In 2003 I had two priorities:

1. to maintain the quality of our programs for members, and
2. to support the development of a new corporate not-for-for profit organization.

Program
1) UltraCycling and ultracycling.com
In 2003 we published six issues of UltraCycling totaling 348 pages. A special thanks to our contributing editors: Susan Barr, Michael Bauman, Ed Fleming, Nancy Guth, Reinhard Schroeder and Lulu Weschler. A total of 37 authors wrote for the magazine. With their help, UltraCycling remains one of the most informative cycling magazines.

We again published 3,500 copies of the RAAM program. Many thanks to RAAM for distributing copies of UltraCycling during the race - a great way to promote the UMCA! RAAM pays all of the additional costs of the program: the additional pages, upgrading the paper, color printing, and the RAAM copies.

2) RAAM Qualifiers
Last year we sanctioned 10 RAAM qualifiers on three continents and 74 riders qualified for RAAM! In 1997, the year before I became Managing Director, 29 riders qualified in five US events. In the past six years we have sanctioned more qualifiers, while maintaining the quality of the races, to provide more opportunities for ultra racers. Almost all of these riders have the desire to do RAAM, some do not have the resources to do so and achieving RAAM qualified status is a major accomplishment. To recognize this accomplishment in 2003 we started awarding each RAAM qualified rider a custom plaque. These qualifiers exist thanks to the hard work of the race directors and many other volunteers. I am especially grateful to George Thomas, who served as the RAAM qualifier race directors' representative on the Board this year.

3) John Marino Competition
The JMC was started in 2000 to encourage ultra riders to race in more events. The JMC format was devised by Tom Buckley, and Paul Evans ably served as the JMC chair for three years. Joe Jamison became chair in 2003.

The JMC '03 featured one of the closest competitions to date - Sam Baugh, Reed Finfrock and John Jurcyznski racing for the overall championship at Furnace Creek. Despite the high quality of the competition, Jamison notes that "with the exception of Senior Men, participation in all other categories was either flat or decreased. In 2002 there were eight tandem riders, there were none in 2003. The number of solo men decreased from 47 to 42, primarily due to a loss of nine riders in the 50-59 group. Only four women participated which is the second consecutive year of decreased numbers."

The new JMC categories of 12- and 24-hour racers of the season are already stimulating sign-ups for the JMC '04 and should increase competition overall since these events are far and away the most popular with all age groups.

4) UMCA Mileage Challenge
In the 2003 Mileage Challenge 61 riders completed 154,268 miles. The MC has also grown substantially since 1997, when only 24 riders logged 51,059 miles.

Nonetheless, Mileage Challenge chair John Lee Ellis notes that "Mileage Challenge ridership in 2003 receded to 1999 levels and the number of riders receiving awards, and the total mileage ridden also decreased. However, roughly half of the mileage decrease is (sadly) due to fewer miles ridden by Luc Viau and Larry Schwartz. Open Century mileage actually grew, apart from the missing contributions of these two riders."

The Mileage Challenge is our main program for attracting new riders to the sport and the UMCA. John Lee Ellis and I will be promoting the Mileage Challenge directly to local bike clubs to attract more century and double century riders.

5) Cross-state and other records
After many years as Records chair, Terry Zmrhal has stepped down. Many, many thanks to Terry for all his hard work organizing files and getting the rules and records process on-line! Fred Boethling is the new Records chair.

Recently we've not done much to promote record-setting, merely responding to rider interest. In 2003 only two records were set.

Setting records is a great introduction to ultra racing with a crew, without the expense and time constraints of going to a specific event. This year Fred and I will work to give record setting more visibility in the magazine and on the website; see Fred's column in this issue.

6) HUB Rides
In 2003 fifteen HUB ride leaders, from Russ Loomis in Massachusetts to Barclay Brown in San Diego, led UMCA rides and distributed literature in different cities. In 2004 we will expand the number of HUB ride leaders and encourage each to make a presentation to the local club on endurance cycling and the UMCA.

Organization
1) Corporate Organization
2003 was the first year that the UMCA operated under the new Board of Directors. From my perspective, the Board processes, although time-consuming, worked well. Both standing committees (Program and Finance) had excellent Board and non-Board members who contributed to thoughtful debate on the issues. A challenge for 2004 is to maintain the quality of discussion in the Committees while finding ways to streamline the actual approval process. I very much appreciate the support of the officers in helping to define the distinction between Board's responsibility for policy and my responsibility for management of the organization.

2) Membership
In 1997 we had 678 members in 14 countries. At the end of 2003, we had 1,240 members in 21 countries. Each year we have about 20% turnover in the membership.

The website remains our best source of new members, with about half of the new UMCAers coming from the website. Dawn Derlighter circulates articles from UltraCycling to over 300 bike clubs to reprint in their newsletters. Each article invites the reader to visit ultracycling.com for more information.

In the past we have tried distributing copies of the magazine at brevets and races, and tracked the returns. New memberships have not covered the cost of printing and mailing the magazine.

Last year with RAAM we co-sponsored a booth at InterBike to give the UMCA more visibility. Many thanks to George Thomas and Terri Gooch for representing the UMCA there and at El Tour de Tucson.

3) Volunteers
Six years ago there was limited organization to involve the membership and spread the workload. We now have a volunteer Board elected by the members and over 30 contributing editors, program chairs, webmasters and HUB ride leaders!

4) Budget
At the end of 2003 the UMCA income and expense were balanced:

Membership dues provide about 75% of our income. The 2003 financial report and 2004 budget are printed in the March/April UltraCycling

Priorities for 2004
This year my priorities are:

• continue to provide programs and services to members;
• concentrate marketing on attracting new century, double century and brevet riders to the UMCA;
• work with our European chair, Reinhard Schroeder, and the European RAAM Qualifier directors to increase the visibility of ultracycling in Europe;
• focus UltraCycling articles on preparing for and riding one-day events, while continuing to provide information about and coverage of longer events.