Originally Posted by
carlosflanders
I agree with shortening the length and making it a bit more intense. Illinois is a crit state and the cup, at least, is honest about that. It's not intended to honor strong riders. Good thing to separate out the state champs as well.
I think it's crazy to remove the biggest category, both financially and from a points perspective. A lot of people upgraded to the 3s last year - there were lots of opportunities to earn points. Now there will be much fewer, with fewer upgrades.
Most 4s and 5s want to race twice, only a percentage will want to race open masters. I get to race 3 times if I wish.
Even USA Cycling have abandoned 30+, but not IL.
That said, I think it's an improvement overall. I think a minimum purse requirement would be great as well. Seems that the larger the numbers attending the more miserable and shallower the awards.
Best thing is that former pros who wish to race at cat 5 level need to do 10 races before they can start to bag the cash.
I'm contemplating putting all of the races on my calendar. So, regardless of what I may or may not thing of anything, it seems they've done a good job of making it more appealing (to me).
I'm wondering if they maybe haven't streamlined the whole thing a bit in an effort to give organizers the ability to run additional races of their choosing? Maybe you will see some masters 4/5... just not as a Il Cup cat.
The masters stuff does seem a bit much. There's no real good answer to that stuff, though. My personal thought is that there has got to be some way to attract decent fields in masters races and not necessarily run 3 races. Weird as it sounds, I'd consider going to something like 36+ and 48+. On the other hand, when you've got whole teams around here formed just to race masters stuff...