Alan Atwood
Interview: 5/11/07
by Andrew Bernstein

Alan Atwood is a difficult man to get on the phone. After leaving his day job as a Java Programmer at Cablevision he spends most Tuesday nights at Floyd Bennett, Wednesdays at the Kissena Velodrome and weekends at local and regional races from Syracuse to Auburn, Maine. Lately, he’s been spending his “free” time working to create a New York State Local Association, an organization that could eventually include all USCF racers in the state. After two weeks of phone-tag and emails I finally managed to catch Alan at home on a quiet Monday evening. We discussed his thoughts about the local racing scene, his 21 years at and around cycling events, and his vision for the future of racing in New York.
 
Andrew Bernstein: Where did you grow up?
Alan Atwood: I was born in the city, but raised in New Jersey, until my sophomore year of high school. Then my family moved to Long Island. I graduated from the University of Vermont in 1992, and stayed in the Burlington area until 2001, when I moved back to Long Island.

AB: How did you first become interested in cycling?
AA: I’ve been around cycling for more than 20 years. I got into it through my college roommate, Chris Lussier, in 1986. He was a racer, and I started going to his races to help him out. The school didn’t have a team then, but there was a pretty popular citizens’ race circuit, so he mainly participated in those races, and I’d go to watch, or help him with a feed, because it was all road races back then. Later he started getting involved with the Green Mountain Bike Club in Burlington, so I joined him in that. In 1993 he took over the managerial position of the team, so I stepped in as sort of Director Sportif, if you will, doing support for the riders and such.

AB: So you started out working with racers at the club level, but most people in NYC now know you as an official and promoter. How did you make that jump?
AA: When I was doing the Director Sportif role, the club wanted to restart its practice crit series, and they needed someone to officiate so I took the officials’ test in 1996. It’s a 4-  or 5-hour seminar that all USCF officials take, and then you take the test.

AB: I guess officiating was a slippery slope leading to other aspects of the sport, how did your career take off?
AA: I started officiating at races in New England, not every weekend, but the weekends I wasn’t doing other things. I still do some officiating in the New England area. I’ve been to Auburn, Maine, I’ve worked in upstate New York, in the Syracuse area, in Pennsylvania and around Philadelphia, not on a regular basis, but once in a while. Auburn was the farthest I’ve been.

AB: That’s a long trip, any other long road trips under your belt?
AA: Between officiating and the team management stuff I’ve been to Altoona in 1994, which was probably the longest drive, it was a 10-hour marathon. Most people would be like ‘are you nuts?’ I don’t remember how many miles it was, but it was at least 10 hours in the car with the same people.

AB: So these days your career as a promoter and an official are in full-flight, what’s your race schedule been like so far this season?
AA: I help CRCA promote Bear Mountain, I promote all of the Kissena track races, and I do some races in Connecticut and Vermont. A few years ago I also started doing result services in upstate New York and New England. I also announce races, about 5 or 6 a year, mostly in New England, I basically MC the races. I enjoy all this because I get to do different things every week. I get to do a little bit of a lot. That keeps it fresh, keeps it fun, and that’s the most important thing.

AB: I raced the collegiate circuit for four years and saw you at every race, every weekend. You promote races all over the place; do ever get compensated for all the traveling you do?
AA: I don’t get comped at all. I do it because I enjoy being outside, and I enjoy going to a race, whether I’m officiating, or working it, or announcing, or just watching it, I just enjoy the scene.

AB: As a well-traveled official and promoter, how do you think the racing scene in NYC stack up against other racing scenes?
AA: The NYC scene is active. There are a ton of races here, between Prospect, the open Central Park races, and Avon’s races and all that. You get about 250-300 people per race. Obviously, some of them are people traveling from New Jersey and Connecticut, but for the majority of the racers being from the local area, it’s quite active. I never really partook much in the local scene until I moved down from Vermont. But when I got here in 2001 I never expected to see fields of 70, 80, or 90 riders, at 6 in the morning no less.

AB: So, what’s the deal with the Local Association I’ve been hearing rumors about?
AA: A few years ago the USCF in Colorado Springs wanted to create a program where they would give some leadership to local associations. New England, Colorado, California and Texas were all pretty quick to jump aboard. Basically, local associations give people in the area the ability to run their own races with more autonomy. The associations are still under the federation, racers are still licensed by the federation, and everyone still has to abide by the same rules, but associations get to set their own schedules and decide how to maintain their officials. Local associations also get a $10 stipend from the USCF for every licensed rider within the association’s boundaries. You can use that money to maintain a junior development program or maintain race equipment, which they do in New Jersey, where the New Jersey Bicycling Association has a trailer full of all sorts of camera equipment and signage and sort of thing. Any promoter can arrange to use it for a nominal fee. So the license dollars are really going back into the local races. The federation wants to put more effort into the elite programs, because they’re responsible to the US IOC, so they are thinking about Olympic athletes, but local association can put more emphasis on the grassroots level.

AB: It seems like the association could have a pretty substantial budget, how will it all be managed?
AA: The budget will be managed by the association, which will have representatives from all areas of the state, and they’ll put their thinking caps together, and decided if they want to pay someone to put a schedule of races together, or if they want to do something else, but it’ll be up to them to do what’s best for the rider of New York, and to create bylaws to run the association.

