CI Racing Calendar available yet?

chakattack

I got an excel version of the cycling ireland racing/touring calendar from a link someone posted here last year.

Any know if there is a 2011 version yet?

Thanks

RobFowl

It still the draft calendar but probably won't change too much.

http://www.cyclingireland.ie/Home/News/Calendar-Draft.aspx

Diarmuid

Digging this thread up to add the link to the ics calendar from CI. You should be able to add this to your Google Calendar or whatever you use

GlennaMaddy

No Phoenix Park races this year :-(

Lumen

GlennaMaddy wrote: »

No Phoenix Park races this year :-(

The Phoenix Park calendar is probably crammed full of commerically run "participatory sport" events for tri-dorks and the like.

Down with this sort of thing.

Chips Lovell

That link no longer seems to work. Anyone have a new one?

morana

try this http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fcalendar%2Fhosted%2Fcyclingireland.net%2Fembed%3Fsrc%3Droad%2540cyclingireland.net%26ctz%3DEurope%2FDublin&sa=D&usg=AFQjCNHCljMb748JQC5GadYzQdg0HeZMug

There will be no park races this year. The new circuit by St Marys was ruled out because of people trying to access the Hospital. The mainroad circuit had some changes to the layout afaik.

Pigeon Reaper

On the subject of dates does anyone know when/f the cyclocross race in St Annes is happening this year

GlennaMaddy

Cyclocross season is finished?
The race in St Annes around this time last was a postponement (mid Jan 2009 IIRC), it was the national champs (the 2010 edition were held in Lurgan about 2 weeks ago -in 2011 if you get me)

GlennaMaddy

el tonto wrote: »

That link no longer seems to work. Anyone have a new one?

Usual cyclingireland "now you see it now you don't". The Google calendar is handy but doesn't really tell you about catagories (which is important if you're A4/U16/U14). Maybe the 'Master' will be published soon, the previous version was 'Draft'

Chips Lovell

Yep, the old Excel Calendar from last year was better. Much easier to see which races were in Leinster, Munster etc.

Chips Lovell

Just realised though I can import that into my own Google Calendar. That's one plus

morana

Big health warning with this...not final still draft...

dave2pvd

If I'm being thick, please excuse me. Here goes:

Why are people posting up looking for the calendar? It's on the CI site, right?

Chips Lovell

Twas the Excel calendar I was looking for originally

Home:Ballyhoura

Any final master calender to be seen yet? Just doing a bit of year planning and noticing some major differences between the 2011 draft and the google calender on Cycling Ireland.

Would love to see the actual one, so far not sure if Ras Connachta is on the 26th and 27th of March or the 2nd & 3rd of Arpil.....also if the Edge Sports Classic is on the 20th of March or the 10th of April.

I know I could contact the clubs organising them but I've only gone through one month of the racing calendar so that would be a lot of emails and it would be nicer to have it all on one accurate calendar!!

Thanks in advance

High Nellie

Home:Ballyhoura wrote: »

Would love to see the actual one, so far not sure if Ras Connachta is on the 26th and 27th of March or the 2nd & 3rd of Arpil.....also if the Edge Sports Classic is on the 20th of March or the 10th of April.

Having events down for two days is only a minor matter surely and not very challenging - you have a 50% chance of getting it right.

There's a much more interesting mystery 'Munster League' on the CI calendar for March 13th.

Knowing the location would be useful - even the county!

It gives a name to contact, but no contact details such as a phone no!

But then it wouldn't be a mystery any more if they gave too many details.

Maybe it's some kind of CI fun competition - 'guess where the race is'.
Hold on - there a 'more details' button as well ...... It's ok, that doesn't spoil the fun - just directs you to a blank Google page of some kind.

So, any guesses as to where the March 13th mystery Munster League might be on.

And while we are at it, does anyone know anything about this 'Munster League' that starting so shortly?????

buffalo

High Nellie wrote: »

Having events down for two days is only a minor matter surely and not very challenging - you have a 50% chance of getting it right.

There's a much more interesting mystery 'Munster League' on the CI calendar for March 13th.

Knowing the location would be useful - even the county!

It gives a name to contact, but no contact details such as a phone no!

Contact details for Dan Curtin (along with many others) are available here: http://cyclingireland.servasport.com/html/site/cyclingireland/structure.jsp

Lumen

High Nellie, I think you need to get a room with morana and do whatever is necessary to exorcise your frustrations concerning Cycling Ireland.

:pac:

High Nellie

Thanks Lumen. I have no frustrations with Cycling Ireland per se - full of mostly good people doing their best like every organisation. But I have frustrations with:

1) trying to re-join CI annually and get a lisence
2) navigate their procedures (including website) to do both of above, and trying to understand why they remain the same, year after year.

