Up in the Air

I’m writing this at 31,000 feet, somewhere between Colorado Springs and Chicago, en route to D.C. with a couple of hours to kill and a couple more hours to lose, and wishing I was on the bike.  The USAC Local Associations Conference went well, and somewhere in my overstuffed gate-checked carry-on is a long list of things to think about, investigate, and hopefully get done.  For the first time in a couple of years, there was almost no discussion of chip-timing systems.  The sessions were more focused on the business of improving the racing environment, attracting more riders, and especially streamlining the interactions with USA Cycling.  They are trying hard to go electronic, and at the core of that push are their online registration system and their results and rankings program. 

For 2012, there will be some new incentives for promoters, and possibly also the local associations, to use the registration system.  Although it’s already the least expensive option, albeit only slightly, they plan to give rebates amounting to 80 cents per registration next year.  They’re also developing a registration and results tool that race organizers will be able to use for their events  - probably something along the lines of the one that Sportsbase Online had.  Those of us who have been using BikeReg for years are just a little hesitant to turn our backs on the system that’s been working so well for us, but the cost difference, especially for larger events, will be hard to ignore.  They have already deployed iPhone and Android apps that allow riders to show race officials their current license status (and also notified the officials that they have to accept it).  Down the line, perhaps not all that far in fact, may be the ability to register for an event through the USAC registration system and then on race day just whip out your smartphone at the registration desk.  The thing that has really made that all feasible is a new system they are about to implement that will allow them to accept digital signatures from USAC members who register online (only through the USAC system, of course).  It’s interesting. 

Online post-event reporting and payment systems that were supposed to be deployed earlier this year are still likely to need a few more months of development, but they’re also on the way.  In the Results and Rankings world, we may soon be able to use a rider’s ranking to do things like seed time trials or do call-ups for criteriums.  They’re already planning on using it to do call-ups for cyclocross nationals.  If you look at an event that is using the USAC system for online registration, you will see each riders predicted placing based on data in the results and rankings database.  Apparently it was pretty accurate at masters nationals this year.  So anyway, I’m still popping Sudafed and will be off the bike until Thursday at the earliest when I return to New Orleans. Right now I’m on the way to the NCURA annual conference and kind of looking forward to getting some more information on STAR Metrics and the Data Act, and hoping that if and when the universities have to start providing even more reporting data we might somehow be able to do so in a way that would allow us to actually make some productive use of it, which I’m pretty sure the government won’t.

Back at home, I was sorry to have to miss today’s NOBC coffee shop ride, but I may have to break out the old not-really-a Cyclocross bike for the upcoming race in Baton Rouge.  No doubt I will be woefully out of shape for it, and entirely devoid of most necessary skills, but the beauty of cyclocross is that nobody will really care, including me.  In the meantime I need to send out an email about the planned LAMBRA annual meeting, which will be Dec. 3 in Jackson MS, along with a request for proposed 2012 event dates.  I also need to get jersey sizes for all of our LCCS and track championship winners, pick up and ship out both the extremely late 2010 awards and surprisingly early 2011 LCCS awards.

I won’t be arriving at my little D.C. hotel until around 10 pm tonight, I think.  Perhaps I’ll get this all uploaded to Blogger before tomorrow.  Then it will be two and a half rather full days of sessions and related “networking opportunities” before a late night arrival back in NOLA on Wednesday.