UMassAm

Just wondering how far people have traveled or travel on a fairly regular basis to race. Slash, what goes in to your decision to participate in a particular race?

shovelhd

2800 miles each way for a 50 minute criterium.

On a regular basis, up to 250 miles each way for a race day.

Tetonrider is going to win this one.

I passed a rider in a UMass kit on my way home from work on Route 9 East last Friday afternoon. Was that you? If it matters, I waved.

Nate552

4-7 hours. To me, a "close race" is 2 hours away.

UMassAm

dang, guess I'm lucky to have 2 weekly training races within 10 miles of me. Last weekend I participated in my first training crit, just starting to get into it- do wish I found the sport earlier, like in college. That wasn't me shovel, appreciate a good wave tho. All I get out here are confused looks and laughs from endurance riders wondering why I'm sprinting up hills...

saratoga

My limits are Gainesville to the north and Naples to the south, about a 2.5 hour radius. There are plenty that fall into this area.

Tallahassee (4 hours) and Miami (4.5-5 hours) are the furthest cities I've driven to on race weekends. Kind of have no desire to do that anymore... my days of racing in Daytona Beach one weekend then Jacksonville the next are over.

globecanvas

Maximum 2.5 hours, minimum 2 minutes, mean 30-45 minutes.

Agreed, tetonrider is going to win this one.

rkwaki

In my old days?
2 days of driving for stage races.
Hard to beat Shovel's 2800 miles for Masters Nats though...

Number400

I am lucky to live near Lancaster, PA. Lot's of racing around here and within 1 hour from home. I don't think I would ever drive more than that for a race at this point. I used to drive ultra crazy distances for other hobbies in the past but priorities have changed.

thechemist

That is good to hear! Lancaster is a potential relocation area in the distant future for me.

4-7 hours for me. 2hrs being close and at my current "greenness" I would go further for RR and closer for Crits

carpediemracing 

From just north of Hartford most of my races are 30-90 minutes away. Ninigret is on the far side at about 2 hours.

Fitness/commitment decide what races I do. If I mentally target a race a year or so in advance and I am focused on it for that year then I will make the trip. If it's a last minute decision or I'm not fit then I'll skip the bigger/harder/farther races.

If I'm not fit I skip races that require going past major traffic hubs - NYC and Boston. When fit I'll make a 2.5-3 hour drive to Somerville NJ, the 2+ hour drive to Harlem Crit in NYC. For example the Missus and I were discussing races last night and I said I didn't want to do Somerville or Harlem this year. It would be a waste to drive out there if I can only do a few laps of the race.

When single the most I drove was about 10-14 hours to start the Tour of Michigan, 8 crits in 10 days. The first race was in Muskegon, on the west side of Michigan. A friend from NY and I drove there. We killed his CRX Si, driving with the pedal to the floor pretty much the whole way. The next year we took my GTI and kept the bikes inside. Car was fine after.

The farthest I've gone "planning to race" is Las Vegas (USA Crits, Industry race, part of Interbike) and San Diego (Red Trolley Cat 3 or M35 race, as the end of my SoCal training camps). The Vegas race really occupied my mental energy - I spent most of my pre-trip energy on race stuff. I had a tip that my then hero Johann Museeuw would be lining up (he backed down at the last moment) so I wanted to be "good" for the race. The SoCal races are "if I'm not sick" but both were at very, very hard 2 week training camps. The 3s I was exhausted from a record training load, the M35 was the first day I wasn't sick that trip, both were relatively failures.

I also flew to Belgium for 3 weeks so I could do about 9 races. I was lucky my parents lived there for 3 years due to my dad's work. My mom was a big supporter of my cycling and tried to do some recon for me, buying some issues of the equivalent of Velonews. This was before Internet so all race schedules were published on the quick-production publications like Velonews (in the US). VN used to be "the" source for our race schedule, along with flyers we found under our wipers at races.
https://sprinterdellacasa.blogspot.co...kermesses.html

Creatre

This is pretty close to me too. I'll travel up to 7 hours away for a race. I'd say most races are within 3 hours though. Luckily there are a few "home" races within 30mins.

merlinextraligh

Jaksonville to Bend is 2835 miles.

