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The reason behind this is three-fold.
Bringing riders on late puts them behind their peers, often irrevocably so
Bringing on riders late burdens the coaching staff, often doubling the coaching requirements for a POD
Bringing on riders late burdens the existing athletes with riders that haven't been trained, negatively affecting their training rides
Take, for instance, a rider who is brand new and would naturally slot into our Bronze POD in October. If we were to accept that rider in January he's going to be 2-3 months behind on fitness and technical training. By January, our Bronze POD's speed is equivalent to Silver POD's October speed. This results in the late enrollment finding themselves behind a group that would have been fitness and technical peers at the beginning of the season. This results in a few negative outcomes:
The late enrollment now believes they're slow
The late enrollment now believes that MTB is more hard than fun
The late enrollment now has an incorrectly skewed view of their relative ability
The late enrollment is much less likely to ride for the team the following year
The late enrollment is much more likely to abandon MTB