December 2011 Technical Director Update

Happy December, everyone! I hope you are enjoying the winter and looking forward to the holidays. It has been a very busy year and a very exciting one. I have lots of good news for you in this edition, and we will talk about licensing and stuff for 2012 since we began selling 2012 licenses yesterday.

Officials Clothing Program

The sale item for November will be the wind shirt shown here:

These will be offered at the monthly discount rate of 15% by using the code DEC11OFFICIAL. Please visit our clothing store at www.usacyclingapparel.net to place an order.

ACA returns to USA Cycling as BRAC

This is just the greatest news in about 14 years. The division that has existed in Colorado for so long is finally over and the ACA has rejoined USA Cycling as the local association, now referred to as BRAC, as it had been prior to the separation. We at USA Cycling wish to welcome all of the riders and officials and thank everyone who worked so hard to make this happen. For those of us who lived through some of the dark times in the late 90's, it is great to see this reunification.

Skiing anyone?

I always seem to write these during snow storms, and we are having another one today. It is time to start thinking about the unofficial officials ski trip for this year. In the past, I have always gotten the word out too late to get the giant turnout I was hoping for, but many of you take advantage of Colorado's natural resources this time of year. If you are interested in spending a weekend skiing with other officials, let me know. I have started an email distribution list so we can make some plans. If you responded last month, no need to respond again. I already have you on the list. I have no date in mind yet and would try to find one that works for the most people. This will be the fourth year for the ski adventure. We usually end up going to Breckenridge as it has the easiest access from the Denver airport, and happens to be the favorite place of the Officials Ski Weekend Event Director :). And as always, you can be guaranteed to kick my butt going down anything steeper than a bunny slope.

2012 Rule Book

The 2012 rule book is almost done. I hope to turn it over to the communications department by the end of tomorrow for posting online, and send it to the printer. As always, I urge you to renew your license early rather than late, as it is much more efficient to send rule books out in batches rather than one-offs as licenses dribble in all year.

Volunteer Waivers

Just a reminder for you Chief Referees - the race packets that go out to all Race Directors have volunteer waivers in them. These are not optional. Everyone who works as a marshal, at registration, or wherever at a bike race, needs to sign one. While nobody likes extra paperwork, it is really in the best interest of the race director, as the insurance is covering the event in case of acciedent. Unfortunately marshals sometimes get injured. In fact, we have one active case based on a marshal being struck by a rider at an event. Had the marshal signed a waiver as he should have, th is one would be done by now. Instead, it will probably end up in court.

Online Waivers

Some of the best news ever! USA Cycling is now able to use purely online waivers for adult members who sign up for races using our registration system. This will save countless hours of standing in registration lines filling out waivers for many members. And for you guys, if you correctly sign the electronic waiver when you renew online, your license will not be pended for a hard copy waiver anymore, and I will not have to individaully un-pend 1800 licenses during the year. Hallelujah!!!!

Online Post Events

We are currently working on making the reporting process easier for the Chief Referees. Right now there are two major documents, as you CR’s know, the CR report and the post-event report. Much of the information is the same, so we are actively working to eliminate these forms and replace with a single form that will work better for the race directors, staff, and officials. We are also working to make the entire thing online. I wish I could guarantee you this will happen quickly, but nobody knows for sure.

Motoref MVR process

The motoref renewal process has not changed any. Anyone with a motoref C,B, or A certification will need to complete the MVR process before their license will be active. This WILL generate a pend in the system, and only I can unpend it, after I hear from NCSI that you have a green light. Attached to this email is the instruction sheet for how to access the NCSI system for the 2012 motoref program.

One thing – please, please, please make sure you have renewed your license online prior to NCSI finishing their report. When I get a report from NCSI, I go to your account to remove the pend. If you have not yet renewed, there is no pend to remove. At that point, there is nothing I can do with the green light NCSI just gave you and, unfortunately, I don’t really have the time to check every day to see if green lighted officials have finally attempted to renew. Your license will definitely be active and in your hands much faster if you renew the license and then do the NCSI. Thanks.

Officials Assignments

We are just beginning the process of the national-level officials’ assignments, and there are many changes this year. In the first round of assignments, the National Technical Commission (NTC) will assign all of the positions for the UCI races and most of the positions for the National Championships. For the NRC races, the NTC will assign the Chief Referee and Chief Judge, and then the Regional Technical Commissions (RTC) will assign other positions, followed by the local associations filling out the crews. We hope the whole thing is completed in time for the assigned officials to get their letters by January 1. This will be a more complicated process, but hopefully a better one, at least once we get any bugs worked out of the system.

By the beginning of 2012 we will have published a new Policy IV that describes, in often painstaking detail, how many officials should be assigned for different types of races, who makes those assignments, and what rank the officials should be.

This policy will also describe some of the philosophy of how officials should be assigned. These include the following concepts:

• Significant variation from the assignment table will need to be approved by the next higher authority. For example, if the table says that a given race type should have 5 officials, and the RTC wants to assign 12, then that decision will need to be looked at by the NTC prior to establishing the crew. There may be very good reasons for the difference (or perhaps not). The goal here is to make sure the correct number of officials of the correct rank are assigned to provide the level of expertise needed to properly run the race. Another goal is to protect the race director from being gouged by too big a crew when it is unnecessary. The policy will give substance for complaints either way. If a race director is trying to run a five day stage race for multiple categories with two officials, the table will provide ammo to the LA officials assignor for why more are being assigned. It will give the race director ammo when they want to complain about 12 officials for a cyclo-cross event with a grand total of 96 participants.

• For races where the local association (LA) is assigning the crew, officials should be assigned from within the LA. Thus, we would not expect to see officials flying from the east coast to work a level C event on the west coast. Any variation from that would need to be looked at by the RTC to make sure a variance is appropriate. Again, there may be good reasons for doing so. However, historically the reason has just as often been based on a buddy buddy system where the body making the assignment really just wants to get a group of friends together and somehow convinces the race director this is a good idea. As we work to stimulate the officials program and provide opportunities for experience and advancement, these inappropriate officials’ assignments will be looked at with greater scrutiny.

• Almost any race type has the potential to have extra officials assigned as apprentices. These officials will incur no cost to the race organization, but they might receive some form of compensation from the LA, the RTC, or even the NTC in the form of reimbursement as part of the mentoring program. Beginning in 2012, new officials will be expected to work as apprentices at three events prior to being put on the official crew. However, the three mentored experiences do count for their B upgrade if they accomplish various tasks on the B modules.

That is about it for this one. Have a great holiday season, and I hope a lot of you will go skiing with us.

Shawn Farrell
Technical Director
sfarrell@usacycling.org