mollusk

It used to be that if you were a new racer, but have been riding the local hard group rides with the well respected racers in the area and you showed good pack skills, the "cool kids" could put in the good word to the local upgrade official and you could get an early upgrade. To my mind it is the equivalent of doing clinics. Unfortunately doing things that way opens up lots of potential legal problems which I guess is one reason why it doesn't happen anymore. Sigh.

Do they still allow sanctioned training crits to count as mass starts for the 5 to 4 upgrade? That is the cheap way to do it if there is a training crit series locally and it is still an option. 10 "full price" races can be a lot of $'s to become a 4.

BlakeT933

Doing group rides and riding for a club does not simulate racing.

If the person you are referring to races a couple of races and rides away from everyone, they'll cat him up if he sends a request.

globecanvas

Maybe the 5->4 upgrade path should require a couple of crits. There are many cat 3s who still don't have the comfort level to race a crit, even though they can win road races off the front.

merlinextraligh

That's obviously true, but I don't know of anybody that's done any actual measurements. So, we're pretty much limited to anecdotal observations.

Most basic metrics would be crash frequency, and severity. USA Cycling, and its insurers likely have loss runs that would have data, but that would only capture accidents that resulted in insurance claims, which is likely a very small percentage of accidents.

Crash frequency and severity, would also be subject to a lot of confounders, such as course design, and field size.

shovelhd

Every rider crash is supposed to be reflected in an incident report, with all riders identified. They know who is crashing. The only way to know why is to ask those involved. This is how it was done in the old days.

I am absolutely 100% against Cat5 early upgrades for reasons I have stated many times.

topflightpro

Here are my thoughts on various comments:

* There was a Pro Triathlete around here a couple years ago that switched to road bicycling. He dominated every Cat 5 and 4/5 race he was in. I remember in one 30-min. crit watching him lap the Cat 5 field three times, and he probably could have done it a fourth time if he wanted. There were lots of complaints lodged to local officials about his dominance, but the head official would not upgrade him early. Her reasoning: He had not shown an ability to be a safe rider in a pack. If she upgraded him early and he caused a big crash with injuries, she and USAC could be held liable for not following their stated requirements for upgrades.

(Side note: He was a two by the end of the season, and he crashed a lot. After about a dozen crashes, someone finally commented to him, You know, you keep saying some other guy did this, but you seem to be crashing more than most. Maybe it's you.)

* Per Shovel's comments, I was upgraded to a 3 by my local official. I did not have the points. But she had seen me race for many seasons. She knew me well and knew what I was capable of. She also knew what I did in races to help my teammates (not always a solo sport, but I digress) and how that affected my placings.

* Pack skills are huge. My skills are a bit rusty after taking off a year due to injury, and I am actively working on regaining my confidence in cornering.

carpediemracing 

I haven't been able to think about a response but now that the weekend is over I have a bit more time. Yes, you're right, there's no objective metric. Yes, it's anecdotal. Yes, there's an element of "the good old days". I try to be aware of them, I try to take that into account. If nothing else my helmet cam and working a finish line camera has really opened my eyes on how poorly people remember things, me included.

With that in mind I think there has been two major changes in entry level racing - improved training methods and the lack of the "all-round" upgrade. The first is pretty clear - there are a lot of riders out there who are super concerned with fitness, diet, power, etc, as evidenced by the number of coaches offering training programs. The result is that there are many very fit riders out there.

The second is less obvious. When I was as good as I'd ever be (late 80s, early 90s), you had to fulfill two requirements to upgrade. You had to earn places, and it was top 3 in 3 or top 6 in 6. A 7th didn't count. If you got 6th you had to get 5 more 6ths (or better) to upgrade. 7th counted for nothing.

You also had to get your points in crits and road races, at least to upgrade from 3 to 2. I don't think it was a rule per se, but the district rep definitely wanted to see both types of races in your 3 or 6 places. For many years I had enough points to upgrade but I failed to place in road races so I couldn't upgrade, and in fact I pretty much never finished a road race with the group, forget about the lead break/etc.