Morana doesn't have to meet me to find out about these problems - they are well aired.

I could add trying to find out about events but that doesn't bother me. I'm just courious about this Munster League and would like to know more about it without having to ring some guy (whose number wasn't provided).

Raam

Surely it's up to the Munster League organisers to promote their own event and not Cycling Ireland.

Home:Ballyhoura

High Nellie wrote: »

Having events down for two days is only a minor matter surely and not very challenging - you have a 50% chance of getting it right.

Yes, well not so simple if there is another event on the same day and you need to organise lifts or send away race entries etc.

Munster league events were on the calender last year afaik and not much happened for them. Might be different this year though.

rattur

Aah, so I found the magical calendar:) I made a boards account only because of this thread to give my view as a foreigner who started racing in 2009 here.

I moved to Ireland in 2008 and I wanted to do my first race in 2009 and the emotions I was going through back then... I was between laughing and crying because of the system here and I though that I was:
a)in stoneage because nothing was available on-line
b)trying to enter a closed sport that was trying it's best to keep outsiders out of it.

Don't worry I've figured out how the system works, figured out some of the reasons behind it, come to terms with it and even found some things that are better than back home or Italy where I also did a few races while living there:) If I wouldn't have been as motivated as I was, I would have probably just given up though.

Finding races was the most difficult part so a few suggestions to make things easier for future newbies.
1. A calendar with all races of the season at the start of the year
2. Each entry should have race details and that already in February not a week before.
3. Race details should include race distance, categories, EXACT location, starting time, course description and preferably a map of the course with race profile.
4. Include MTB races in the calendar (they actually have even done most of the above!)

This is pretty basic information and I can't understand how race organizers can't make a website with that information, that CI could then link to in their calendar. It's 2011 and it takes 1 hour max! If race organizers can't make it happen, CI should do something themselves. I guess that every race has to be registred with CI before the start of the season? So why doesn't CI ask for race details when registering the event and put them in the calendar themselves? We have all of that + much much more since 2001...

I remember the first calendar I found had some entries that went literally like this: 6 August, Random Person memorial, contact Bob. and nothing else!!:D Now maybe that makes sense for some but it sure as hell didn't help me:D It was pretty depressing compared to a race website like this from home.

Now you may think I'm a smart-ass foreigner but I had a really hard time to figure everything out before I could do a race and I really believe that if the mess could be sorted out, the participant numbers would grow, meaning more sponsors, meaning better organized races and better visibility, meaning more racers, meaning... It's not really comparable but I was in the same position when I wanted to do some races in Italy and it was waaaay easier to figure everything out there, even though it was all in Italian...

Karl

Junior

Diggin this up, has anyone got a sportives calendar anywhere ?

Haldir

http://www.cyclingireland.ie/Home/Leisure/Calendar.aspx

The only problem is that its a complete mess and totally inaccurate. Dates, days and contact information for major events are all mixed up. CI have been told about this and hopefully they will do something about it when the licence pressure eases!

morana

I posted in another thread that one of the office staff is trying to clear it up asap. It should be done sooner rather than later.

@rattur I accept that for a foreign visitor to get the information is hard. I can tell you what races I will be doing in September even without a calendar. I also encountered this when I went to Flanders for a summer. anyway the calendar is usually posted in paper format at the AGM. I know thats no use to anybody but its then in draft format and posted online in a google calendar or for download in excel format from CI before the season starts. I distinctly recall that I was looking at the early season races in google calendar in January. The membership has increased by 45% last year. Thats partly due to the €10 introductory offer (btw it costs us €12 for each rider!).

you suggestions are excellent and we would like the whole organisation of the sport to be raised to a higher level including the description of races in the calendar. I will pass them onto the Road Commission who are responsible for the calendar.

ragazzo

QUOTE "I remember the first calendar I found had some entries that went literally like this: 6 August, Random Person memorial, contact Bob. and nothing else!! Now maybe that makes sense for some but it sure as hell didn't help me It was pretty depressing compared to a race website like this from home.

Now you may think I'm a smart-ass foreigner but I had a really hard time to figure everything out before I could do a race and I really believe that if the mess could be sorted out, the participant numbers would grow, meaning more sponsors, meaning better organized races and better visibility, meaning more racers, meaning... It's not really comparable but I was in the same position when I wanted to do some races in Italy and it was waaaay easier to figure everything out there, even though it was all in Italian..." Unquote

Whilst I agree with Rattur that finding information on some races can be difficult I also think that the promoting clubs website is a good place to start.
The CI calendar is based on information from race application forms received 6 months previous to the season start. This info can change for many reasons, ie closure of venue or roadworks etc. One should not rely solely on CI calendar or yearbook.