But we did do a TT and a road race.

echappist

damn, i should consider myself lucky that 4 hours is probably the max for me. being newly gainfully-employed has me a bit less willing to travel too far to go race. Fortunately, there are a variety within a 4-hour radius.

badhat

previously, i races about anything in the BRAC region, which meants driving to denver and boulder a lot (an hour), and occasionally venturing into the mountains or wyoming or out east. i think the furthest was probably salida, which was like 4-5 hours eachway for a stage race.

but as of this year, or rather last month, i will no longer race anything i cant ride to.

i came to racing initially via living car free and bike commuting and wanting to celebrate that and over the years or racing, i've had an increasingly hard time justifying the increased footprint i leave by racing.

that means i race our local series, and i increase my commitment to making our local series diverse and fun and challenging. theres enough racers in NorCo that we create really vibrant grassroots events, especially if we're not shackled to the usac requirement that we have 45 categories for every race. A B C and juniors. thats all.

works great, keeps cost down (10 bucks a race), and everyone can ride to the start. almost every week of the season.

grolby

There's going to be a regional element to this. Currently, I live in the south, and 2 hours is a good radius for minor races, though if not for a local crit series that takes place only 7 miles from my door, there would be precious few races to go to within that radius. For bigger targets, I'm generally happy to go further - I've done several races the last couple of seasons that were 4-5 hours away. The drive isn't really the factor, rather, whether I'm willing to spend the money on a hotel room for a night or two is a bigger issue. When I raced collegiate, we had a couple 7-8 hour drives, but going to a collegiate race weekend with your teammates is a fun enough experience to make it worthwhile. These days, I would find that hard to do.

On the other hand, I'm originally from New England, moving back sometime this summer, and things in general are much closer together there, including the races. So it becomes harder to justify a really long drive when there are lots of closer races, as in, within 1.5 or even 1 hour. I'll still probably make an effort for the big regional races, like Battenkill or something similar, but... it's like this. I grew up in central Massachusetts, less than a 4 hour drive from New York City for my entire upbringing. And yet I literally never went, except for a school trip in 7th grade, before college, because it's just not worth it. Where I grew up, NYC was REALLY FAR away. So we went to Boston, which at 1-1.5 hours depending on traffic, was still pretty damn inconvenient. That's just how things work in the Northeast.

notwist

farthest i've traveled is 5.5 hrs (driving) but that was a 4 day stage race

Jandro 

2.5 hours one way. Unless it's really something special or I'm already in the area for other reasons.

caloso

2hrs.

McTufferton

We're lucky for a city the size of St. Louis we've got a great scene. Weekly Tuesday Nights all season, a weekly TT series, a weekly track series, a full crit/road calendar, and a TON of options every weekend either local or within 2 hours away.

Personally, I travel up to 5 or 6 hours for races. Tulsa, OK; Lawrence, KS; Kansas City; Glencoe, IL; Champaign, IL; Quad Cities, IA; etc.

pjcampbell

2 hours max each way. I've driven a lot further in the past, but it's too difficult with a little kid who spends enough time in the car as it is.

Creakyknees

Up until a few weeks ago I could pedal to the Tuesday nighter. About 8 miles one way, race 2 races and back home made for a 55-60 mile evening. But, alas, it's at a new location now so I have to drive ~30 minutes in traffic. Same for the Wednesday and Thursday nighters.

Weekends, a couple hours, depending on race start times. I haven't done an overnight racing weekend yet this year but many Texas racers do, since most of the races are in / near Austin / DFW / Houston.

mattm

Flying right? I'm not sure that really qualifies, we should be measuring this in time not distance anyway.. =]

mattm

Anyway, we did about 7 hours to San Dimas last month, and will be doing about 9 hours to Bend in July.

The 3.5 hours each way to the Hanford crit made me feel like a race junky though.. I did two races, but still.

On average it's about 2 hours each way for me lately. Glad I have a car.

carpediemracing 

This reminded me that I did the Bobby Phillips Turkey Race in Baltimore area. We drove down from CT to do the race and drove back after it. It was in the "5-6 hour each way" range.

YMCA

When I was racing often, there were no limits.

Now I don't get out of state.
So 3 hrs covers everything, except a couple events.

It's all about importance of the sport in your life at the time.