December 4, 2008 – People have been e-mailing me. I guess they are having cross withdrawal already. They want to know the series final points etc. I know, I know… I had them done right after the Island Champs but just did not have time to get this e-mail ready to fire out. Without further ado, you can find the 2008 Cross on the Rock final series standings here.

So here it goes… the Cross on the Rock Season #3 Wrap-Up

This year there was a lot of exciting things happening with the series. More racers. More prizes. Overall as everyone has been e-mailing me about… just a cool series and cool events… that is what we are aiming for so we are happy to hear it from the racers.

House Cleaning
I got rid of a couple of items from my lost and found in the last week which was good. So I am down to only 3 items left. The 2 clothing ones will go to the Salvation Army if I can’t find a home for them. The wheel… not sure where that will end up. Here are the 3 items:

1) A rear wheel. Easton Circuit. Maxxis Razz tire… flat. 10 Speed Shimano Casette. (We picked this up at Beban Park)
2) Rain Pants. Black. Viking. XL (I think these are either from Coal or Jungle Cross)
3) Trek Shorts. Brown. XL (Again I think these are either from Coal or Jungle Cross.
PLEASE contact me if any of these items are yours.

Thanks to our Sponsors
Some of what our sponsors do (In no particular order):

– Cycles Lambert – Peter Creighton from Lambert has given us lots of support on the island since we started doing our races. This year he jumped on board with distributor Lambert. They supplied us with the majority of our category prizes for each of the event. Gore Clothing. Race Face Clothing and Parts. Lenze Pumps and Evo Pumps. Lambert is also responsible for a number of the draw prizes too! Lambert was also ready with flagging tape in case we ran out of the kona stuff. Plus they gave us a tent for our series to use.

– FSA – Max Ralph from FSA was up at our National Championships event in 2006 helping out Lyne Bessette and mentioned to Dave Nowak that if we ever needed sponsors for our series to call him up… well we did this year. FSA responded with 14 $100 Gift Certificates… which made both category and draw prize winners of them VERY Happy!

– Converse – Not a traditional sponsor of bike races but the BC rep. for the company, Mike Medland, used to race a bit of cross (when will see a comeback?) and still helps support the sport by sponsoring our most aggressive rider prize at all of our events. 24 pairs of Chucks were given away through this sponsorship.

– Lighthouse Brewery – It can only benefit cycling when a brew master and brewery owner is also an avid rider… although I have never-ever met Paul he has supported our series with the 1st lap primes for the last 2 years. Steve from Lighthouse Brewery also got behind our series this year by hand making up the prime packs with samplers of each of their beers… pssstttt… they have a new beer coming out soon… the Riptide Pale AleÅ … check it out as soon as you can!

– Crankbrothers – have been on board with us since we hosted Nationals in 2006. This year they gave us all the prizes for the series overall. Pedals for 1st and 2nd and a 10 tool multi for 3rd. Jason First from Crankbrothers headquarters races cross himself so knows the sport. Crankbrothers also gave us some gear to outfit some of our race directors from the series. They look good in baby blue.

– The Howard Johnson – We have not yet gotten Dan Brady from the Howard Johnson out to try our races… but we will one day. These guys are always ready to lend a reduced rate for anyone staying over for our events as well as help us out when we are down in Victoria for cross. Great supporters of sports in general.

– KONA – Dik Cox from the Vancouver Kona office fired us over 2 cases of flagging tape for our events. Those 2 plus the one that Mark Matson from Bellingham stashed away for us helped make our events look pro with the same flagging tape for each event. Kona also got on board with a box of prizes. Kona is the #1 brand at the Cross on the Rock series. We also had 2 tents on loan for our events.

– Oak Bay Bikes Nanaimo – I can’t think of another shop that had 4 employees racing at one of our events. Besides racing, OBB is also out there pounding stakes at the Nanaimo events. Sean Lunny lead 4 of our beginner Clinics. The guys helped out quite a bit where we needed it. OBB also provided us with a number of prizes and co-ordinated the sponsorship with Lambert. They also provided some entertainment as there was a lot of trash talking amongst the staff racing.

– Frontrunners in Nanaimo – This is where I work. We support the series by letting me have a few days off to put the events on. We also give a number of the prizes for the events for both draw and category prizes. Before Nanaimo had a couple of good bike shops we were considered the best bike shop in Nanaimo… even though we did not sell bikes!

