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Year of the bike

WORCA emerges from a challenging year stronger than ever
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Class of 2008 Top Row: Benoit Renault, Kim Myers, Jerome David, Katherine Mulvihill, Tracy Howlett, James Brooks, and Guy Patterson. Bottom Row: Sean Bickerton, Todd Hellinga, Joe Lyons, Rebecca Ritz. Missing: Mark Knight.

With more than 900 members, the Toronto Bike Club calls itself Canada’s largest recreational cycling club. The Fort St. John Blizzards claim to be British Columbia’s Largest Bike Club with 130-plus members.

This year the Whistler Off-Road Cycling Association (WORCA) boasted more members than both those clubs combined, with over 1,100 members on the rolls this year. This was also the sixth time in the last seven years that WORCA has boasted more than 1,000 members, which would easily qualify the association as one of the largest cycling clubs in the world. Per capita, about one out of every 10 residents is a member of WORCA.

However, despite WORCA’s success in finding members, it was a challenging year for the group in many ways, from deciding where to find insurance, to maintaining trails, to hosting Loonie events.

“There was a lot of discussion on insurance at the start of the year, and in the end we decided to go with Cycling B.C. this year,” said outgoing president Joe Lyons at WORCA’s annual general meeting last week.

“What’s been happening is that the cost of insurance has gone up, up and up the last few years, but it looks like that’s going to stop and that we’ll be able to shop around next year.”

WORCA had two options for insurance this year, Cycling B.C. or the newly formed Grass Roots Mountain Bike Association. Both insurers were comparable in price, but imposed new requirements on WORCA when it comes to hosting events like Loonie Races and the Phat Wednesday downhill series.

WORCA chose Cycling B.C. because there were fewer new requirements, but will re-evaluate insurance again next year.

This past year the cost of insurance for each member was about $27.50, which means that junior memberships were subsidized by about $2.50, and family memberships by $20.

Another new development that complicated the season was a new municipal policy that required WORCA and Loonie race sponsors to file a booking for every Loonie event this season.

Trails are also becoming an issue as the Ministry of Tourism, Sport and the Arts (MOTSA) is taking a greater interest in mountain biking, making an inventory of trails and enforcing provincially approved trail standards. As well, WORCA has committed to the Whistler 2020 sustainability framework, which means trails will need to be built and maintained to environmental standards.

Virtually every director position required more work than ever before, partly due to the association’s growing membership and partly due to the increase in regulation and red tape.

As a result, the past board of directors approved the creation of a paid executive director position for next season. The incoming board is in the process of writing a job description for that position and deciding how many hours per week would be required.

“The new position would handle the growing load of paperwork, our dealings with the municipality, insurance, grant applications — basically do the groundwork, and get all the things done that will let the directors get their work done as well. Lots of little things have to happen to put on events and races and clinics.”

“Basically everybody has a lot of great ideas, but then we get busy at the start of the season doing all the little things and those ideas get put on hold,” said Lyons. “And with what MOTSA is planning to do with trails we could see more paperwork when it comes to trail maintenance.”

Lyons is stepping down after two years as Race Director and one year as President, and will serve on the new board as Past President.

Also at the annual general meeting, each of WORCA’s directors made a short presentation on their position.

Director of Planning — According to director Guy Patterson, a lot of his work this season has been continuing negotiations with the Vancouver Organizing Committee of the 2010 Games (VANOC), Whistler-Blackcomb, Kiewit, and various developers to enforce WORCA’s no-net loss policy for trails. As a result, WORCA has been given money to replace sections of Rolo Coaster, Train Wreck, and Shit Happens that were impacted by development.

WORCA received $5,000 from VANOC and $5,000 from the Whistler-Blackcomb Environmental Fund to replace Rolo Coaster, which will be put towards the construction of an intermediate trail that is connected to Hey Bud on the north side of Blackcomb.

WORCA also received $15,000 from Kiewit to rebuild the two sections of Train Wreck that were lost to highway construction, and work should begin on those sections once highway construction is completed.

As well, WORCA has $10,000 from the Rainbow developers to replace a lost section of Shit Happens. Work was to start on that trail this year, but was halted after three-way negotiations between the province, First Nations and the Resort Municipality of Whistler resulted in First Nations acquiring a parcel of land. That land includes the proposed reroute of Shit Happens, as well as two other trails.

Patterson has written a letter to First Nations regarding the trails and has been reassured that riders will continue to have access to the trail network.

Patterson was also informed of an application to build a cell tower using reclaimed logging roads that are part of the Comfortably Numb trail. WORCA, with the support of Whistler council opposed the plan. As a result the company has moved the tower to another location that improves access to the Green Lake Loop trail.

As well, WORCA is a participant on the RMOW’s Cycling Task Force, which is committed to creating and implementing an overall recreational trail strategy for the municipality.

“On some projects, like A River Runs Through It, we’re participating and giving our input, and next year we both plan to do some work on the south end, which is going to get a lot busier with all the construction and athletes’ village,” said Patterson.

Patterson was reelected as Director of Planning for a second term.

Director of Web — WORCA rebuilt its website this year, and added the ability to handle online transactions for membership, youth dirt camps and the WORCA bike swap. There were a few issues, especially with registration for the youth dirt camps, but many of the bugs will be ironed out for next year.

