GamJams.net: Where Mid-Atlantic bike racers roll

Economic Impact Calculator p/b First Financial Group: 9-13-10

Please take a minute to fill out the GamJams Economic Impact Calculator if you raced this weekend and spent any money at all local to the race (gas, food, lodging, apple cider donuts, etc).

GamJams Economic Impact Calculator

If you don't yet know what it is:

One of the biggest challenges all race promoters face is convincing a town or municipality or local development corporation that a bicycle race adds real economic value to an area, instead of just clogging the roads with so much lycra. The GamJams Economic Impact Calculator is a quick way for everyone who has raced to help the promoter secure the venue next year, by simply recording all the money you spent locally.

Your 30 seconds of record-keeping now could be worth 60 minutes of suffering next year.

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The GamJams Economic Impact Calculator is brought to you by Mark Lewandowski of First Financial Group, a financial services firm headquartered right here in the Mid-Atlantic.  Mark - 8 years a MABRA member himself - is the liaison to the cycling community.  No, Mark can't help you win that $45 payout for 4th place, but he can help you learn how to manage your cash flow in pursuit of your financial aspirations, and even those carbon fiber wheels.  Think of Mark and his team as coaches for your financial future:  They'll help you protect your financial life as vigilantly as you would your GC standing, and educate and empower you to make informed financial game-day decisions.

First Financial Group:  Protect, Educate, and Empower.

Leadout of the Week: racing and all that other stuff - like Insurance rights when you get hit

Brian Fouche at racing and all that other stuff has a must-read post on insurance: if you get hit. What a lot of cyclists don't know is that insurance - the driver's auto insurance, the cyclist's auto insurance, the cyclist's homeowner's insurance - often covers not just the medical expenses, but also the cost of damage to your bike, kit and helmet. Brian got clocked twice recently, making him more of an expert on the topic than any of us ever want to be.

After reading Brian's post, check with your insurance providers to see what kind of coverage you have. But I think the bigger half of the battle is knowing that you may have recourse to rebuild your car-crunched bike in the first place. Thanks to Brian, we now know.

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Leadout of the Week is awarded to racers who have used their websites to promote something other than themselves. If you'd like to nominate your own or someone else's site, please do. If you're a winner, you're encouraged to proudly display your GJ Ribbon on the winning entry or anywhere else you'd like.

Leadout of the Week: Anna Kelso wants you to Ride Like a Girl

This Sunday, November 9 at 10am, the Ride Like a Girl Women-only MTB ride rolls out of the Hamburg Road Parking Lot at Frederick Watershed. The ride is sponsored by RLAG and City Bikes.

I know this from Anna Kelso's blog, where she has the flyer posted. For that she gets the GamJams Leadout of the Week.

But that was too easy, you might think. She didn't even have to do anything except put a flyer up on her site.

Yeah, that's kinda the point. It is pretty easy to spread the word.

More on RLAG here.

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Leadout of the Week is awarded to racers who have used their websites to promote something other than themselves. If you'd like to nominate your own or someone else's site, please do. If you're a winner, you're encouraged to proudly display your GJ Ribbon on the winning entry or anywhere else you'd like.

Leadout of the Week: FIREbike thinks Pink

This week's GamJams Leadout of the Week is for FIREbike. Today is the last day of October, and outside of race reports on the AVC Breast Cancer Awareness Cycloss race (inevitably shortened to BCA Cross) I think his is the only racer's blog on which I've seen any mention of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. That's not to say that he wins by default. He wins because he posted a picture of half a dozen fire fighters in pink t-shirts.

It's probably worth reflecting on what a big impact a group can have, if they act collectively. Part of the reason I think the Leadout of the Week is important is because some of what we do individually is worth doing collectively, not just to help bike racers, but to help normal people too. Sappy? Sure. But cancer strikes close to home so I get that way when I'm staring it in the face. Sadly, I bet you know exactly what I mean. Which is why hulking dudes wearing pink is important.

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Leadout of the Week is awarded to racers who have used their websites to promote something other than themselves. If you'd like to nominate your own or someone else's site, please do. If you're a winner, you're encouraged to proudly display your GJ Ribbon on the winning entry or anywhere else you'd like.

Leadout of the Week: The Flamenco Chuckwagon braces for the thankless end of the stick. For you.

This week's GamJams Leadout of the Week goes to the Flamenco Chuckwagon, who has undertaken the noble and laudable task of exploring a new road race course for the region - this one out (potentially) on the brutal climbs of West Virginia.

Show me a sentence that includes the term "race promoter" without the word "thankless" and I'll bet it was either written by the race promoter him/herself (because they're either humble or inured to it), or by someone who has never promoted a race, but ought to try. They're the lifeblood of this sport, the O in our VO2 Max, the wood screws in our podiums. You can't spell Race Promoter without "Om," and often these folks need the tranquility of a meditating Buddha just to open their inbox every day and stare down the endless missives of criticism, second-guessing and complaining.

