Newsletter #2 for 2019. MAZDA-COTR.
Season #14. The year of the dark mark.

Powered by MAZDA
Bikes washed, lubed and protected for the season with Muc Off.

Welcome to the 14th season of Cross on the Rock. We are a week and a half away from our first race of the season in Cumberland on September 8th. We will be sending out our 3rd newsletter next week with a preview for that race next week. This newsletter will overview the season and some of the changes that are happening at Cross on the Rock for 2019.

Newsletter #2.
1. Cross on the Rock Season #14 Overview
2. License requirements for 2019
3. Category name changes and descriptions.
4. Teams, Clubs, Practices and Clinics.

1. Cross on the Rock Season #14 Overview

The fall schedule continues to get more and more busy! We have tried to space out the races a bit more than last year but without a double header we could not fit in 8 events for this season. All this means is the 7 we have will be even more tightly contested and you will not want to miss a single race!

September 8th. COTR #1. Coal Cross. Cumberland.

  • Starting the season off this year in Cumberland. We have experiences heat and rain in Cumberland in Septembers past…..so we will see what we get this year!

September 22nd. COTR #2. Pro City GP. Victoria

  • After being the first race of the series for a few years Topaz park will be the second race for 2019. With a looming park re-design the future of this amazing venue is uncertain.

October 6th. COTR #3. Cross on the Commons. Qualicum Beach

  • Qualicum Beach returns for the 3rd time. Clockwise or Counter clockwise? Something entirely new? We don’t know! We can tell you that the ice cream in the village tastes great after a day of racing.

October 14th. COTR #4. Muc Off Cup. Nanaimo

  • Thanksgiving Monday classic! Name change for this year but one of the best courses (and polarizing) courses around. This event has had the highest DNF rate and the lowest!

October 27th. COTR #5. Crosstoberfest (The return of). Ladysmith

  • After a couple of years off COTR will return to Transfer Beach. This time for “Crosstoberfest”. Some park changes will mean some course changes. The venue and view can not be beat!

November 3rd. COTR #6. Day of Thunder. Victoria

  • Back to Western Speedway for the second to last event for the 2019 season at Western Speedway. This venue has probably hosted the 3rd most cyclocross races on Vancouver Island. Lots of space. Lots of “knarly”.

November 16th. COTR #7. Hot Crossed Bunnies. Nanaimo

  • Nanaimo’s Beban park will host the last race for 2019 with it’s Hot Crossed Bunnies race. Double points will be up for grabs which normally means a shake up in some of the standings right before the awards for the season are given out.

7 races.
5 Sundays
1 Monday
1 Saturday

Registration for the series and Coal Cross will open at 6:00PM tonight (links on the web site) and registration for the remaining 6 events will open next week. Registration for the SERIES will close at 6:00pm before the first event and not open again. Registration for each race will close at 6:00pm the night before the event so that we can process the start lists etc. (if you are not pre-registered you do not get a call up). There is always registration available on race day up until 30 minutes before the race OR until it reaches it’s registration limit.

PLEASE NOTE: When you are signing up for TEAMS for the FULL SEASON or for COAL Cross make sure everyone is on the same page with regards to the TEAM NAME. Signing up for the full season does not automatically put the team name into the list for Coal Cross (or any of the other races) and signing up for Coal Cross does not put the team name into the list for registering for the full season.

2. Licence Requirements for 2019

Licencing is confusing. It does not help that every year the licences change. The insurance requirements change and it all starts again…..WHICH LICENCE DO I NEED TO RACE?

So here we go. We will try to explain your options.

1) If you are only going to do a couple of COTR races (We strongly encourage you to race them all) but you don’t want to buy any license. You are racing COTR races ONLY. Pay for a Day of Race licence each time you race $10 for an adult. $5 for youth. This is OK if you are only going to race once or twice a year. But it is a PITA (paperwork etc) if you are going to race more than that!

2) Buy a “Provincial Ride Licence” from Cycling BC. $60. This works if you are racing the LAUNCH category (Beginners/Youth/Sport) races at COTR. If you are going to race 6 or more COTR events this year. This is your best bet but ONLY if you are ONLY going to race Cross on the Rock this fall. You can not race other events or the provincial championships with this licence.