The WORCA site receives 2,400 unique hits per month, and in July there were over 30,000 hits as members used the site to learn about Loonie races and visit the photo gallery. Next year Tracy Howlett plans to add a discussion forum to the site, as well as updated maps.

Howlett will return as the Director of Web for a second term.

Director of Freeride — The freeride position was busier than ever this year with record attendance at both the Phat Wednesday downhill series and the bi-weekly skills clinics.

This year the Phat Wednesday series averaged 130 riders per race, which was almost higher than the record race last year. The series also set a new record for attendance with 180 riders turning out for a ride down A-Line.

The Freeride series was also valuable in pulling in new members. This year 367 riders signed up for WORCA at Phat Wednesday races.

“That’s quite a big increase from last year, and in 2008 we’re working with Whistler-Blackcomb to host a few more races,” said freeride director Katherine Mulvihill.

The skills clinics were also a lot larger with an average of 17 people taking part every two weeks — far more than the previous year.

Mulvihill will return next year as Freeride Director.

Director of Trails — It was a busy year for Trail Director Jerome David, who started the season with the goal of finding new trail builders and building capacity for WORCA. That process was a success, identifying a few builders capable of taking large contracts from the association to maintain and reroute trails.

Some of the work accomplished this year include a reroute on Shit Happens to connect to White Knuckles, a reroute on Danimal, a new section of Lower Sproatt, and maintenance on Rick’s Roost, Babylon by Bike, Tunnel Vision, North Secret, Ride Don’t Slide, A River Runs Through It, Section 102 and several other trails.

Major trail projects for next year include the intermediate trail in the area of Hey Bud, and the reroute of Shit Happens, a new section of Tunnel Vision, and general maintenance of the trail network.

Confident that he has enough experienced trail workers, David plans to shift his focus from hiring and evaluating trail builders to organizing volunteer trail events.

“There are things that our trail builders need to do… that volunteers can help with,” said David.

For example, members can move materials like rock and dirt for trail builders to armor existing trails, or use picks and shovels to flush out the trail for Hey Bud or the new section of Shit Happens.

According to David, the trail days could be sponsored events like those held in the North Shore, where volunteer efforts have helped to maintain and armor dozens of trails.

David will return as Director of Trails for a second year.

Director of Youth — This year WORCA had 77 youth members, which was on par with the previous year. However, an average of 15 youth riders took part in Loonie races this year, which was probably three times higher than last year.

WORCA helped to coach and fund the Whistler Secondary Storm mountain bike team this year, which attended the B.C. High School Championships in Sechelt in May. Whistler ranked third overall for schools with just 10 riders taking part. Tyler Allison placed first overall in his category, and Max Horner was third in his age group. Four other riders, Jesse Melamed, Luana Auer, Conor Halliwell and Toria Whitney, placed in the top-five of their respective categories.

Sean Bickerton, WORCA’s youth director, has committed to helping the team again next spring. WORCA’s application to join the North Shore mountain bike league was rejected, but there are talks underway to create a Sea to Sky league for secondary students.

The WORCA bike swap generated $76,220 in sales this year, which generated $9,170 for youth programs. Unfortunately a bike was stolen from the swap, and WORCA repaid the owners, which brought the total down to $7,500. Next year Bickerton says WORCA will increase security to prevent thefts from taking place.

The money they did raise went mainly into WORCA’s youth dirt camps. This year WORCA hosted six official camps, twice as many as in 2006, for $99 per child. The coaches also held two additional camps by request of the parents. The plan is to host more camps next year, and to train local teens as coaches.

Lastly, Bickerton hosted a few Youth Twoonie nights this year for the younger kids. The last night, which included a miniature Loonie race, brought out 27 kids and their parents.

Bickerton will be returning as Youth Director for a second year, largely because of the addition of an executive director.

Director of Race — WORCA hosted 21 Loonie Races this year with the support of 47 different sponsors. More than 5,000 people took part, with record registration for events like the Fairmont Chateau Whistler race.

It was more challenging this year with the municipality’s new booking and insurance requirements, which is something that the executive director will assist with next season. That will also free up returning director Benoit Renault to do more work developing race policies and templates for courses.

“We’re looking at multiple starts as one way to spread people out on the course,” he said. “We did it in one race this year and it worked pretty well. I also want to be able to get together with the sponsors to suggest different trails each week and give us a chance to show off the trails we’ve worked on recently,” he said. “There are a lot of trails and areas that didn’t get used this year, or use the west side or north side trails enough.”

Renault also wants to do more to protect numbers and open rides to all levels of experience. For example, one race this year had two different courses, while others have had optional sections.

Renault is returning for a second year as Director of Race.

Treasurer — WORCA brought in over $130,000 this year, including a $35,000 Community Enrichment Grant from the RMOW. Expenses will total $112,000, which leaves WORCA with a surplus of roughly $18,000 which will go back into the trail budget for next season.

Part of the reason for the surplus is the delay in construction on Shit Happens, as well as delays with other projects. However, trail work will continue until the snow starts and additional invoices are expected through the end of the season that could account for a large part of the surplus.

James Brooks is returning as WORCA Treasurer for a second year.

Andrew Mitchell (the author of the story) is stepping down as Membership Director this season after three years with the board. He will be replaced by Mark Knight.

Paul Ruiterman is also stepping down as Director of Public Relations, and was replaced by Rebecca Ritz.