Advise needed: Requesting Sponsership

[Danny]

Have you considered the Cycle Chat membership as a source of funding? I'd give you 50p.

Better still we could buy shares in Young Un, and if we ever turns out to be any good we could get a % of his annual income.

So for example a £1 share could = 0.01% of Young Un's future earnings.

 

[mr-marty-martin]

i'll give you 0.02%

 

[Young Un]

Cheers for all the advise. I am knackered tonight, and about to go out on a recovery ride in 20 mins, so won't have tiem to draft out a letter tonight, but may have a crack at it tomorrow. Going to deffo send one ot the local shop/race team, and see what they say, and approach PBK and PX, and maybe a couple of other local shops.

 

[mr-marty-martin]

post the letter up on here first and we'll tell you if it sounds ok, and spelt correctly...

 

[Young Un]

and spelt correctly...

[/Harry B]No offence marty, but that made me chuckle [/Harry B mode over]

 

[mr-marty-martin]

yeah i actualy spell check my stuff when writing things this important, lol

 

[goo_mason]

yeah i actualy spell check my stuff when writing things this important, lol

Heh heh - do spell checkers remind you when to capitalise too ?

 

[mr-marty-martin]

Yes, they do.

 

[bonj2]

Better still we could buy shares in Young Un, and if we ever turns out to be any good we could get a % of his annual income.

So for example a £1 share could = 0.01% of Young Un's future earnings.

I'll put up a quid. But i want FORTY percent of the business

 

[Stig-OT-Dump]

Seeing how you've got your school holidays coming up, why don't you see if you can get a job at a bike shop. Then you could learn a bit about bike mechanics, get some good all-round advice from people in the cycling industry, maybe meet some reps from their suppliers and either earn money to buy your own kit or, if they like you after putting up with you for 6 - 8 weeks, they might gift you some stuff.

Now I'm going to shuffle off to a corner with my pipe and slippers and grumble about how every youngster these days wants everything given to them now. Don't know the value of a day's work. All want to be famous for doing nothing. Etc etc

 

[Joe24]

Seeing how you've got your school holidays coming up, why don't you see if you can get a job at a bike shop. Then you could learn a bit about bike mechanics, get some good all-round advice from people in the cycling industry, maybe meet some reps from their suppliers and either earn money to buy your own kit or, if they like you after putting up with you for 6 - 8 weeks, they might gift you some stuff.

Now I'm going to shuffle off to a corner with my pipe and slippers and grumble about how every youngster these days wants everything given to them now. Don't know the value of a day's work. All want to be famous for doing nothing. Etc etc

I work to earn the money to pay for my own stuff, thanks.
And infact, at the moment i dont have a huge amount of money, so i cant spend much, which means not much can be spent on bike bits.

 

[HeartAttack]

Now I'm going to shuffle off to a corner with my pipe and slippers and grumble about how every youngster these days wants everything given to them now. Don't know the value of a day's work. All want to be famous for doing nothing. Etc etc

I know its not everyone, however I totally agree with your basic sentiment, looking for free gear for being a nobody. When I used to represent my country in sport the first 15 years I paid for everything, including travel to and from international competitions when I was wearing my countries track suit, even winning medals didn't bring me anything in the way of free gear, it was only my last 5 years that I was able to gain sponsorship, and then that was because I was still at the top of my game, had many years of experience and the ability to attend and run training/coaching camps, trade shows, seminars and the like worldwide.

I'm sorry for being blunt Young Un but what you have done so far is nothing special not even at your age, in fact your TT times are slow even when compared to 10 years ago, my feelings are that companies most lightly will bin your letter without even replying, you maybe lucky with your LBS if your profile within your local area is raised, but at your age, ability and inexperience they probably won't.

Good luck all the same, just trying to be honest and fair

 

[mr-marty-martin]

must say well said...

i work at ma dads m8's restruant and pull in at least £50 for working all saturday, which isnt bad at all...

a put a good few hundred pound towards ma current racing bike, and am now buying my second cross bike for the up and coming season

i ride for a team in tli events that are partly sponsered by a local bike shop, get about 15% off, not loads at all

tbh even local shops gain next to nothing in terms of coverage etc when sponsering a rider, but some shops like the idea of having a team, but if the owners clever they wont touch anyone...

also buying kit for one rider is very very expensive ( as they wont be wanting a big batch which get a good amount of cash off the order...)

then there's registing the kit with the bcf etc, which can cost 100's at times...

 

[Young Un]

I take on board what all of you are saying, I just think that it may be worth a shot? NO harm in trying, and you never know, they might say yes - I am trying to be optimistic here. BUt nice to see I am getting lots of encouragement

 

[mr-marty-martin]

yeah you can try but dont expect out... couldnt see a big company saying yes to a local rider, unless there top in the region and then there's only a tiny chance...

are you winning all of your time triales out of your catogary atm?

if not are the youths who win them sponsered?