3) Buy a “Provincial Race License” from Cycling BC.Adult $90. Youth $60. Get this one if you want to race COTR as well as in Vancouver and Provincial Championships. You can race any category in the province.

4) Buy a UCI license (Cost varies depending on age) if you want to race BIGGER races such as UCI races or National Championships.

Those are your current (for this year) options for Cross on the Rock for 2019

3. Category name changes and descriptions.

If you did not figure it out the theme for this year’s series is Harry Potter. We have been getting a lot of awesome feedback about the logo and theme for the year so thanks for sending that and passing it on. With that we have been working on making the categories for this season a bit more “fun”. Hopefully everyone will catch on. We are also changing the name of two of the categories (for now) to better reflect who is racing in them.

This is what we are going with for this year. You may have to look up some of these terms as we did. They were researched and suggested by Tycho and Tessa.

  • Little Nutcase racers will be “First Years”. As in the “First Years race the Little Nutcase races”.
  • Mazda Zoom Zoom racers will be “Goblins”
  • The Beginner category will receive a name change to “Launch”. This category is a mix of youth, return to race all ages, masters “c” racers and all age beginners so it was felt that “beginners” did not really fit. Those racing the Launch category this year will be called the “Seekers”
  • If you are a Boggart you will be racing the men’s intermediate category this year. That includes the older youth categories and those not ready to jump into open. We chose Boggart for this category as a boggart can change itself into ANYTHING it wants. Just as an intermediate has endless possibilities.
  • Women’s Intermediate will be the “Animagi”!
  • Men’s masters racers are the “wizards” and women are the “Veela”
  • Super masters…..well “Professors” just fit so well!
  • Rounding it out Experts will be changed to OPEN (Actually returns to open) which reflects the nature of that category with “A” level masters racers, fast JR racers and those fitter than most humans racing in this category. Those racing the Open category are of course….the Auror!

We hope this theme is fun for everyone this season. After all racing should be fun!

4. Teams, Clubs, Practices and Clinics.
Cross on the rock would like to increase our focus on Clubs and Teams to foster community and growth to cycling. If you have a club or team that races we would like to know about it and put it on our resource page on the web site.

Please send any club information to: normont@islandnet.com
We would like the following information:

  1. Name of the club/team
  2. Is the club OPEN (will accept new members) or CLOSED (full or have to apply)
  3. Where is the primary location (ie. Victoria).
  4. Age group and what the group focused on (ie. ALL AGES. or “Just hard core single speeders and vodka drinkers)
  5. Contact person and contacts (FB, e-mail, IG)
  6. If you have any weekly practices or groups (Carpooling, monday night barrier practice. Tuesday night close down the bar practice)
  7. If you have a club that does practices or clinics let us know.

Here is a good example:

Practices:

Rock City Cycles in Nanaimo: Frst cross practice will be this Wednesday (August 28) at 6PM at the Red Barns at Beban. We will work on some basics and try to get our cross legs back!
PS, please be sure to have paid for your cycling BC license.

Clinics:
Broad Street Cycles:
Details are here: http://www.broadstcycles.ca/cyclocross-skills-weekend-clinic-sunday-sept-23rd-2/
We’re hosting another round of CYCLOCROSS SKILLS CLINICS!
– Learn the classic technique for dismounting, carrying and remounting your bike for cyclocross racing.
– Taught by coaches with many years of cyclocross experience.
– We break everything down into steps and progress methodically, focusing on technique. Then we go into race-like situations where you practice and make use of what you’ve learned!
WHEN: Wednesday evenings August 28th, and September 4th. – 6:00 reg, 6:30 start

LOCATION: 4017 Prospect Lake Road.
$10/ clinic, or $25 for three!

Cross on the Rock is an ISLAND series and the past support we have received from our island community is awesome. Lets keep it up in the future as it is what drives this series and makes it special. PLEASE SUPPORT THE SPONSORS. These are local businesses and companies that support local businesses. On-line companies, amazon, big business (besides Shimano and local dealers of MAZDA) do NOT support community events.

Cross on the Rock is organized by the council of cross and supported by a lot of bike shops and awesome people as well as Cycling BC.

Cross on the Rock 2019