Promoting - Hours, or What It Takes

I recently answered a question about promoting, and one of the follow up questions was about the kind of hours I claimed to have put into putting on the Bethel Spring Series. I made a step-by-step list of hours, starting with the "before there's officially a race" to "now we have permission" to "just before the race" to "okay it's race time!"

I expanded on some of the thoughts and also included some pictures.

Keep in mind that other than some help setting up and breaking down, marshals, and officials, I did virtually everything myself. Not really ideal but this way I could only blame myself.

Carpe Diem Racing.

That's the name of the promoting company.

It started out as the club/team name back in 1990, with the name decided at my house between four proposed names in 1989. I suggested CDR, taking inspiration for the name from a trinket catalog which had a sweatshirt with the saying on it. It became a bit more well known when an Olympic team member was interviewed wearing a similar/same sweatshirt.

October:
10-20 hours: My time would start in October when I started to piece together changes/improvements for the races the following year. Permission from the town (possibly attend meetings, talk on phone, etc). Lining up officials (my favorite officials lived close by, they were reliable, consistent, and helped create a good race environment so I'd book their time as early as possible). I'd rough out any registration spreadsheet changes, something that's evolved over about 10-12 years. It saves a ton of time/energy on race day but I keep breaking it when I try and improve it.
Running total: 10-20 hours

December:
10-20 hours: December I was getting into the groove. Renew various legal entities (LLC, liability, workman's comp, debate doing it another year, etc). Start ordering stuff like numbers, set up infrastructure, etc.
Running total: 20-40 hours

January:
20 hours: January would be mostly virtual work. BikeReg. Permits. Lining up volunteers, employees. For legal reasons I had to have employees because I was paying them and I was telling them what to do. With an accountant wife I had to play 100% by the rules, it's like a pro cyclist being married to a WADA person, no hint of anything possible. One year I had 9 or 10 employees, toward the end more like 6. I would spend time fixing stuff I broke on the spreadsheet. I have to finalize any changes with categories/classes, etc. There was always very vocal feedback on that stuff and I tried to accommodate the racing community (because I'm one of them).
Running total: 40-60 hours

The van was parked here over the winter of 2011-2012.

February:
50? hours: February I was in full race promotion swing. I almost never trained much in February, there were some years where I'd ride 2-3 times during the whole month. I'd go to the venue at least once or twice to check on things. Sometimes I'd sweep or break up ice or what not. For a number of years I'd clear snow off areas for start/finish and portapotties; one year I dragged my quite-ill mom along so she could get out of the house. I think she sat in the car (running, with the heat on) for about 3 hours while I cleared what I could.

A February trip to get rid of snow on the inside/sprint line.

I seeded the snow/ice with lots of salt, in preparation for clearing it another day.

For Bethel, for many years, it was a 3.5-4 hour round trip just to get to the course. With the trailer it was more like 4.5-5 hours round trip. I'd go pick up trophies at some point (35-45 minutes from Bethel). Every now and then I'd train new staff, where I'd drive to their house, set up the camera and laptop, train them in the basics, go over stuff, break down, and return home. I'd check/test the equipment. Organize bib numbers. Order stuff I forgot to order or that got used up or that disappeared. Make lots of lists.

Pretty much every employer has allowed me to work on the race during the day. Even in a retail store I was probably working as much as 4-6 hours a day checking/answering emails. When I did IT I just dedicated one screen to race stuff, leaving two other screens for work. I'd crank through the race stuff, alt-tabbing between work and race as work allowed. For my running time I'm not counting that. I spent all my free time after work doing race stuff. I'd ride when I could because I had to, for my mental health.
Running total: 90-110 hours

March-April
March/April are race weeks. Killer. Thing though was that it was less trying to figure out how to do things at a theoretical level and much more "do this now". For example in January I'd be honing registration processes, trying to think through how things would work. At the first race the registration line was real and whatever I had to do I had to do. Things become very clear when it's "right now!"

My one escape was that I usually raced one race. Earlier in the life of the Series I'd do two races, because I didn't have to do results and such. Back then the officials handled all of that, and we didn't have to upload results because no one expected results to be online for a week or, before the internet wasn't just AOL, ever.

