Have you noticed that your team or club name is incorrect (or blank) on results or pre-registration sheets?

Initially this season some of these issues were caused by errors in the data files uploaded to USAC.
However, those issues are now rectified and going forward these blanks are because your USAC account is missing data in either the team name field or the club name field.

You must fix this issue in your own account!
This file has simple instructions on how to do so


 

A free racing and coaching clinic for cat 4 women at Mason Lake on March 6 aims to help new AND experienced women racers expand their racing skills and understanding--and have more fun in the sport.  Sarah Carroll (SCCA/Starbucks) and Gina Kavesh (Bikesale/Automatic) will observe the race and offer post-race feedback on the elements of the race, including team tactics, bike handling, and other components that make up the race.
 
Listen for their quick announcement on the start line, race hard, and then meet in the community center (between the finish and start lines) 15 minutes after the race finish to hear them analyze the race and offer their tips for your next race.  Be sure to change out of your race kit, grab your recovery nutrition, and bring some extra cash for soup, hot cider, and other treats offered by the neighbors in the community center.
 
For details on the Mason Lake race, see the flyer: https://www.usacycling.org/events/getflyer.php?permit=2016-469
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Registration is open for the Larry Kemp Junior Development Camp, just click on registration button 

If your child is between 10 and 14 years old and wants to become a better cyclist please join us for the Larry Kemp Cycling Camp!   This camp is open to both new and experienced young riders who want to improve their cycling skills and have a fun weekend riding their bikes.
 
Our action packed weekend includes: Bike maintenance, bike handling skills from our Expert Cycle U Coaches, fun rides on great trails and roads, The Silly Olympics, an "Epic Ride" and a picnic on a creek, The Ranch swimming pool and of course S'mores around the campfire. 
  
Cost is $170 with a USA Cycling license, non licensed participants will be prompted to purchase a one day license for each day at camp.  Camp includes three days lodging, food and coaching. Thanks to the WSBA and Generous donations from our Sponsors and the cycling community. 
   
Location: The Flying Horseshoe Ranch, Cle Elum, WA   (1 hours drive from Seattle)  August 11 -14th  Pick up Sunday 14th at Noon.
 
Any questions please contact The Camp Director at dishwon@gmail.com.

​REGISTER HERE

By now many of you have received your 2016 WSBA bib and frame numbers and have seen these items are sponsored by Völkl Skis. This change has generated enough direct inquiries that it makes sense for this post.
We (the WSBA) have been paying approximately $16,000 a year for the bib & frame numbers which equated to $12.50 per WSBA member for these numbers alone. This expense constituted 25% of our total budget in 2015.
 
The board asked me to look for lower-cost solutions in hopes that a different supplier would help us lower this cost and avoid raising the $25 WSBA annual membership fee. I found two unique suppliers who could provide us bib & frame numbers at a total outlay significantly lower than $16,000. They also had the capacity to include logos at no additional charge which allowed us to explore opportunities to lower the WSBA’s cash outlay even further.  The Völkl rep in our area is an active bike racer, a WSBA member and for a number of years donated a pair of skis & bindings to the Women Cat3 series and was looking for a way Völkl could support our entire community. Völkl sponsorship of our race numbers created a win-win situation.
 
The WSBA has taken most of this savings and allocated it across a number of programs/opportunities that directly benefit members: 

• The NEW event subsidy program has $5,000 allocated to support promoters who are adding/evolving events in the region. We've already approved 2 events for subsidies in 2016.
• We were able to adjust our revenue expectation for equipment rentals and lower costs for promoters who add categories for youth & women as well as support our championship events with a no-cost equipment process. http://www.wsbaracing.org/equipment-rental-discount-program.html
• A portion of the budget savings was allocated toward providing a free championship jersey to the winner of each championship event in 2016 in combination with our other supporting partners Absolute Mortgage, JL Velo and Ballard Station Public House.
• The WSBA as an organization has not had appropriate insurance coverage for the volunteers who do much of the work on behalf of the organization. We have rectified this situation to insure all volunteers working on behalf of the WSBA do not carry a potential individual risk if something (someone) has an incident that involves our permitting process or equipment out on the open road.

 
Although the 2016 numbers look different from years past, both the frame and bib numbers meet UCI & USAC standards for number size/placement for scoring purposes.
 
WSBA financial statements and budgets may be found here http:/www.wsbaracing.org/wsba-data---minutes-financials-etc.html

Last year the WSBA notified membership about the potential gap in insurance coverage at USAC-sanctioned events: volunteers and their vehicles used within an event are not insured by the standard permit purchased by the Race Director.


Jed Barden, an attorney and WSBA member, offered to review the USAC insurance policies in relation to how they could be interpreted under Washington State insurance parameters.  His findings are posted to the WSBA website and confirm that there is a potential liability volunteers may assume if their own insurance policy has a race exclusion.