OK, maybe it's not that bad. But some days it is. We ought to remember that it's for us they're toiling and suffering. Our role is to make their lives easier, with the confidence that in doing so they'll make our races better. Lend them your thoughts and opinions, but be generous with your respect and patience.

Here's to you, Mr and Ms Race Promoters of the Mid-Atlantic. May your courses be technical, your parking be ample, your schedules be accurate and your lives be richer because of it. Ours are.

 

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Leadout of the Week is awarded to racers who have used their websites to promote something other than themselves. If you'd like to nominate your own or someone else's site, please do. If you're a winner, you're encouraged to proudly display your GJ Ribbon on the winning entry or anywhere else you'd like.

Leadout of the Week: Blacknell Turns on the Lights

The GamJams Leadout of the Week shines on Blacknell.net, for his reminder that it's getting dark earlier and that it's time to put on our lights and blinkies, just in case.

To many of us, the lights issue is self-evident. But the other reason Blacknell gets the nod this week is that his site has a broader audience than GamJams, and many of the other sites linked to here. Only half of Blacknell.net is on cycling. Another half is on national politics. A third half is on community issues. And another half still is on music. (Yeah, he writes a lot.) Because he covers so much ground, he ends up reaching a different group than our regular audience (read as "NOT the choir"). So whenever he trumpets cycling - whether its news of a local race or a reminder about blinkies - he's elevating cycling issues to a broader platform.

He's putting us all in the spotlight, as well as behind one.

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Leadout of the Week is awarded to racers who have used their websites to promote something other than themselves. If you'd like to nominate your own or someone else's site, please do. If you're a winner, you're encouraged to proudly display your GJ Ribbon on the winning entry or anywhere else you'd like.

Leadout of the Week: DCMTB / City Bikes' CX Clinics

The GamJams Leadout of the Week is awarded this time around to the dirt-lovin' folks at DCMTB / City Bikes. The team blog this week announces Wednesday night Cyclocross Clinics in Fort Reno (NW DC), beginning at 6pm.

The clinics run for four weeks beginning on Wednesday 9/3. That day is a women's only clinic, taught by Melanie Schwartz.

 

Registration info and other details are at DCMTB's site, including a nifty full color flyer you can email to your teammates, post on your own site, or use as the desktop wallpaper on your computer. (If you rode your bike to work today, you've also earned enough green credits to go ahead and print it out. But if you do, make sure at least 2 other people see it.)

(On the topic of CX Clinics, if you're holding any and they're open to all-comers, drop me a note and I'll compile a master list here on GamJams.)

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Leadout of the Week is awarded to racers who have used their websites to promote something other than themselves. If you'd like to nominate your own or someone else's site, please do. If you're a winner, you're encouraged to proudly display your GJ Ribbon on the winning entry or anywhere else you'd like.

Leadout of the Week: Unholy Rouleur's Olympic Cycling TV Schedule

Precise. Highly sought after. Comprehensive attention to detail. Elegant.

What have I just described?
    a. SRAM Red shifting
    b. The Cervelo P3
    c. Michael Ball's Lambroghini
    d. The Unholy Rouleur
    e. All of the above

The GamJams Leadout of the Week is given this week to The Unholy Rouleur, for his simple but essential post of the Olympic Cycling Coverage on TV. If you tried to figure out for yourself when to watch, you'll see why his entry is an award winner. There's no easy way to decipher the listings. If you're like me, you're watching all the time anyway. But with about 5 different NBC channels offering coverage, knowing which one to turn to when saves a lot of remote control toggling and doesn't eat up the hard drive space on my DVR that I'll need to record the Nature Valley Grand Prix on VS this weekend.

Bobby Lea's first race, by the way, is the 16th (Saturday). So your best bet for seeing that looks like USA Network from 10:30am - 2:00pm on Saturday, and/or NBC the same day from Noon - 1pm.

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Leadout of the Week is awarded to racers who have used their websites to promote something other than themselves. If you'd like to nominate your own or someone else's site, please do. If you're a winner, you're encouraged to proudly display your GJ Ribbon on the winning entry or anywhere else you'd like.

Leadout of the Week: Velochicken's Call to Vote

The GamJams Leadout of the Week is given this week to velochicken, who asks us to cast a vote for Doron's Cookies.

Yeah, that needs more explanation.

Doron runs Sticky Fingers Bakery. She makes exquisite vegan cookies. Perhaps of equal importance (to some of us, not all) she also sponsors some local racing teams. She's been nominated for Favorite Bakery and Favorite Vegan Cookie by VegNews magazine. (VegNews is the VeloNews of the vegan baking industry, so it's a big deal.)

Thankls to Doron, we can enjoy scrumptious sticky buns. And thanks to velochicken, Doron just might win an award. If you go vote, which you should.

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Leadout of the Week is awarded to racers who have used their websites to promote something other than themselves. If you'd like to nominate your own or someone else's site, please do. If you're a winner, you're encouraged to proudly display your GJ Ribbon on the winning entry or anywhere else you'd like.