My bike at a 2014 Bethel. I'd race once that day, winning the field sprint behind a break.

The bleak weather probably meant a not-so-great day in terms of dollars/numbers.

60 hours, give or take, for the first week alone. First week is the hardest. 2-4 hours after registration closes Thursday (each week) organizing the registration spreadsheet, figuring out numbers, etc. I print releases at Staples because it's cheaper by a lot. For me I use $35 of toner plus paper if I print myself, it's about $25 if I have Staples do it. Plus they use nice paper. Drawback is that the Staples thing adds 1 hour of driving time to pick up the print job. 5-8 hours on Friday getting stuff packed/etc, 18 hours Sat 6 AM final pack and head down to the course for Sweep Day, and finish up at maybe 1 AM answering emails etc. Then 5 AM - 5 PM for the race. Another 2.5 hours to get home, unpack the most valuable stuff (laptop, etc), then upload results, make registration fixes, etc. With travel before, emails continuously, fix whatever I broke on the spreadsheet, upload results to my website, to USAC, work until maybe 11 PM (if not much later), call it 18 hours.
Running total: 150-170 hours

The trailer at one of the Bethels in 2014.

30-32 hours x 5-6 weeks, i.e. each week after that. 2-4 hours after registration. 2 hours emails every day (that's a very kind number), say 10 hours a week. 2 hours to break stuff down in house and pack. Race day is always about 18 hours (5 AM - 11 PM).

Bare trailer when I picked it up.

Trailer before I finished the inside, end of 2014 Bethel Spring Series.

After finishing the inside, before the shelf/hook/etc.

Brighter, which was my goal.

Trailer during a quiet bit of registration at the club's cross race in 2015.

There are plexiglass shields for the windows for cold/wet weather, built in tables, storage stuff on walls, shelf up front, drawers, heaters, microwave, even a fridge.

Not counting any emergency sweep days although I've spent 8-16-24 hours a week clearing courses some years (3-5 hours per trip, plus drive time, multiple trips some years). Also emergency meetings with angry tenants, meeting with town, etc. Not counting any of that.

Birthing room, 2012. Round table under window has registration laptop for Bethel stuff.

Yes I worked on registration on and off during the whole process.

When my son was born it was the 2nd week of Bethel in 2012. Went to the hospital Thursday evening. Was answering questions about registration and Cat 5 stuff on the way to the hospital. Set up laptop, wireless modem, and cranked through emails and calls while wife was induced. Nothing happened (we went through this the prior week as well, before the first week of racing). Went home Friday evening. Fri night her water broke. Went to hospital. I tried to answer some emails/questions but I was exhausted because we were up from 11 PM until my son was born at 9:33 AM. Wonder and joy and all that. Then back to the laptop. 3 PM wife kicked me out, told me I had to leave to get ready for the races because everyone was depending on me. I was really tired the next day.
Running total: 300 - 360 hours

Conservatively speaking I'll say that I put in 300-350 hours annually for the Bethel Spring Series.

Addendum time

The thing is that my number is pretty conservative. A busy year I'm guessing another 100 hours minimum, if I counted all the various stuff that I don't count because it doesn't happen every year, like making proposals and attending meetings to secure a venue. For example I secured 3 venues in 2015, used only two, made 3? 4? site visits, all for a venue we never used.

When I was searching for new venues, between 2014 and 2015, I probably spent 20-30 hours on that alone, during the summer. 4-5 hours at a time, couple times a month. Some emails, calls, stuff like that, tracking down legal land owners, then asking about holding events there.

I do payroll in there somewhere. Well technically the Missus does that, but I write the checks and pay the people that work for the race. I have to buy misc stuff, heaters for example, or get propane tanks filled for said heaters. Then replacements for heaters that broke or don't work. Adapters to use big propane tanks on little heaters. Fans. Fabricate some stuff like lap card stuff or tables or platforms. I've bought two wheeled leaf blowers. 5 or 6 generators. I've had to go get extension cords, cones of various sizes, bins, binder clips, pends, drawers, chairs, tables, tents (and fix tents), etc etc. I'm not counting the time to buy any of that stuff.