So, just to make things clear, everyone started as a Cat 4 back then. So the first upgrade was to Cat 3, and you had to do well to upgrade. To upgrade to Cat 2 was a huge deal. Cat 1, at the time, was meant to be sort of a National Team reserve, so there was a very limited number of Cat 1s (total 200?). I recall numbers in the 15-16k each for the Cat 4s and 3s, something like 3-5k Cat 2s, and the few hundred Cat 1s, which is about right for the 35-38k licenses back then.

There was also a big emphasis on clubs, who both promoted races as well as spread (hopefully) better group riding skills. Most promoters imposed a hefty "unattached" fee, like $5-10 for a $15-20 entry fee (remember this is when gas was a dollar a gallon or less, and it cost $20 to fill our massive 1978 Pontiac Bonneville). With advertising very limited (measured areas allowed on different panels, defined by the rules), racers didn't form teams left and right to advertise their own thing. They belonged to a local club, learned from the patrons of the club, and that was that. In CT, a smaller state in the USCF days, there were only a few clubs, but at least one of them had something like 150 members, and I think all of New England had 1500 racers. Now if you have a club with more than 50 riders it's pretty big, and a normal club might have 10-20 licensed racers, if that.

So back to metrics, etc.

In the old day you had a pretty solid infrastructure for getting new riders to learn how to ride in the field. They immediately raced with relatively experienced racers. Think of all the Cat 4s out there that have been 4s for a while. Now add all the Cat 3s that upgraded on experience, not on places, racers that are typically fodder in a Cat 3 race. All those riders were "Cat 4s" back in the day. A new racer got to race with relatively experienced racers so they got to learn pretty quickly.

Then the rules changed a bit. More advertising allowed. Team names could be the sponsor name (before it wasn't allowed - old timers will know that "East Side Wheelmen" was the club behind the amateur 7-Eleven team, but they were registered as "East Side Wheelmen").

As cycling became more popular there were more fit people starting racing. A teammate of mine back in the day was a good runner, he'd consistently get 2nd or 3rd in the local races, and he was a super strong rider. However he was so bad on the bike handling-wise we called him "Weavin' Weaver". He cleaned up but for a while he was crashing all over the place (he broke his collarbone at least once).

Back in the day I was a meek little rider. I got to eavesdrop on a lot of conversations because the patrons of the field would talk while I was around. The patrons of the time were early-mid 70s Olympians who obviously had both talent and skills, and many/most of them are racing today (and in fact one of them commented positively on my sprint Saturday, the first time this multi-time national champion has ever spoken to me, and I've been racing against him for 25? years). At any rate they were bemoaning the influx of strong but unskilled racers in the field, and in fact they'd ride differently in order to get rid of those interlopers.

One "metric" that I use is cornering skills. I understand the bobble, the swerve, but I don't excuse the lack of education that leads riders to make up their own lines while cornering in the middle of a field. However that's what I saw happening at the back of some of the Cat 3-4 races I've done, the one B race I did a few years ago, and the B races I've done this year. The B races at the beginning of this year was pretty bad. The first corner of the race a bunch of guys had to ride on the sidewalk to avoid crashing. It wasn't much better the following week, and I was appalled.

A number of racers asked me for advice, teammates and not, friends and not. I had a discussion with the promoter and the sponsoring (Junior development) club and said that unless they had problems with it I'd try to help out. I didn't want to step on their feet, but if they were overextended I didn't want to wait until someone crashed before anyone did something. They gave the go ahead, I put up a series of posts, meant for everyone, so that both teammates and others could read them.

The following week the racers, except one, were cornering like pretty experienced racers. It wasn't lack of technique, it had been lack of knowledge. Previously one inexperienced racer was screaming at another to "follow the line of the curb" the first week. A disastrous method of cornering in a field, forget about cornering alone, especially in a sharp corner.

