WASHINGTON DC’S INFLUENCE PEDALING

DCCX Continues to Influence Other Races

Press Contact Information:  BikeReg.com MABRAcross Series

SpectaSport LLC; KenG@SpectaSport.com  

Ken Getchell, Account Manager, 610-397-1950

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

October 13, 2009; Conshohocken, PA, USA:  What was the most influential cyclocross race of the last year?  Was it Cross Vegas?  The National Championships?  How about the inaugural Cincinnati International Cyclocross Festival, Cross Crusade, the NACT or the USGP?  SpectaSport’s Ken Getchell is involved in as many East Coast races as anyone, and his answer may surprise you.  “The most influential race of 2008 had to be DCCX in Washington DC,” he said recently.  “There are races that are bigger, though not very many.  There are richer races and races that are more significant in other ways.  But no other race last year, at least in the East, had such a pronounced effect o­n how other races were promoted, in a positive way.” 

DCCX (which will be held o­n October 25 this year) thinks big, even though it’s a non-UCI race.  One of the most memorable aspects about last year’s event was the participation of the Belgians; not just a few Belgians, but all of them -- as in the entire country -- when the Belgian Embassy became a race sponsor.  Washington DC is a highly politicized city, of course.  But still, it probably raised a few bi-partisan grins have taxes from Belgium, the home of the European Union, being used to support a cyclocross in Washington DC, even if o­nly minutely.  That, in turn, provoked a response from the Dutch Club of Washington DC, which said it wanted to promote The Netherlands by providing food to go along with the race’s previously planned free fries and beer.  More importantly though, other race promoters suddenly realized that food and beverage could be an integral part of a cyclocross race, not just an afterthought.  And they started to realize that it could be used to market and promote a race.  Four hours away, in New York City, Jed Kornbluh and C.J. Jammett were paying attention to what was happening in Washington, and immediately went out and found a celebrity chef (Matt Sigel from Hell’s Kitchen) and a waffle truck as a way of promoting their Staten Island Cyclocross.  It worked, and the waffle truck has since started to find its way to other cycling events in New York City.

In a less obvious, but possibly more significant way, last year’s DCCX had a subconscious effect o­n course design and crowd management in the Mid Atlantic.  The central viewing area at DCCX was like the nucleus of an atom, with registration, the food, the announcer, the kids races and the prime viewing areas and the toilets all arranged like a six-pack and surrounded by the course.  It wasn’t the most convenient race to get to after you parked your car, but o­nce you were there you didn’t want to leave.  The result was a festive party atmosphere where people just hung out long after they would normally have left following their own races.  “I’m a marketing guy to my core,” says Getchell.  “I’ve stood in department stores and just watched how the store layout affected how people interacted with the merchandise.  Within a couple of weeks, I suddenly started noticing elements of DCCX’s crowd management design creeping into other track designs in the area.  And when I brought it up, promoters would say things like ‘It just made sense to do it this way’, even though they had never done it like that in the past, or ‘I just got the idea a couple of weeks ago’.  That’s why I say DCCX was the most influential race of 2008.  It might not have made the most noise, but it changed how other promoters viewed their own races, without them ever realizing it.”

This year’s DCCX is o­nce again part of the BikeReg.com MABRAcross Series and takes place at Washington DC’s historic Armed Forces Retirement Home o­n October 25.  Details can be found at BikeReg.com.  Also o­n the property is Lincoln’s Cottage, the summer residence of President Abraham Lincoln and the place where the Emancipation Proclamation (which ended the practice of slavery in the United States) was drafted.

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