shovelhd

There have been a bunch of changes, and I do not intend to list them all here. The ones below are of interest to me. Feel free to discuss the ones that affect you.

1C1 Licensing: Race Directors are required to have a Race Director license. For club-driven races, there's one more expense.

1D2 Road Upgrades: 5->4 now is 10 mass start finishes. I don't know how they'll handle starts from last year, probably up to the regional upgrade coordinator. All other points-based upgrades now have totals which force a mandatory upgrade. Let's see how this shakes out.

1D4 Cyclocross Upgrades: Two wins as a Cat3 or Cat2 is a mandatory upgrade depending on field size.

1M1g Bicycles: "Handlebars for massed-start bicycles may not have forearm supports nor handlebar extensions or attachments that point forward." I suspected this was coming. I'm pretty sure that it means the end of my speed bars. Dammit.

veloboy971

Whats the definition of a "race director"...is that the person who fills out the event permit - I'd hate to have to spend more of my collegiate teams money on that too?

agoodale

Each club/team is allowed to designate 1 person as a "race director" for their race. There's no additional cost unless you are an independent promoter. There was some talk about that "race director" having to take an online class to get the license but I don't know if that's been rolled out yet.

kensuf

If you guys are using topview to run your race, you're covered.

veloboy971

Ok good! I need to change a few things on the event permit then.

Mtn Mike

I think this means that there are now two ways that you can permit a race with USAC; 1) by being a licensed race director, or 2) by being registered as a club/team. As you know every team is required to put on an event. They don't expect every small club/team to have a licensed race director (although every race has someone called the "race director"). Also now race directors don't have to be affiliated with a club. Also the Race Director license may mean something more when a promoter is trying to apply for an NRC or championship race. But for 95% of races it probably doesn't matter.

That's my understanding, but I could be wrong.

Mtn Mike

What is topview?

kensuf

It's the company that is running his race.

shovelhd

If that's the case, then it probably only affects RD's not associated with a club. Club RD's are covered by the Club license. I hope so.

veloboy971

Ok good! I guess I'll here something from USAC if it isn't.

shovelhd

I am not an authority on this.

danlikes

You may request a hard copy of the rule book by emailing membership@usacycling.org.


just threw this in here to help out, I prefer reading hard copies and it is a nice little book, about the size of index cards on a spiral. Also color coded. For the newbies... like me

shovelhd

mattm

Also read you can take two free laps in a crit if the course is shorter than 1k; is that new too?

shovelhd

I don't think so.

Hammonjj

Hasn't this always been the case?

I really hate this. WHY ARE UPGRADES DIFFERENT BETWEEN CROSS AND ROAD? It's really dumb and I actually prefer the cross upgrade requirements as they seem to discourage sandbagging of any sort.

shovelhd

It used to be 10 mass starts. You didn't have to finish.

Upgrades are different between every discipline. Points are different between events and field sizes.

Hammonjj

My question here is, "why"? I get having different upgrades for track and mountain vs the others, since the styles of racing are so different, but a cross race is very similar to a crit, both in terms of style and field size. So why do they have sandbagging protections like this new proposed rule as well as fewer points to upgrade whereas road cycling does not? IMHO, this just doesn't make sense.

Psimet2001 

Cross season is typically much shorter. The longer you wait on upgrades - the season is over.

The Race Director license is to allow non-attached promoters to license/permit a race. Clubs will not have to have a race director with license. This is what I remember reading on it when it was introduced.

Finishing 10 as opposed to starting 10 will be an issue. We have full cat 5 fields that fill up month in advance. Nothing like keeping it full - longer - keeping others from coming into the sport.

shovelhd

Road just got sandbagging protections. We'll see how it shakes out.

Thanks, Rob. I hope that's the case.

Finishing 10, while I'm all for making upgrading more difficult, I thought that the whole point of Cat5 was to replace what we used to call Citizens. Back in the early 80's there was no Cat5, but most of the USAC races had Citizen fields where you just had to pay your entry fee and sign a waiver to race. USAC saw that and wanted a piece of the action, so they created Cat5. So now in 2012 Cat5 has a performance qualifier, albeit a minimal qualifier, to upgrade. Will there be a Cat6 or a return to Citizens?

kensuf

You used to be able to get credit for getting out of the fives by doing a skills clinic. Is that not still the case?

shovelhd

Yes, the skills clinic upgrade credits were revised for 2012, and not just for Cat5.

carpediemracing 

I haven't kept up with the changes. This is a timely thread.

shovelhd

CDR, I'm going to request a formal ruling on the speed bars.

ericm979

I thought the purpose for cat 5 was to make a safer introduction to racing. Before cat 5, throwing beginning racers into a 100 strong cat 4 field caused a lot of crashes.. Cat 5's smaller field size makes it safer. In NorCal there are fewer citizen's fields these days but they do still exist.

If cat 5 fields are filling up long before the race, I hope promoters run additional 5s fields when they can. There's been some races here that have three 5's fields.

At least in Nor Cal, skills clinics could be used for points for upgrades past 5->4. I think there is some variation on a per district basis.