That's probably not an answer to your question (well I did say that there's no objective metric). However that's not the point. The point is that there's a distinct lack of knowledge about basic racing craft locally and I want to fix it.

shovelhd

Excellent post CDR.

Ygduf

Why don't you guys start advocating for something concrete, like a crash/injury/incident reporting system for USAC events so there can actually be some metric.

If you crash in a race, you or a witness fills out a form that says crash, # involved, incident type (flat e.g. flat corner vs. solo descent vs. wheel overlap vs. piling into downed riders) etc. Make it short, sweet, but start putting something to a measure other than "back in my day."

mattm

I keep hearing this.

While I don't doubt that people are better-trained these days, what I wonder is did everyone suck in the good ol days?

shovelhd

What did back then is as relevant today as it was back then. Don't dismiss it so willingly. We're talking about observation and expert reasoning. It can be quantified somewhat but it's not going to be condensed into a chart.

We we can advocate whatever we want to at the local level but USAC has to be on board or it will have a minimal effect. The proper way to start in my mind is at the LA officials meeting over the winter. Let's see how this is received.

carpediemracing 

I don't understand the bolded part, the implication of it.

I almost never warm up for a race, hence my question.

himespau 

Maybe he's saying that if someone just shows up, pins on a number, races, and leaves, they're not going to have time to "hand hold" new racers (assuming they're in a different race). Obviously isn't aware that that's precisely what you're doing in your races by riding the B race with your newer teammates rather than the A race. Or maybe there isn't someone doing that in his area. Or isn't connected enough in the scene to know who that person is.

TexMac

Maybe you are the exception but I believe warming is very important before a race. Someone had posted a detailed research on this earlier.

TexMac

I meant these folks had no idea that warming up was important, hence got dropped first lap.

carpediemracing 

I have, although I didn't mention it before.

I was discouraged a few years ago when I asked for crash statistics. USAC said they didn't compile those, they don't keep a history of suspensions (except drug related, which USADA tracks, and current/unresolved suspensions). I thought of doing that myself, having one of my machines download the license database nightly off USAC's site and storing it (a lot of my last IT life revolved around that kind of a set up, analyzing the data, etc.). It would be an interesting exercise.

I actually proposed to USAC that they track repeat offenders and establish an escalating penalty system, just as I described above, even if only to keep a database. As an example I used the rider that took me out. He had taken out much of the front of the field 9 days prior (with a very intentional move sweeping across the road in the heart of field sprint) but wasn't suspended so he could keep racing. There's no tracking of relegations, suspensions, etc. He also served an off season suspension but there's no record of that anywhere.

I decided ultimately not to download the USAC database daily or even weekly, although I suppose I could start it at some point.

I also decided to give up on any kind of USAC tracking of anything, at least for now.

Finally although crashes can be the result of a poor bike racer, my goal is to make racing better, not necessarily more anything else. Yes, people stay upright more if they have better skills or knowledge, but mainly because they don't get into weird situations that require remarkable bike handling skills. Tracking crashes isn't the way to go about making racers better, it's something else.

carpediemracing 

But it's not important, at least to me, except in very unusual situations/courses. Maybe it's important for optimal physiological performance, but that's rarely important in a mass start race. For track, TTs, RR that start on a climb, or ultra technical crits (for example an 8 corner 1/2 mile course in the wet), yes, warming up would be good, and I'd want to.

For pretty much everything else not so much.

The emphasis on optimal physiological performance obscures the importance of race craft, which is what I was saying has happened over the last 10-15 years. I forget but I just remembered that I even put a quote about it in my sig.

Saturday I worked hard from about 7:30 until about 11 AM (physical and mental stuff, very stressful, so much so I almost skipped going to the race), got to the venue at about 11:35, got registered, pinned my number on, and started the race at 11:50. I missed the break that had my teammate in it (not that I could have gone, warmed up or not), I chose to hold back when ex-pro Frank McCormack ripped off the front to chase (I was suffering), splintering the field. I won the field sprint to take the bronze medal for the state. Everyone knew the bronze was up for grabs so it was a "real sprint", not just for pride.