The WSBA is creating a guideline for race promoters and volunteers to assist in understanding the process of securing USAC non-owned motor insurance for events. 

The Washington State Bicycle Association (WSBA) is excited to announce that beginning in 2016 our region’s boundaries as defined by USAC now include the parts of Oregon that are outside the boundaries of the Southwest Idaho Cycling Association (SWICA).

This expansion insures that the USAC members and events in these areas of Oregon will have a Local Association to facilitate better USAC customer service for upgrades, permits, and official assignments. OBRA management has been supportive of this change as to insure the dual OBRA/USAC members will now have a direct contact for services for their USAC membership rather than generic contacts in Colorado Springs.

Oregon riders will now have the opportunity to buy a WSBA membership within their USAC account when renewing or purchasing a USAC annual membership.  The WSBA will issue bib/frame numbers to all riders who purchase the $25.00 WSBA membership.

Additionally this means all individuals who reside in the expanded WSBA region as defined by USAC of Washington, North Idaho and Oregon are eligible to win medals in all WSBA championship events beginning in 2016. 

The WSBA uses the USAC renewal process to capture your membership data, but we are left with the task of getting numbers out to riders in a timely and cost efficient manner.  We have approximately 1,400 numbers to process and distribute and have to be sure our data aligns with USAC so that race registrations & results correspond to your name.  This takes time.

In order to have your WSBA number available for the first road events of 2016, you must submit your membership payment via the USAC website by January 22, 2016. 

For all memberships received by midnight January 22, 2016, WSBA race numbers will be delivered in the following manner. 

• A bulk shipment will be sent to each team with race numbers for members who have indicated membership on that team within their USAC accounts. 
• This bulk mailing will go out no later than February 9, 2016, to the team-designated mailing address. 
• Memberships submitted without a team affiliation will be individually mailed to the address in the USAC database no later than February 12, 2016.

Renewals received after January 22nd will be processed in the order received, after all memberships received for the January 22 deadline have been processed.  Turnaround time will depend on the volume of late renewals, but race numbers for renewals received after January 22 and before February 27 will be shipped approximately mid March.  Renewals purchased after February should expect a minimum 3 week turnaround time.
 
Numbers returned due to incorrect addresses will be resent after we have caught up from the initial influx of memberships. Any member who has a number returned for an incorrect address more than one time will be subject to a handling fee of $5.00.  Please verify your address on file with USAC is correct!
 
If you aren’t renewing with USAC for 2016, or are a rider whose USAC account doesn’t show WSBA as your Local Association or if you’ve never had a USAC membership, you can still join the WSBA!

If you’ve ever created a USAC membership account, USAC says you can renew your WSBA membership without purchasing a USAC license.  We’ve been unable to test this statement; please contact me if you cannot create a WSBA membership through your expired USAC account.

 If you’ve never created a USAC membership account and don’t intend to buy a USAC license or the WSBA doesn’t show as a local association option in your USAC account, follow this link: http://www.wsbaracing.org/membership.html.

Team leaders, please email the name and address of the individual who will receive delivery of the bulk shipment of your teams race numbers by January 15 to joinwsba@gmail.com and gkavesh@gmail.com

Please note: if you purchase a membership after June 1, 2016, you should email  joinwsba@gmail.com indicating your purchase or your purchase may not be processed due to so few purchases made in this time frame. 

Thank you to everyone who attended the WSBA annual meeting yesterday.
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Also a big thank you to Dave Douglas and the Cascade Bicycle Club for allowing us to use their facility for our annual meeting.  And we were grateful to Erin Hawley and Stefanie Larson of USA Cycling for attending our meeting and sharing specifics on new and existing USAC programs.

During the meeting two new WSBA programs were introduced for 2016.

The new event subsidy program will help the WSBA add competitive cycling events to our calendar and/or move them around to fill in gaps in our season.  Details can be found here: http://www.wsbaracing.org/new-event-subsidy-program.html

The equipment discount program supports events that target membership demographics that we’d all like to see grow and supports new events within our region. Details can be found here: http://www.wsbaracing.org/equipment-rental-discount-program.html.

Questions were raised about changes to the USAC membership fee structure for 2016. This document nicely outlines the differences between 2015 and 2016: http://www.wsbaracing.org/uploads/2/9/5/7/2957897/comparison_of_2015_and_2016_policies.pdf

Marshall Will was elected to the WSBA Board as the North Region Director and Martha Walsh was reelected as a West Region Director. In a separate meeting of the board, David Chipchase was appointed as the Southwest Region Director to fill out a vacated term. 

The WSBA & USAC have been in discussions to expand the WSBA region to include those USAC members who reside in Oregon. This expansion will insure that all USAC members & events in Oregon will have a Local Association to facilitate better USAC customer service for upgrades, permits, and official assignments.