AB: So What is your vision for the local association?
AA: In my vision, a local association would be statewide. If you include NYC, Rockland and Westchester, that’s about 60% of the licensed riders in the state. If you have a state-wide association in NY it would allow everyone to plan a workable race calendar. But it will be tough to work out because there are a lot of riders who wont travel around the state, so I think it will be tough to put everyone under one umbrella, but I do think it’s doable. The association wouldn’t have to center out of a central spot. We’re going to get representation from across the state, and there’s going to be representation from the city, since that’s where the majority of riders are coming from.

AB: Who’s taking the lead on putting the association together?
AA: Dieter Drake has been one of the main drivers for this, even since he took over as regional coordinator. He can’t be a member of the board, once the association gets going, but he can still be a member right up until it gets going. He was one of the first ones who started thinking about it, and started putting folks together to draft bylaws and put stuff together. There were others who came on board later, including myself.

AB: So, what have been the biggest challenges so far?
AA: It’s a lot of work. The people who’ve been involved are some of the most active in the state. It’s a small group, and we’ve all got full time jobs, or we’re racing, or trying to train or whatever so it’s been tough, especially the representation issue, since people in NYC don’t really relate to people upstate, and vice-versa. A lot of the racers here don’t really see thing as they do upstate, where they have a good amount of races, but they’re more spread out, and there aren’t as many, so it’s really not like the city. Here you really don’t have to go anywhere to race. It kinda has to be that way, since a lot of people don’t have car. People upstate will drive 3 or 4 hours to do a race. So, basically, that’s the main obstacle, getting NYC and the rest of the state on the same page, and that’s an ongoing process. It’s been on a little bit, off a little bit, because people have some time for this, but not all the time.

AB: How will Schmalz, who lives in New Jersey but races a lot in NYC, be affected by the creation of a Local Association?
AA: If you live in NJ, your $10 goes to the New Jersey association, but it’s still up to you to choose what races you do. Dan is still very welcome to race here, and since he’s such a popular guy, I’m sure that won’t change. I am actually a member of the New England bike race association, I run races there, just because I’m outside the boarders doesn’t mean a can’t contribute. The idea is to include areas that coexist. People would still be welcome to participate in any association. If NJ didn’t already have an association it would be very conceivable that our association could include parts of NJ. You can include anywhere you want in an association.

AB: What’s the best thing about having a local association?
AA: Promoters can run the scene however they see fit, rather than having one federation in Colorado run everything, so, our association will organize road, track and ‘cross racing. Some areas have much better mountain biking than others, or some have much more active ‘cross, so having the locals run it can allow people to tailor what they do out there, and riders still have the option to be active where they want to.

AB: Here’s a question that every bike racer wonders about officials: Why do you invest so much time in the sport, but never race?
AA: I’ve never been much of an athlete. I only played tennis in high school. I’m the classic armchair quarterback. I’m a big hockey fan, I love baseball and football, I enjoy soccer, I go to games whenever I can, but I’m not an athlete. I enjoy riding. I rode a lot in Vermont, though I haven’t ridden much since I’ve been down here, only because adjusting to 200 cars a second, rather than 200 an hour would be a bit much. So, I don’t race, but I try to contribute in other ways.

AB: As an objective observer, who do you think the best male and female racers on the New York City scene are?
AA: Well, you have to break it down into track and road, because those are two totally separate things. As far as men on the road scene, you really don’t ever go through a season without the Mengoni squad getting a lot of wins. They have a lot of good riders, and they do a lot of races, in the city, and out of the city. So, pick your rider from the Mengoni squad, they seem to maintain a very good program.

As far as the women, that’s a tough one. The women’s field here are decent, they race very well here. I wouldn’t necessarily say that she’s the best racers, but some one who comes to mind is Anne Marie Miller. She tends to impress me a lot, and not just because she’s 52 years old, but she comes up with some remarkable results. She won the mountain stage at the Green Mountain Stage Race, despite having crashed hard in the circuit race the year before. I’m not sure if she’s the best in the city, but I’ve known her for a long time, and she’s done really well ever since I’ve been following the scene.

As for as the track scene, I probably have not seen anyone better than Jared Bunde (Mengoni), he generates a lot of power, more than anyone else out there. On the women’s side, the scene is just getting up to speed. Erin Dyer is the one who’s been most impressive in ’04, ’05, and ’06, but she’s not racing any more.

But one of the nice thing about the city is that it’s not just dominated by one rider or one group. Racing here is kind of like the really good division in baseball, there are a lot of good riders here and a lot of tough competition, so it’s hard to pinpoint just one.

AB: What’s coming up in the next few weeks?
AA: I’m getting ready to start working on the ‘cross races that I run in New England, and Lou Maltese is coming up, so I have to start talking to Tony, because I’m chief ref for that. I just finished my first weekend at Trexeltown, and I’m going to Rochester just to watch. So, it’s a lot of managing time, and doing a lot.

AB: That’s it Alan, thanks so much for your time.
AA: My pleasure.