{"id":2454177,"date":"2020-02-05T20:36:00","date_gmt":"2020-02-06T03:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/demartini-takes-usa-cycling-in-new-direction\/"},"modified":"2020-02-05T20:36:00","modified_gmt":"2020-02-06T03:36:00","slug":"ceo-rob-demartini-takes-usa-cycling-in-new-bold-direction-with-community-in-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/ceo-rob-demartini-takes-usa-cycling-in-new-bold-direction-with-community-in-mind\/","title":{"rendered":"CEO Rob DeMartini takes USA Cycling in new, bold direction with community in mind"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In this image provided by USA Cycling, Rob DeMartini, CEO of USA Cycling, poses at his offices in Colorado Springs, Colo. One year into his tenure at USA Cycling, Rob DeMartini is pushing the sport’s governing body in a new direction. It will still support elite athletes, especially in the lead-up to the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. But it intends to take a bigger and more visible role in the growth of cycling at all levels. (Casey B. Gibson\/USA Cycling via AP)<\/strong>
AP | USA Cycling<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

When Rob DeMartini took over at USA Cycling about a year ago, the longtime businessman immediately noticed parallels between the sport\u2019s governing body and New Balance, the footwear and apparel manufacturer he transformed over more than a decade in charge.<\/p>\n

New Balance had grown stale. It was the brand your parents wore. It had fallen out of touch with trends in modern footwear, and as a result, it became a second thought not only to serious runners but also to recreational athletes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a lot of support from the ownership family to make the brand young and great and vibrant as it had been in the past,\u201d DeMartini said, \u201cand it took a number of years. But the parallels are very apparent here at USA Cycling.\u201d<\/p>\n

The organization\u2019s membership has held steady or slightly declined for years. Despite the work of his predecessor, Derek Bouchard-Hall, there remained a yawning rift between elite athletes and recreational riders. And perhaps most significantly, casual riders had begun to embrace events \u2014 such as the mass-participation gran fondo events, gravel rides and the myriad ultra-long distance races that have sprung up \u2014 that had nothing to do with USA Cycling\u2019s oversight or support.<\/p>\n

Much like New Balance, the organization had become an afterthought.<\/p>\n

So with that in mind, DeMartini decided to lead USA Cycling in a bold, new direction. It still provides significant support for elite riders, perhaps more than ever, but DeMartini envisions an organization that fosters a true cycling community, where a rider headed to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics is just as valued as the family riding bikes to the local ice cream shop.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re working very hard on it,\u201d DeMartini told The Associated Press in a wide-ranging interview. \u201cI have a staff of 70 very committed people. They\u2019re in this because they believe in the power of cycling. They believe in the power of sport. They\u2019re not in this to get rich and driven by those motivations. They believe in what cycling can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

After years of being dragged through the mud, largely due to the fallout over Lance Armstrong and the sport\u2019s doping past, cycling is experiencing a modern boom not only in the United States but also abroad.<\/p>\n

Thousands have embraced indoor spinning classes such as Flywheel and SoulCycle, or purchased a Peloton bike, and many in turn hop on bikes outside. Gravel events such as Dirty Kanzaa in rural Kansas and group rides such as the Dempsey Challenge \u2014 put on by actor and cycling enthusiast Patrick Dempsey \u2014 fill up almost immediately. Sales figures for bikes, equipment and apparel suggest more people are embracing the sport than ever before, and municipalities are building bike lanes at an incredible rate to both embrace the cycling movement and ease their own traffic congestion.<\/p>\n

Now, the task for DeMartini is to figure out how USA Cycling best fits within that vast milieu.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is different than New Balance,\u201d acknowledged DeMartini, who took that company from sales of about $1.5 billion to roughly $4.5 billion. \u201cOur responsibility to the sport is much more direct. We\u2019re not a profit-making organization.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the organization is in the business of growing the sport. To do that, USA Cycling has done everything from revamping its website and appearance to offering new membership programs to spur even the most casual interest.<\/p>\n

Recently, it became a founding member of the Youth Cycling Initiative, which offers free and discounted memberships to youth teams and leagues, and carved out a new department within USA Cycling to focus on youth and collegiate development. The organization has even crafted a reciprocal membership program with USA Triathlon and, realizing the crossover appeal, is discussing a similar arrangement with the much larger USA Swimming.<\/p>\n

While it may not seem like it on the surface, those efforts dovetail quite nicely with USA Cycling\u2019s elite program \u2014 along with membership numbers, the most visible and tangible way in which the organization can judge its success.<\/p>\n

\u201cRacing can no longer financially support racing. You need a broad audience to keep things vibrant,\u201d DeMartini said. \u201cSoccer and swimming are the two best examples of Olympics sports with a well-developed infrastructure and competitiveness and participation. And bike racing hasn\u2019t been that way. It\u2019s been this pinnacle community at the very tip of the spear, but there has been no way to develop people along the way. You need to be able to make the pie bigger.\u201d<\/p>\n

More riders means a larger talent pool. Larger talent pools means the potential for more Olympic success.<\/p>\n

USA Cycling brought home five medals with just as many near-misses from the 2016 Summer Games in Rio, and that has led to more support from the U.S. Olympic Committee. As a result, Bouchard-Hall proclaimed the goal of bringing home a record seven medals in cycling from the Tokyo Games this summer, a benchmark that DeMartini supports.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe get a little worried about making it transparent,\u201d he said, \u201cbut we\u2019re very confident with this team.\u201d<\/p>\n

DeMartini doesn\u2019t want to put undue pressure on U.S. athletes to perform, but it will be there regardless, and it won\u2019t just be pressure to bring home gold. Elite athletes such as world champion road racer Chloe Dygert Owen, World Cup mountain bike overall champion Kate Courtney and track cyclist Ashton Lambie \u2014 the world record-holder in the individual pursuit \u2014 can help USA Cycling\u2019s outreach efforts by coming through on their biggest stage.<\/p>\n

The timing is right, DeMartini said, for the organization to take advantage of the global inertia of cycling and the cyclical interest in the Olympics to re-position USA Cycling at all levels as a central figure in the sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re choosing a new direction, far less federation influence and more creating a community,\u201d DeMartini said. \u201cWe want to create a community that supports racers at the elite level but also supports juniors and youth and creates an organization that is much more diverse in its makeup and interest.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this image provided by USA Cycling, Rob DeMartini, CEO of USA Cycling, poses at his offices in Colorado Springs, Colo. One year into his tenure at USA Cycling, Rob DeMartini is pushing the sport’s governing body in a new direction. It will still support elite athletes, especially in the lead-up to the 2020 Summer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2454177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-18 17:19:26","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2454177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2454177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2454177\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2454177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2454177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2454177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}