"The 33"-Road Bike Racing - Waht are categories all about

Looking at race results I see that riders are classed as "cat 3" or "cat 5" etc. What is this all about? If I entered a race how would I know what category I was in?
Do you have to start at the bottom and work your way up? Or is it based on time trial times?

Thanks

:confused:

Stew

If you are new, you start as a cat 5. You will automatically become cat 4 after a certain # of events. The other catagories have to be earned.

So cat 4 and 5 riders would contain a mix of fairly fit & fast folk new to racing as well as (relatively) fat fading folk who like racing?

Stew

First: Get the USCF rule book and read it. All is explained there to the dot.

Basicly start at Cat 5 and work your way up. To Cat 4 simply by races entered. Cat 4 to 3 by points and the same way to the top Cat 1

Thi sin the USA. UCI simply goes by Sub23 and then Elite. No categories.

No faders in Cat 5, only inexperienced newbies. If you want to look for crashes, this is the catagory. Once you've done a few, you can no longer ride cat 5.

if you notice under stewartp's name he says he's from England, so telling him to read the american rule book on cycling might not be much help. it no doubt works differently here than it does in the u.s. it's all based on points gained from races, the more points you accumulate, the higher up the categories you go, starting off from 4th cat going upto elite cat. for more info stewartp, get hold of a copy of the British Cycling Federation hand book (i think the rule book might actually be a seperate book now, it used to be one book - race info + rules). anyway if you know someone with the handbook have a look, failing that go to www.bcf.uk.com. if there's no info there email them or ring them and they will send you a handbook/rulebook.

laters,

cabledonut.