Website stuff is nutty. I did it all by hand early on, before stuff like Wordpress existed. Now I use Wordpress with the help of one of the guys that does the races. I can get lost for 4-5 hours when I start doing site stuff. Getting the sites up and running took a bit of time and effort. Not counting any of that.

The last week of the Series there are more things for me to do but generally within the same time frame. In other words I do more stuff, like doing podium pictures, but since those are between races it's just part of the day. I usually put off unpacking stuff for a month or three, usually until I have to clear out the trailer (or the van before that). Unpacking is usually quick, just a few hours once I drive everything home. I once left my van at the venue for 3 months, returning in late July to drive it home. Admittedly I made a day of it, rode 5 hours there, did the Wed night crit, then drove the van away.

Unpacking the van in September (Labor Day) one year.

I was totally burnt out on race promotion stuff by the time mid-April showed up.

Each year it seems like I spend 3-5 full days working on stuff for the trailer. I'd disappear for an entire Saturday and/or Sunday, 8-10 hours each day, to fix things up.

I also spent considerable time figuring out camera stuff. I'm on our 5th or 6th camera, each one requiring some learning, set up, testing, etc.

Still from a 1080p@30fps camera test. Car was going 35 mph.

I spend time organizing stuff in our storage bay (we rent it to store stuff for the races) or my basement (we have to keep release forms for 10 years now, plus I have all sorts of delicate/weather sensitive promoting stuff down there) or the garage (most of the gas powered stuff like leaf blowers, generators, etc). Nowadays I have to keep track of the trailer which is not parked at home and the tow vehicle which is parked in the storage bay. I pull out the tow vehicle every now because the year I didn't drive it from April until sometime deep in the winter the battery was dead and it just wasn't happy. At first we put just 1000 miles annually on the tow vehicle. The van also - one year I think I put about 450 miles on it. For the entire year! I got rid of it because it started having random problems, probably due the fact that I almost never drove it and it was never indoors (doesn't fit in a garage).

So that's it.

I tell racers to go thank the promoters whenever they race. Thank the marshals, registration people, everyone involved. I don't think I'm unique in the kind of effort I put into a race. Every promoter ends up living the race for a while, way beyond anything they expected when they first got into it. I was lucky in that I could ease my way into it. In the "old days" promoting was a bit less formal, a bit less structured. Now it's pretty tough to start up a race, and for someone actually closing blocks of roads in a city or doing a rolling closure for a road race... yeah, I can't imagine doing that.

Equipment - Dream World (Custom Frames)

For the longest time I've wanted a custom frame. At first it was because I wanted to get a frame that was especially designed for me, for my needs. I had no idea what that meant, but I wanted a frame that was, well, unique.

As I learned more and more about bikes, I started dreaming of some of the extreme bikes I saw in bike magazines. The one that really caught my eye was a specialty crit bike. This thing was insane, with super steep angles, high bottom bracket, and, get this, such a short chainstay that the tire wouldn't clear a normal seat tube.

In fact, it wouldn't even clear a grooved or indented seat tube.

Therefore, in order to make the thing work, the builder put two chainstays in place of the seat tube and stuck the rear wheel through the opening between them.

(To my ultimate badness, I cannot remember the name of the framebuilder of this dream bike. He was featured in Bicycling and one or two other magazines in the early 80s... Anyone?)

Back then that was the absolute schnizzle, the top of the heap when it came to US style bikes. No laid back positions here, no mid-foot cleats (or so they appeared), no traditional lower saddle heights. This was an era of change, inspired by wind tunnels and such.

At that time Lemond rode on his tippy-toes on his bike (and won the '83 Worlds like that), his teammate Marc Madiot rode 180s to a stage win (and he rode a 55 cm frame), and "aero" became the new catch-phrase.

So in this age of change, of innovation, and in my time of "exploration", I dreamed about land speed records and crit bikes in alternate fashion.

