botto 

excellent question.

Frunkin

Collegiate races are all $13, which is nice.
Other races are $20-$40, and normally have a 2nd race for $5 or $10.

EDIT: I'm on a budget, and even the small amount of prize money helps. If I can pay back my entry fee or gas, I'm happy. At $7.50 an hour it all helps.

botto 

the $5K+ bike nonsne is a recent development.

As boring as the race scene in NL can sometimes be, at least most people have their priorities straight.

substructure

~$25

But, I can help set up or break down events and race free. I'm hoping I can do this some this year especially.

tbrown524

$30.00 for two races... CBR

CrimsonKarter21

$12 per week for a weekly training crit
$25-30 for road race/crit/TT
$50+ for bigger regional races

BigSean

$30 on avg with a second race on same day between $10 and $15. Prices are up on some events, others are the same.

Flatballer

$17 for ACCC collegiate races. But my club covers those (with my fee money, but whatever).

Crits between $15-$25. RR between $25-$35.

My licenses (Collegiate and USCF) were a total of $60. (Collegiate is a free add-on after USCF)

It's really expensive for a college student. Between gas and entry fees I'm usually spending $50 a weekend to race. One of the Crit Series in Greenville, NC, if I upgrade to 4 by then, I'm thinking about doing 4/5 and 3/4 both days, which would be something like $80 for the weekend.

botto 

shouldn't your team be paying for this?

carpediemracing 

re: prize money, I think that prize money should be reduced for Cat 3s - 5s, maybe capped at $50 or $100 per rider. To win, say, $900 at a Cat 3 race is kind of ludicrous and encourages riders not to upgrade (and it also drives races to bankruptcy, which was the case for the $900 first place Cat 3 race).

Other ways of addressing prizes (because prizes do help pay for race day costs) could include hotel fees covered (stage races), gas money based on home address slash distance, etc etc. I don't know a good formula but I think this is one of the big things causing sandbagging problems in the Cat 3s. There are riders who used to consider a $1500 weekend (i.e. prize money = $1500) a normal/decent week. Guys like that would upgrade to Cat 2 if the cap for a race was $100 (but no cap for Cat 2s).

btw the most I've seen in a day is $90-100, and that's at my own race. But I think overall I've made maybe $1000 in prizes in 25 years, more than half of that at my race (which I guess is one reason I promote it lol).

Collegiate racing is more pure in that folks race for the enjoyment, not to make money.

Primes should be covered in the cap (as far as amount goes per prime), but shouldn't count towards overall prize take for the day. So winning a bunch of $20 primes won't disqualify you from taking $50 or 100 for a win, but there shouldn't be $500 primes for Cat 3s either.

I'm guilty of offering both big prizes ($100 for the win in the P123 field, and prizes go up after we hit 40 riders in the field) and big primes at races (the most was two 3 place primes, $100, $50, $50 for a 3-4 race, and that was in addition to the prize list). The big primes were because we had a lot of riders and we had money to give back. The prizes we just updated over the years (it used to be $25 for the win minimum).

But I think capping prizes would go a long way to making bike racing "amateur" again.

cdr

botto 

^

IME when there's a big purse, or a choice prime, i find myself sitting up, because all it's done is lead to stupid racing, and broken bodies and bikes.

i think the biggest amount of cash i got was around $150, for placing 2nd in the lou maltese memorial 15 years ago.

at the time i remember being disappointed. i would have rather have had a trophy.

Second Mouse

Tuesday Night Worlds are $10, unless you buy a plate for the season for $60, then it's $8, first race is free. A few times a year there's a prime available, usually some socks or a box of Cliff Bars. Oh yeah.

Circuit & road races, $30 or so.

Those photos of the race signups you post on your blog look like they could have been taken 30 years ago, b. Does everyone wear wool?

merlinextraligh

But it's a zero sum game. Taking a portion of entry fees to give away as prizes does not make racing more affordable in the aggregate.


At most it creates a situation where lousy racers subsidize good racers, which may be a desired result.

But it can result in unintended consequences such as sandbagging, dangerous racing, and increased barriers to entry for new riders.

Frunkin

Almost everything you pay for in cycling subsidizes better racers. Team dues, clothing, race fees,the majority of that goes to pay for free clothes, bikes, entrance fees for the P12 guys, and bigger payouts for their races.

And truthfully I don't think that people sandbag over $50, I think they do it because they like winning, and don't want to have to start over again at pack fodder.

I do agree with the dangerous racing part, when there is bigger money on the line. Anything north of $250 seems to make people start taking more dangerous chances.

McTufferton

About the same for St. Louis.

$10 weekly training crit

$25 - $35 road races and crits

$75 - $100 for weekend events or omniums

merlinextraligh

I'm not sure that's universally true. On our team, there's no dues; race reimbursements I believe are the same regardless of category, sponsor discounts (unfortunately no free bikes) are available to everyone regardless of category, and I think we all pay the same price for kits.

As for higher payouts, I think the P,1,2 registration is often a bit higher around here, which goes to pay for higher payouts, and to the extent there is money coming from race sponsors, it rightfully should go to higher categories that people might actually care to watch.

If anyhing you could argue that the higher cats subsidize us by sharing sponsorship money that wouldn't be available without them.

MrCrassic 

The season opener here in Prospect Park was $25, which (I think) is not any more expensive than it was last year.

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botto 

while i've seen a few old dudes in wool, i wouldn't say everyone wore it. thing is, the dutch - generally - aren't very obsessive about how they dress. nikki terpstra, well... he's different.

MrCrassic 

Are you freaking serious?!?!?!

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Second Mouse

Whatever; those photos have a great feel to them. Guys in parkas...stout lot.



Hope you don't mind the theft/hijack.

recursive

It's all true, if that's what you're wondering.

MrCrassic 

And I thought race entry fees were high.

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umd

Yes... my wife is one...

Snap

But how many $500 Ironman races to tri guys do each year? At $30 or $40 a race and some weekends have 3 races (the second race on the same day is usually $15) it doesn't take long to add up to $500 or $1000 in bike race entry fees. Commit to your team for the entire schedule and things really start to add up quickly.

But it is still cheaper than racing motorcycles or cars.

Greg180

Then you don't see much of her with her 20+ hour training weeks...