To compare Irish cycling with Italian cycling is, regardless of language used to communicate, not very helpful. Major sport in Italy- Fringe sport in Ireland.

Finally, CI does not organise races in Ireland. The various clubs throughout this country undertake that task. Volunteers work their asses off to keep the sport of cycle racing alive in this country. They are unpaid and mostly unthanked.
A comparison (by Rattur in previous post) between the professional sport events organiser in Estonia, with numerous employees, and local cycling clubs in Ireland with unpaid volunteers is at least unfair.
That organisation should be compared to the Rás or former Tour of Ireland as they might be on a similar level.

niceonetom

ragazzo wrote: »

Whilst I agree with Rattur that finding information on some races can be difficult I also think that the promoting clubs website is a good place to start.
The CI calendar is based on information from race application forms received 6 months previous to the season start. This info can change for many reasons, ie closure of venue or roadworks etc. One should not rely solely on CI calendar or yearbook.

That is simply unworkable.

How would anyone be able to answer the simple question: what races are on X weekend? Check every club site in the country until they find the one that is organising that weekend?

CI doesn't organise the races themselves, but it should serve as the central hub (if you will) for information between all clubs and riders. Clubs owe it to CI to keep them fully informed about races, and CI owe it to the wider racing population to pass this info on to us. Clubs do a great job of organising races, marshalling, etc. But part of that job has to be giving CI complete and accurate information in advance, and it seems a lot of clubs are failing to do this. The fact that races are run by volunteers doesn't make the frustration of those who simply can't find out what's the hell is going on any less real or important.

Cycling is not a "fringe" sport in Ireland. This is one of the busiest boards on boards, and that's an indication of something. There will be hundreds of people competing this weekend - it has grown way beyond the sort of notice-pinned-to-the-parish-bulletin-board saying "usual place, usual time" mentality that some of the old guard see as sufficient. That just doesn't work when 45% of CI members are new.

I'm very grateful for, and impressed by, Morana's openness and communication here. He seems to think that CI needs to better in some areas, and who are we to disagree?

Lumen

For me, there is a clear separation between the activities of effective race organisation and communication.

The organisation on the ground, dealing with logistical essentials like cars, routes, marshalls, and ambulances is almost always fantastic. The volunteers do a great job, and (I believe) are much appreciated even by the most cynical keyboard warriors on here, and almost every race report thread has plenty of thanks to the organisers.

The communication is necessarily treated as a secondary activity, and judged in isolation is pretty hopeless by 21st century standards. Cycling Ireland gets a lot of stick for this, some of which seems reasonable. The website, for instance, has been for some time a shameful pile of crap. There were a few threads on here about this last year, where people were completely unable to find even basic documentation or event information.

I completely understand the necessarily provisional nature of a lot of information about races. Things change, and some of the decisions cannot be made in advance as they're dependent on numbers of entrants, which under the current system is not known in advance.

However, I don't think it's some sort of futuristic fantasy to expect to be able to log on late on Friday before a weekend's racing and find out, definitively, what's on and where, what the route is and how many laps are planned for which cats.

This isn't technically difficult, and if clubs can't do it themselves then perhaps C.I. should do it for them, and if C.I. can't or won't do it they should work with technically-inclined volunteers (of which there are many) to get it done for them.

Last year there was a boardsie (hynesie) who started up the site racestarts.at to try and fill the information void. IMO it's a bit sad that people have to go to such lengths when we pay over €100 a year each to Cycling Ireland.

Additionally, C.I. should be "innovating" (in the most mild sense of the word, i.e. copying what has been done for years elsewhere and in other sports) in areas like electronic pre-registration. Why should race organisers have to deal with 300 people turning up unannounced on the day when many riders would be happy to register and pay well in advance?

It's not rocket science.

edit: having visited the C.I. office, seen the whiteboard and overheard some phone calls, I believe that C.I. are heavily involved with co-ordinating activities on the ground, maybe something which they don't get enough credit for. They don't just print a few licences and spend the rest on coke and hookers.

Raam

The CX guys have been doing online registration for a while.

ragazzo

tom,

that is the way it works at the moment. Check CI calendar and find appropriate race and then check promoting clubs website for full details. Also use irishcycling.com for details.

Cycle racing in this country is a minority sport compared to many other sports. How many spectators will attend the races this weekend and how many pages will race reports and photos take up in our national newspapers.
People posting messages on a boards.ie forum does not make it a major sport.

The membership of CI is mainly involved at club/leisure level and racing fixtures/calendars do not matter too much to them.