Of course, like slot cars and Lamborghini Countachs, things which I dreamed about literally for decades, the dreams remained dreams.

Then some surprising things happened. Over the course of 15 years, two friends invited me to sit in Countachs in their possession. I even got a ride in one. I have to tell you that no one could wipe the grin off my face after those magical moments. The drive, holy smokes, that was crazy insane.

Then reality sunk in.

Although it's all exotic and all that, I've realized that the Countach has the aerodynamics of a brick and a cobbled together engine. Seriously. They used layered cylinder head gaskets to increase displacement, and they regularly provided significantly up-powered cars to journalists so the cars would be fast "in print".

As it is, my blue car is faster than a Countach. Less powerful, yes, but faster. And it has almost-as-wide tires (the Countach had the widest production tires for a long time). But, still, as dreams go, if you offered me a chance to drive a Countach... Look, just count me in, okay? I'll work out my schedule and fit in a Countach drive.

Then, a couple years ago, the missus (and her mom) got me a beautiful slot car set, with F1 cars even.

And now I'm starting to think about the possibility of seeing through that custom frame dream.

To be frank, my frame dreams have evolved over the years. At first it had to do with short wheelbases and insanely short chainstays. Later, as I realized what I'd been missing on my smaller-sized frames, I started dreaming about more normal things, like a 73 degree head tube angle.

On a short frame like mine, my shoes (and toe clips) would hit the front tire when I turned the bars. In order to avoid such contact, manufacturers would use slack angles and lots of rake. This reduced foot overlap but resulted in lazy, pain-killer haze handling. Once I realized this I wanted to experience a more responsive front end. Steeper angles and a normal rake, in other words.

Those head tube angle dreams then morphed into top tube dreams. My ape-like stance, with short legs and long torso, made it necessary to use a short seat tube, but my torso forced me to go with long stems. On the 50 cm frames I rode forever, I typically used a 14 cm stem, then a 14.5, and just before quill stems withdrew from the spotlight, I briefly contemplated using a 15 cm stem.

For me, a 51 or 52 centimeter top tube seemed short. I could sit comfortably on friends' 54-56 cm bikes, with long stems and everything, and the reach felt reasonable, even comfortable. But my feet dangling a couple inches above the pedals, I couldn't fix that part of fitting myself to their bikes.

I thought maybe a 55.5 cm top tube would be the best I could do. I bought a size M Giant TCR, with its 55.5 cm top tube. As a bonus it had a 73 degree head tube angle, or something close to it.

The bike felt great, my arms finally doing something other than dangling downwards, with a reach about 3 or 4 cm longer than before. I could steer while hammering out of the saddle, thanks to the steeper head tube angle.

But the dream rapidly crumbed. The head tube was too long, the bars too high.

I experimented with bar positioning, now emphasizing height as well as length. After some convoluted calculations, along with a bunch of Sharpie marks on my bright yellow frame, I decided I could ride a size S Giant just as well.

I moved to the size S, happy with the lower bars. They made a huge difference in my sprint, but they felt too close.

In a fit of "fulfilling a bunch of other stuff", I bought my current steed, a Cannondale SystemSix. Now, if I was someone like a Bennati, I could just get a custom version of my frame. Talk about a dream bike for me - a 52 seat tube with a 58 (!!) top tube!

But I'm a lowly Cat 3, and even with some begging and pleading, I couldn't score the most blemished, unrideable Bennati frame.

I priced out and contemplated a lugged carbon tube kit, a Dedaccai-made "kit", but the bottom bracket-seat tube angle on my long, low frame wouldn't work with their stock sizes. Fortunately, as it turned out, because the lugs in these kits failed regularly. When I heard this I went to my now-unused "carbon frames" bookmark list and found that virtually all the bikes I'd bookmarked had disappeared.

No one wanted to admit to making such a frame.

Dedaccai ended their kit production, now making only full frames, or at least front triangles.

So, for the last year or so, I meandered aimlessly in the frame geometry jungle, looking for that perfect situation, that perfect scenario.

Let's see, exactly what would it be like?

