his own
series where one has to join that membership. i am a
member in 4 racing organizations. i have spent a good
70 dollars on membership. USAC has made a wise
business choice. if they recognize points from obra
and the 80% (guessing) of riders that just race in
oregon don't have a membership in USAC. where do they
get there funds to hold olympic training camps...send
out news letters... better the sport of cycling.
again i stress this is friendly conversation. i
have promoted several races myself... helped organize
abr, NCCA committees... just to give myself some
credit of my ideas
obra is amazing. going to the crawfish race... i
was dumbfounded by the signs, fencing, communication
etc. my races have been done with carboard signs and
markers. that was excepted as very well done. that
was caused by lack of direct contact from USCF or USCA
with the event. they made sure an offical was there
and i did all that was to be done.
"again...well done to obra!"
paul hammer
--- Mike Murray <mmur-@teleport.com> wrote:
Paul Hammer wrote:
"i strongly oppose of different organizations like
OBRA and ABR because of
the simple fact that if JR's and Senior men want to
advance at a national
level they must have points from USCF or NORBA.
They can't go to USCF and
say that they have so many points in ORBA and be
upgraded."
This is not an unsolvable problem and the solution
is in USAC's (USCF and
NORBA) hands. All they have to do is recognize
other organization's races
for upgrading purposes. It would be to their
advantage to do that since it
would serve the dual purpose of allowing them to
identify talented riders
and also to encourage participation in USAC events.
So far they have chosen
not to do this, to my mind a bad business maneuver.
I think that they only
real reason that they don't recognize the
alternative organization's
upgrades is because this allows them to cling to the
idea that they have a
monopoly on the market of providing bike races.
They are wrong.
Currently all of the alternative organization
recognize upgrades regardless
of the sanctioning organization, i.e. you CAN go to
OBRA or ABR with points
from USCF races and get upgraded. It just doesn't
work in reverse.
I have had several conversations with the USAC staff
on this subject. They
claim that their board members have prohibited them
from adopting a policy
of cooperating with the alternative organizations in
upgrading riders. As
the alternative organizations become more successful
USAC will need to
recognize the reality of the situation and change
this policy. In order to
facilitate this I would suggest that people contact
the USAC staff and board
members and let their opinions be known. To this
point USAC has elected to
ignore the membership's opinion on this and on many
other subjects.
However, if USAC is to continue to operate they will
need to change in this
regard.
Mike Murray
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