– Orange Sport Supply – The very first time that Wendy was going over to Europe for cross Greg Inkster got on board helping out by supplying eNVy chainrings for her race rig. Being neo-cross racers we had no idea that a 48 was too big!! Orange Sport Supply helped us out with a few draw prizes for our series final as well as some great FSA cranks for a killer draw prize.

– Aviawest – not only sponsors our series but also a Victoria based cycling team. Jim Pearson from Aviawest fulfilled his promise and made a couple of our races this year despite being a first year dad. These guys provided us with some HUGE grand draw prize packages for 5 of our events this year with the BIG one for 3 nights at their resort at Sun Peaks going to our Intermediate series winner… another bonus!

Along with our sponsors we have four Island Cycling Clubs and a number of local bike shops that help us out with our events. We try our best to give them recognition after each of the races that they are involved in. Bike shops: OBB Victoria and Nanaimo,Trail Bikes in Courtenay, Experience cycles in Duncan, Frontrunners in Nanaimo. Straight Up Cycles in Victoria, Arrowsmith Mountain Cycle in Parksville. Organized by: Multi-Sport Promotions in Partnership with the following cycling clubs: VICC, Experience Cycling Club, UROC, Arrowsmith MTB Club and IRC. Sanctioned by: GRMBA

Results from our license survey from Island Champs
A few years ago when we started our series there was only one way to sanction and get insurance for cycling events in BC and that was through Cycling BC. The problem with that was that each person had to become a member of cycling BC and take out a license… which was costly. There was also sanctioning fees, a per rider levy and official costs. For small events like our cross races which don’t charge high entry fees there was nothing left over for the clubs or people doing the work… so nothing to put back into the series.

Last year Cycling BC had a club level race option, which we insured our series through. This worked quite well and kept the costs relatively low although we still could not attract beginners very well.

This year we decided that since most the clubs and MTB events on Vancouver Island we turning to GRMBA (Grass roots mountain bike association) for sanctioning and insurance that we would try them out. It has worked out a little better than Cycling BC as we can now offer lower price beginner races as well as maintains reasonable entry fees.

At the last race of the series we took a survey (PLEASE always fill out the survey information, it helps us) to see where our riders were coming from; GRMBA, Cycling BC or neither.

– Results of the Survey
– Riders with NO GRMBA and NO Cycling BC License: 37%
– Riders with NO GRMBA but YES Cycling BC License: 24%
– Riders with YES GRMBA but NO Cycling BC License: 18%
– Riders with YES GRMBA and YES Cycling BC License: 21%

So basically 39% of our riders at the last event have a GRMBA license. 45% of our riders have a Cycling BC license.

So we are asking ourselves… where do we go from here… see our participant survey to voice your opinion.

Direction for the series
With adding one race this year we were up to 6 events for the series. We also went close to 2 weeks longer for the series and our participation levels keep rising… all great news.

With the conclusion of this year’s series we are starting to plan for next year already. # of events. Location. Dates. Categories. Sponsors… there is a tonne of stuff to plan. Before we plan too much it is really important for us to have a clear voice coming from the riders. How the riders felt about the series. What they would like to see… what changes we should think about doing.

Click here for a survey for anyone that raced in at least one of our events this year. PLEASE if you have time in the next couple of weeks fill it out. Paste it to an e-mail and fire it back to us.

Best of the Season Faux Toes (Photos) from Dave
Dave Shishkoff paired down his picture that he has taken over the series to his best of list. Check them out here.

THANKS to everyone for coming out this year. We look forward to a new and exciting race season starting in September of 2009.

Classifieds
The bikes from Wendy from 2007 are now gone. Her bikes from this year will not be on sale until after February, but she does have a few MTB’s for sale. In the meantime one of our racers asked me to pass this on.

2008 Norco CRR SL, Carbon Fibre
– Front & Rear Derailleurs, Brakes, Shift Levers – Dura-Ace
– Crank – FSA SLK Carbon
– Wheels – Mavic Ksyrium Elite
– Size – Large (56cm)
– Saddle – Selle Italia Prolink
– Fast – Wicked Fast.
Her name is Sugar Cane. I picked her up in February, & rode her until the end of August. Time for us to part our ways. She would like a good home for $2500. Stephen Kilshaw spkilshaw@gmail.com