First, the frame would be made by someone I could communicate with, a racer maybe, one that does crits, track, and doesn't climb that much. But he'd climb more than I did so he could tell me, "Oh, you really don't want to do that, it would climb horribly".

Second, the frame would be unlimited as far as geometry goes. 44 cm seat tube? Fine. 58 cm top tube? Fine. I'd forgive the lack of availability of weird things, like a split seat tube that allows a 35 cm chainstay, but for all round tube design possibilities, they ought to be available.

My fantasy numbers include the following (assuming a reasonable 73 degree head tube angle):

1. 44-46 cm seat tube, as short as possible and still fit in a tall bottle on the seat tube, with room for a pump or a Down Low Glow just above it. This would let me clamp my seat post in a workstand (a normal one). It also feels better in general, the shorter seat tube.

2. A seat tube angle that allows me to move the seat-tube-slash-top-tube junction point forward by 2 cm on my 52 cm frame. This would let me center the saddle on the post, not slam it all the way into the stops.

3. A 58 cm top tube, maybe a 56 based on the fact that the top tube will be 2 cm forward based on #2 above.

4. At most a 12 cm head tube, maybe an 11 cm one.

5. BB30, so I can keep my mega-expensive SRM cranks, and so I'd have a lighter, stiffer bike.

6. 1.5" lower headset race, so I can use a Cannondale fork (I think they rock the house).

7. A non-noodle frameset.

8. Shorty chainstays so my rear tire stays planted with the long front end.

Finally, price. I can't afford a $4000 frameset, and I seriously doubt I'd ever buy one anyway. It's my "low buck, high performance" mindset, the functional way of approaching things. I appreciate handmade things, like a 1955 Aston Martin. Things of beauty, incidentally, with gorgeous aluminum bodywork.

But compared to a modern sports car? Or even a modern "sporty" car?

Fuggitaboutit.

Give me parallel A-arm front suspensions, a sophisticated multi-link rear, independent on all corners, big honkin' brakes, and a smooth, efficient engine mated with a smooth shifting transmission. My car illustrates that point, at least the blue one does. It's a low-buck way of having fun driving a car. And it doesn't have very much of that "old fashioned craftsmanship" in it, just good design and proper procedures. The body may look sleek, but it was pounded out by robots, not artisans.

Heck, my car doesn't even have a throttle cable! It's got an electronic wire attached to a computer.

Anyway, my point is that I don't need the exquisite workmanship of the frame building "masters". Give me a frame with the right geometry and durable construction and I'll be happy.

And of course all that could never, ever happen. I felt safe in my little dreamworld.

Then, to my utter dismay, RTC let it slip that there's a framebuilder that offered something like that stuff above - Tsunami Bikes, out in the west somewhere. They make aluminum frames, from $600 to $1500+.

And they do custom geometry.

Okay, I can handle $600 framesets to start. I can handle the $50 upcharge for BB30. I'm good with aluminum tubing, because as I've written before, fit > material. Look, if it was good enough for Tom Boonen, it should certainly be good enough for me.

So I'm good with the basics. What's the custom geometry upcharge? I was figuring at least $300 or so, based on conversations with frame importers and such.

So I emailed the folks, half seriously. I don't want to waste their time, and if the frame ended up at even a paltry $1000, it'd be hard to justify in a cash-strapped environment.

I got a response. Things looked good, too good even. I called the guy up. We talked on the phone.

$600 is the frameset price, built to whatever geometry agreed upon by the builder and buyer, painted some normal range of colors.

NO upcharge for custom geometry.

Since I want to keep my BB30 SRM, and I like BB30 anyway, I'd want BB30. $50 upcharge.

Now we're looking at $650.

For a full custom, BB30, custom painted frame.

Well now.

Not only that, I could take delivery just before my California training camp. Now wouldn't that be the end all? 30 or 40 hours on a brand new frame, just enough time to really get used to it.

I spoke with the missus. She gave approval.

So next I'll be visiting the local shop, one that has a fit bike thing on the floor. I'll experiment with sizing and report back to the builder.

And we'll see what happens from there.