What does it take to send a team to Philly?
-by Laura Weislo
For all the aspiring team directors out there, I thought I would write
a little primer on how to get your team into the biggest race of the
year, and what goes on once you get there. I'm sure some teams
can get by on a lot less, and some teams have a LOT more people doing a
lot more stuff, but this is what a small team from North Carolina did in
preparation for the biggest race of the year.
January: Once you have a team and a roster for the race year, you should contact Robin Morton at Threshold Sports
to get on the list to be invited to the PCT events. This is
critical, because without an invite, you cannot get your team into the
race.
March: Threshold sends out emails asking if your team intends to
race the Liberty Classic. If you don't respond, you won't get the
invite.
April: Threshold sends out the paperwork to enter your
team. This includes a roster. Everyone you put on the
roster needs to be a category 1 or 2 (USAC category) and hold a UCI
international license. If you do not have a full roster (8
riders) you can ask people from other teams that meet this criteria to
race with you as "guests". Be sure and get a signed letter from
the guest rider's own team that says they are permitting this rider to
guest for your team. You need to bring this letter to the race.
May: Final rosters are sent to Threshold along with a US Tax
form. This form is where Threshold tells the government that they
gave the person with this Tax ID a bunch of money for winning (or
placing) in Philly. Ask your tax attorney about the best way to
handle the disbursements from winnings.
Make sure you have the following things before the end of May:
-Enough matching jerseys for all your riders
-8 riders (or less)
-Someone to act as Team Manager - only this person can go to registration and the manager's meeting.
(BRING TO REGISTRATION)
-Letters of permission for each guest rider from their team.
-8 Threshold release forms. One signed by each rider. The
form comes in the packet, and you have to photocopy it so each rider
can sign their own. Yeah, it sounds stupid to have to say this,
but I can think of one team that showed up at registration without
releases for each rider!
-8 UCI licenses with a PHOTO attached on the back and laminated - one
for each rider. Yes, you need to have the photo on there.
Really.
It sure would be nice if all the riders that had UCI licenses were
actually category 1 or 2. I didn't see any evidence of them
actually checking this at registration, and I saw quite a few women out
there who I couldn't believe had actually raced enough to attain that
status. Please be kind and only send upper category riders so
half the field doesn't crash on the first lap.
The fluff:
You need at least four support people to really take care of your
team. It's nice to have a mechanic, a driver for the caravan, you
must have a Team Manager in the caravan as well, and someone in the
feedzone.
I like to have some extra fun things to make the women feel like pros -
matching bottles for everyone that are filled up and iced down and
ready to go at race time. This year we had socks made just in
time for this race.
(Not fluff!) The mechanic was ready to wash down and fix
anything on the bikes the night before the race. He adjusted
shifting, fixed one very poorly installed cassette that would have
fallen off mid-race, changed a tire, straightened a stem and pumped all
the tires up to the proper pressure He also re-wrapped the bars
with new bar tape because half the team had crashed the weekend
before. And, most importantly, he took care of installing the
frame numbers. Why is this important? Because most of us
aren't clever enough to figure out how to install the numbers on our
bikes. It's a true art!
NEXT: The logistics of the race weekend!