Date: Tuesday, 06 September 2016

Looking to the future we are wanting to align our road and track cycling events to sit more neatly into the national calendar framework while also working more effectively for us as an organisation. Accordingly, some changes are proposed for 2017. View the calendar here.  Please contact the office 219 9325 with any queries/concerns.

Points of Difference & Reasoning

Road Racing
January-May: To help encourage a good balance between track and road, we have spread out Saturday Road Racing but continued weekly Wednesday Worlds. This gives riders more opportunity to do longer training rides in better weather and to become race fit. This means that riders will be race fit for Tour de Lakes, Yunca Junior Tour of Southland and those who want to travel to Road Nationals in Cambridge.

June-July: No organized club road racing during this period but we may look at organizing some fun and novelty events such as cyclo-cross if there is an interest. The winter months is deemed to be an ideal time for our coaches, volunteers, officials, parents & riders to have a well-earned break.

August-December: We have aimed to make our club road champs a bigger focus in future with an 11 week race build-up. This will also provide great training for our locals who plan to ride in the Tour of Southland.
 

Yunca Junior Tour of Southland
We would love to see an increase in numbers competing in this leading New Zealand Junior Tour, and having better weather in April will be a bigger draw card. Kids are more race fit as they have been cycling over summer and our race programme provides a decent build up for this event. Shifting this event to earlier in the year would help relieve the pressure in the Cycling Southland office around the Tour of Southland time. It also prevents our volunteers from being overused/worn out, given that these two major events are back to back. Having Yunca in April is also a great build up for those wanting to travel and compete in the Road Nationals (Cambridge).

Southland Track Champs
These are to be held in early December to allow for squad selection for Track Nationals. If our riders have to travel to Cambridge for Nationals then there is plenty of time to book cheap flights, accommodation etc. Squads are picked but no riders are finalized until entries are due. This gives everyone a chance to try out for all events/teams. In the unlikelihood of an accident/injury we will have spare riders to choose from. This is a great opportunity to build squad culture.

Southland/Otago Schools Road Champs
This event is to be held during the Summer Tournament week which schools allow for travel to events for competitors without hesitation.

South Island School Track Champs
This is to be combined with the ILT Junior Carnival following the Yunca Junior Tour of Southland. With a number of kids coming from all over the country to compete at the Yunca Tour, they usually stay on and ride the carnival/track champs. Killing two birds with one stone

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