The last time I rode the bike before that was Tuesday, when I raced it for about an hour. Before that, same, the Tuesday before. I got an hour of training in the prior week, and raced Tuesday. Etc. Right now I'm not fit at all. I can't sustain big efforts. Yet I can participate in races. You can check my training on Strava, which I've used meticulously since May 2012. You can see my various race results (and the various DNFs as well).

I've been doing this because it's an n=1 sample of how race craft is important compared to simply being fit. In 2010 I was fit, doing maybe 5-8 hours a week, and I upgraded to Cat 2. Now it's more like 1-2 hours a week, and I'm somewhat competitive in less selective races.

I don't have some phenomenal FTP to rely on (it's about 220w on a good day). I have a reasonable jump (1200w peak on Saturday, but due to lack of fitness my 18 second number was something like 750w, about 200-250w lower than what I'd see in 2010).

revchuck 

He is just that strong. He was a 5 in Monroe, a 4 at the Tour du Lac in Lake Charles, and a 3 at Rouge-Roubaix. For non-LAMBRA folks, that's a month and a half's time. He came in 6th overall IIRC last weekend at the Tour de Louisiane in the 1/2/3 field as a 3. God help the 1s when he learns how to race. He's very aware of his lack of experience. Plus he's a super-nice guy. And a teammate.

gsteinb

That just doesn't seem a sound philosophical argument. I'm fast. I warm up. And I have race craft. It's like saying one shouldn't use a faster set of wheels because it de-emphasizes race craft. In truth though one should maximize all the advantages one has available to them. Ultimately they're weighed on some sort of scale of cost and aggravation, with race craft being (usually) just a time and attention cost. I've won races where I didn't warm up, but it's usually circumstances where others didn't warm up either (raining or super early in the morning). I much better if I warm up properly.

Ygduf

my issue with all of this is just that it's 100% N = 1 anecdotes.

I won Boonville RR that starts out on a 13% climb for a mile with no warmup, but I'm not going to weigh in on whether warmups are necessary. I also see some guys who climb fast that, and get this, they don't use Strava, so it can't be to blame for their fitness. Also, I DO use Strava, and I can't descend for ****, so that whole "strava makes people go fast" thing isn't working for me.

I've seen old racers make stupid moves on group rides (like diving across the group to get the draft of a passing car to attack!) and that tells me "back in the day" probably was just like it is now, only you're all viewing things in sharp-edges-dulled-by-time sepia tones.

I mean sure, N = 1, and I have no evidence or even any specific claims to back up, but that's all it takes to be an expert in here.

kmill23

Super nice guy and crazy strong. I raced in the 1/2/3 field at Tour de Louisiane this weekend with him. I can't believe the TT he laid down. That was smoking fast and won the TT overall. I was on my way back to the start and saw him motoring and thought "Yep. That's going to be a FAST time."

YMCA

you rang???

gsteinb

Back in the day was certainly the same by my perspective, and it's also true due to modern training more guys get fitter faster. That doesn't necessarily mean that given more time they'd cultivate better skills. I know plenty of guys who have raced for a million years and still can't handle a bike worth a damn.

grolby

Yeah, but will a proper warm up make the difference between a Cat 5 getting dropped in the first lap and finishing with the group? That was sort of what TexMac, who originated the warm up thread of this conversation, was implying. Whether intentionally or not. Anyway, I don't really know how much of a difference it makes, but if there are problems with the way new racers are handled, I don't think that many of them lie in how effectively those Cat 5s are preparing right before their races.

gsteinb

I was really just looking at that as an example of "The emphasis on optimal physiological performance obscures the importance of race craft, which is what I was saying has happened over the last 10-15 years."

I don't think warming up or not makes the difference of getting dropped or not, in many or even most cases. Between winning or not though? And yes, it becomes less important the longer a race is, perhaps even if you start off on a stout climb.