Assuming USAC approves this expansion after its official review, we, the WSBA, need to amend our by-Laws in order to also authorize the change.
​
Below is the proposed by-Law change to expand our region to areas of Oregon not covered by the SouthWest Idaho Cycling Assocation (SWICA).

OBRA management is supportive of this change as to insure the dual OBRA/USAC members will now have a direct contact for services for their USAC membership rather than generic contacts in Colorado Springs. Each WSBA  club is eligible to vote on the proposed amendment. Please contact me at gkavesh[at]gmail.com to indicate who from your team will be present with authority to vote for your club.

Voting will be held during the WSBA Annual Meeting
​4:00pm -5:30pm
December 5th at the Cascade Bicycle Club Meeting Room
7787 62nd Avenue NorthEast, Seattle, WA 98115

THIS SECOND AMENDMENT TO AMENDED AND RESTATED BYLAWS (the “Amendment”) of The Washington State Bicycle Association, a Washington non-profit corporation (the “Corporation”), hereby amends the Corporation’s Amended and Restated Bylaws (the “Bylaws”), and is in addition to, and does not replace, the Bylaws of the Corporation, except as otherwise provided herein.
 
 
1. Amendments to Bylaws
 
A. Article I, Name and Purpose, is hereby amended to read as follows:
 
The name of this corporation shall be as provided in its Articles of Incorporation. The purposes of the corporation shall be to promote the sport of bicycle racing, to develop national competitions and to coordinate club activities to insure a season of scheduled sanctioned bicycle races as the USA Cycling local association for the state of Washington, North Idaho, and portions of Oregon outside the Southwest Idaho Cycling Association (“SWICA”), to promote and support other bicycle racing events in the state of Washington, North Idaho, and Oregon, and such other purposes as may be consistent with its qualification under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as may be amended from time to time.
 
B. Article II, Section 2.1 a. and b., are hereby amended in their entirety to read as follows:
 
      a. Club Members. Any USA Cycling ("USAC") member club operating and maintaining its primary operations in the state of Washington, Oregon or North Idaho, as defined below, or operating in such other jurisdictions as determined by the Board of Directors (also referred to herein as the “Board”) from time to time, may become a Club Member of the corporation. 

 For purposes of these Bylaws, “North Idaho” means Benewah, Bonner, Boundary, Clearwater, Kootenai, Latah, Lewis, Nez Perce, and Shoshone counties in the state of Idaho 
​
For the purposes of these Bylaws, “Oregon” means all of the state of Oregon, excluding those areas defined by zip codes served by the Southwest Idaho Cycling Association, until one of the following events occur, at which time USAC clubs in Oregon will no longer be defined as “Club Members” of WSBA for the purposes of these bylaws:

• Oregon has 75 or more registered USAC clubs, or
• USAC clubs in Oregon form a separate entity designed to undertake the role of USAC local association in Oregon, whether via the Oregon Bicycle Racing Association (“OBRA”) or another new or existing entity.

 
      b. Individual Members.  The corporation shall have two types of individual members:
 
(i) any Washington, North Idaho, or Oregon resident with a current USAC license, and
 
(ii) other individuals who are not Washington, North Idaho, or Oregon residents or are without a valid USAC license may become “supporting members” of the corporation in accordance with such rules as the Board of Directors may adopt.  In the absence of such rules, there will be no supporting members.
 
 
C. The first two sentences of Article III, Section 3.3, Composition of Board, are hereby amended in their entirety to read as follows:
 
The Board of Directors shall include (a) at least two Board members who reside in the State of Washington east of the crest of the Cascade Mountain range which may include a member who resides in North Idaho, (b) at least one Board Member from Oregon, (c) at least one director or other official of a junior development team, and (d) at least one USA Cycling official. A reasonable effort shall be made to elect directors with residences geographically dispersed throughout the state of Washington, North Idaho, and Oregon.


 
2. Effect of Amendment.  This Amendment shall modify, but not supersede the Bylaws of the Corporation.  Except as specifically stated in this Amendment, each and every term, covenant and condition of the Bylaws shall remain in effect as if this Amendment did not exist, and shall govern the modified terms contained in this Amendment.
 
 
Adopted by resolution of the Corporation’s Club Council on the ____th day of _____, 2015.
 
 
                                                                        __________________________
                                                                        
 
 

Have you ever wondered how the USAC Ranking points are calculated or wondered how to improve your points?  Look no further, we have created a document explaining the USAC points calculations.

USAC Ranking Points Explained

Keep this in mind if you plan on racing Cyclocross Nationals and take advantage of the non-championship Open Race this weekend at the WSBA Championships.  The Open Race should prove to be a great race to help improve your USAC Ranking.

-Jim Wood
WSBA Cyclocross Director