"The 33"-Road Bike Racing - Getting started and finding races

I've done a forum search and have learned enough to know that I'd start as a Cat 5 racer, but where does one go to find these races? I'm much more of a runner and I find it easy to find running races, but why is it so hard to find cycling races?

There are far less cycling races out there than running races. They are more complicated to host, insurance is expensive...Heck, you can put on a running race without fencing off the course and piling the hay bales.

I experienced the same thing coming from a running background. There is a local running race every weekend (at least within a short drive), even on holidays.

I was going to ask what part of the country you are in because it will help others narrow things down but I see that you are in Georgia.

Have you tried the website for the USCF? It should be www.usacycling.org but I can't get it to come up right now???
:crash:

According to Google, by the way, the USCF is the U.S. Chess Federation. I guarantee you could take those guys to school in your first race!

Yeah, that did work now. Click on "Road" and then there is a small icon at the top of the page for events. Enter Georgia into the search feature and a good number of events are on the calendar. If you want to know about specific events you can probably ask here. I'm sure that someone has ridden them all.

Good luck!

Ask someone at a bike shop or a bike club in your area. There are bound to be several racing oriented clubs in grtr Atlanta... call or email a club member. Once the season gets going, there are probably weekly evening crits in some office complex parking lot.