Originally Posted by
topflightpro
Bicycle races are incredibly expensive to put on, and they do not generate the participation numbers that running or triathlon events do. That's why you often don't get a t-shirt. I really wish that USAC had not stopped requiring all clubs to put on events, because there are a lot of people who have no clue how much work and cost is required to put on a race.
And you can look up USAC's finances online. They aren't rolling in it. A lot of the money that goes to USAC from racing fees goes to insurance coverage of racers. USAC pays out a lot to insure riders who are injured in crashes. Masters and Juniors nationals cover the costs of pro and elite nationals. (Pro Nationals loses money every year.)
Guess I need to look up their finances. Because USAC, if you have primary insurance, isnt going to pay a penny for medical costs. When I crashed, there was no mention by the organizer of insurance. Most require before you leave to fill out a form if you had an accident. How can you do that when you can barely move or write. Must be mostly event coverage for general things like my company gets for events we are involved with. Not medical I guess?
Amateur Masters cycling racers are by far the largest group of dopers caught and sanctioned of all amateur athletes in the US. Think someone mentioned this above also. And that is with a pathetic amount of testing done. Maybe a few hundred test all year for thousands of people and many races?
Payouts are a joke, don't cover the gas and time, pointless as well.
Seems like the number is actually much higher IMO who dope. Probably fact it is much higher considering the small sample taken and targeted amount of riders at specific events.
Anyway, around these parts, one of the two promoters isn't doing races anymore, one went mostly northern part of the state, out of most of the main region, and one is southern part of state. Numbers of events have gone from 10-12+ a year to maybe 3 that someone in our area would waste their time to go to. No joke. Why am I paying for a license even? To "clean" up the sport?!?! Kind of glad I crashed and didn't race for two years. Got my license again this year did only 1 race that worked into my personal schedule/life as a master's racer that is within 2hrs of me. So yeah, not renewing...the sport is dying in this Country, dope all you want guys.