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Nah, genuinely not on a windup - and I'd never criticise anyone who organises and promotes an actual event.
Obviously racing is expensive, but are you really getting sufficient value from your sponsors to make racing significantly cheaper? Fair enough if so.
I suppose there aren't many races in the UK so you have to travel to them... but then I don't understand why you'd fly to the States unless you were pretty confident of doing pretty well. I'd stress that these are general observations and not specifically about your or any other fixie crew.
umop3pisdn-
We didn't fly to the States for Red Hook, not saying that that won't be the case in the future, but the big races are what sponsors really care about and if you're there, on view and getting photographed etc., then you're featuring your sponsors at a massive event.
It's not always about winning the race, but chasing your own personal goals. I've asked every rider for NLTCBMBC what their personal targets were for the year and I've tried to help them achieve that if possible, I'm not going into detail about team setup and sponsorship terms etc., as it's not the right thing to do, but don't discount the marketing power of Instagram/Facebook et al.
Anyway, I enjoyed racing again at Red Hook Crit. It was my first race back since breaking my collarbone in April and I felt a bit of pressure to do better than I did last year, but I failed due to my training (yes, amateur rider in training shocker) taking a massive setback for the last 3 1/2 months. I chickened out working with groups of riders after earlier crashes in qualifying so thought it would be best to roll around on my own and set a qualifying time. It wasn't to be though, but it gives me something to aim for for next year.
roboto
Last sentence on the second to last paragraph...
I know you're probably just on a wind up, but you obviously know how much racing actually costs and that it can restrict people getting into racing that really want to race more. I don't think people actually appreciate how much hard work goes on behind the scenes.
I've personally worked my bollocks off for the last year, arranging team stuff, organising races and attracting sponsorship to allow me to provide the team with some kit and help me reward racers with prizes at our events. Nothing comes for free, it's all hard earned.