A little under 50 race promoters and bike club representatives from North Carolina and South Carolina gathered in Statesville, NC for the Carolinas Cycling Association’s annual promoters meeting. The agenda included electing the board of directors for 2011 and hashing out the upcoming road schedule. At the conclusion there was to be an open forum to discuss ideas.

The newly elected 2011 Carolinas Cycling Association board of directors are: President, Judy Rhyne; VP North Carolina, Neal Boyd; VP South Carolina, Howard Johnson; Treasurer, Robert Havens; and Secretary, Robert Havens.

The bulk of the meeting time was spent coordinating race dates for the 2011 calendar. Some of the proposed race dates were decided on smoothly while others were more fought over. Key placement on the calendar is a huge factor in an event’s success or failure. One such battle was the proposed date of the SC road race championships.

In 2011 the US Pro championships have moved to May in order to coordinate with other countries’ national championships. The US Pro national time trial championships will be contested on Friday, May 27th and the road race Sunday the 29th. Saturday the 28th is the proposed date for the South Carolina state championships, which was encouraged by USA Cycling’s CEO Steve Johnson. However, North Carolina wanted to hold their time trial state championships that day as well. Having two state championships contested on the same day caused some concern among the board of directors. Two state championships would split the fields and affect racer turn-out. Racers would be forced to choose one event over the other. Additionally many of the same racers are probably making plans to stay in South Carolina to watch the following day’s US Pro road race championships. The board wondered whether racers would rather line up for a time trial or a road race and then take to the streets of Greenville to watch the US Pro championships on Sunday? The thought was that the time trial in NC would suffer due to both the SC state championships and the US Pro weekend. However the NC promoter was willing to risk holding his time trial on the same day of the SC state road race championships.

The 2011 cyclocross calendar was briefly discussed. Due to time limitations and that there wasn’t as much concern about overlapping ’cross races, it was proposed that there be a cyclocross summit to be held at a later date. One idea being discussed is a series of races held in Greenville and Asheville.

The board announced that a “C” level referee seminar was scheduled for January 15th in Raleigh, NC and the 16th in Columbia, SC. “We always need more officials, folks,” said new president Judy Rhyne.

Before the meeting was closed, there were three scheduled speakers and then those in attendance could make announcements.

Nicole Johnson, 2010 SC Rider Rep and Boyd Cycling Director of Sales, promoted the We Race series. The We Race series is trying to promote and encourage women’s racing with coaching before their race as well as more appropriate race categorization rather than having the beginning women racers mixed in with their higher categorized counterparts. Johnson announced that We Race was merging with the SEW Series and they were in talks with each southeastern state to promote at least one We Race event in each state.

Kerry Shields, 2010 NC Rider Rep, briefly discussed a program to develop and encourage junior racers and how to better separate them from faster more accomplished juniors. Again promoters were encouraged to grow and develop this segment of racers.

Boyd Johnson of Boyd Cycling graciously donated five sets of Boyd wheels for neutral support. This is obviously good news for racers who may only have one set of wheels. The logistics of how the set of Boyd wheels will be transported to races was still to be coordinated.

There was good news from the Rock Hill cycling center at Riverwalk. The grounds for a velodrome had been donated by the developer and construction will begin shortly. Gita Sporting Goods payed $20,000 to name the facility the Giordana Velodrome. Also a 1.5 mile cyclocross course had been made in the area.

Portions of the 2011 road race calendar have been posted to the Carolinas Cycling Association web site. These races are not official and still need to be permitted to ensure course safety.