Does anyone enforce automatic upgrades?
 

The question: Does anyone in your conference actually "enforce" automatic upgrades?

Here in MABRA it seems like our upgrade coordinator (who is awesome) generally can enforce the automatic upgrade. However, the person generally doesn't pay attention to the hundreds of racers, each with dozens of results - it would be impossible. So, it comes down to racers being honest or people ratting them out. Kinda sucks.

I was automatically upgraded last month and was sure to submit my upgrade immediately. I didn't want my name to be associated with any sort of unfair racing - sandbagging or whatever. (Sure, I gained a lot of points, but I earned them all within one month and half of them in one week after racing the entire season.)

Sandbagging? Not me. I peaked and then I upgraded.

this is the 1st year I recall auto upgrades being enforced.

a few years ago when I was 1st a cat 3, evan fader was also, he won a bunch of races in impressive fashion but I dont believe he was auto upgraded. the next year, frederik from ncvc and bo lee were in a season long battle for the cat 3 BAR, they both had to have accumulated enough for auto upgrade, but neither was.

year after that, mike esmonde and jose escobar, I think they finished 1st and 2nd in at least 10 cat 3 races that year, but no auto upgrade.

this year has been odd for the auto upgrade from 3->2. alot of whining over folks winning races and not upgrading to cat 2, the whining was really pathetic IMO. to me, folks should really just worry about themselves and get better instead of worrying about who is beating them and whether they should upgrade or not.

Yeah- I can say from an administrator point of view, it's a PITA to track everyone. I try to keep eyes on folks who I see that are continually winning races. I also have excellent officials who let me know if someone continually wins and/or sandbags. I also wouldn't consider someone as "ratting" someone out if a person lets me know that hey, you should take a look at this person's file.

Fortunately, we're also moving to automate the system so folks can see in their personal file how many upgrade points they have- and also let me know if there are folks who have hit max.


k-

That would be cool!

+1

I'm still amazed that USA Cycling doesn't require promoters to submit race results (as of this year, we do require it here in MABRA, a great rule).

If they did require it, it'd be a much simpler system than their current rankings... which sometimes make zero sense at all.

lol, not in NY...in fact I have a teammate who should auto up to 3 and those jerks andy and paul won't let him!!! so he punishes the $#@$% outa the 4s

I hear you. We're fortunate to get 98% of the results within 3 days of the event- with almost all racers scored. It's rare we don't score everyone- if it happens, it's because of an equipment failure or we can't track down the doof who put their number on the wrong side or has their number covered up/mangled.

excuse me while I laugh internally. This from usac who manage to eff up the most rudimentary aspects of their flagship events?

yeah I read that blog from Roger Aspholm

I wouldn't think it would be that hard for USAC to create a database that tracks all of this.

No. But we've told Mollusk's team captain that if he doesn't upgrade after the season we're ratting him out. :)

Heh. We're not USAC/federation.

Our tracking system is actually open source too.

I think that he is waiting for Oct. 11th.;)

They have it but they don't utilize it appropriately....

From what I can tell it appears to be because many promoters don't report results - making even a good system almost worthless - and there are still a ton of mistakes in the results reported. (wheels on willy's in my results shows a date like 12/31/2031 or some such crap).

It really shouldn't be hard to do...when event is permitted an official should set the points by placing based on the qualifications of the even (whether it meets the point criteria and how deep it should go, etc...). Results reported....points added.

...I heard computers are pretty good at math. - they're not just for porn and email anymore.

There is a guy who is a 5 (where I don't believe there is an enforced upgrade/point rule) who solos to a win almost every crit race in the 4/5s. He has won like three 5 race series in a row. He outwardly said (in spanish) that he didn't want to upgrade b/c he like winning the money in cat 4/5 races. That's actually kind of pathetic, since the money is certainly not much.

I don't think [edit: forcing someone to upgrade] the upgrading from 3-2-1 is as big of a deal as the 5-4-3 though. Cat 5 and 4, most of them are waiting to get out of there and many are new to racing. I could see it being a little frustrating to be competing against guys who should be at least 3s every weekend. Remember that part of being able to better yourself is being able to commit the time to training, which some folks just can't do, so for a guy to sandbag it pretty lame and dispicable in Cat4/5 races.

Also, quite a few races down here are run P123 so it doesn't really matter what cat you are amongst those, except for seperate scoring, but in my mind I'm not excited to be the 20th guy to finish but I got 4th in Cat 3!

Personally, I got my points and I upgraded to 3s halfway through the season this year. Sure, Cat 3 and p123 races (which have been all my races since I upgraded) are more challenging and I'll have to work/train harder/smarter to get back on the podium, but I like the challenge. Travelling all over the state to what for a field sprint or to race for 35 minutes would get old pretty quickly for me. Give my the 65+ mile RRs and the 70 minute crits. At least I feel like I was in a race afterwards!

We will give him until October 13th. After that we're reporting him to the police. :)

Just because a guy bolts from your team to be with the cool kids. :)

After States is what he told me. He really wants that jersey!

I'm thinking he will do OK in the P/1/2 arena. Heck, he is placing very well in the P/1/2/3 races right now. And Ben P will be happy to have a teammate for the P/1/2 races.

Now we need to get Keith R into the 3's to try and teach AT (aka The Italian Stallion) how to race something other than a TT. I told Ben P last year that we needed to put together a "tape" of how Cancellara could destroy folks from a couple of "clicks" and give it to AT. That is how AT can win races and you know how he is "all up upon" everything Italian.;)

Does he want the FPS jersey, or the state championship jersey? He's probably got the FPS jersey locked up by now..

Eric's a good kid, we like him quite a bit, and we don't hold any grudges. He's going to do well in the 2's. I need to get in some of that "learning how to race" bit myself.. Maybe if I cared about more than helping my teammates out then I'd do better?

Helping teammates is a big part of racing. Helping teammates win is very cool. There is no problem with that. In a race that starts with 100 riders there is only one winner and 99 losers if you think that getting yourself across the line first is the only thing that matters. That isn't only what this sport is about.

This sport is about making everyone else work so hard that they bleed from their ears.

:roflmao2:

Come play tomorrow! Or get your homies to come do the north ride on Sunday when you guys do your team ride. It'll be just like the sharks and the jets.

http://z.about.com/d/manhattan/1/0/I...tSideStory.jpg

^^^haha

mollusk, you're on 352? This all makes more sense to me.

Eric is a freak. A rather fast freak. I like racing with him just because he can kick my ass pretty effectively.

So your team will the be "light in the loafers" dancers?:roflmao2:

Seriously I call "Not Fair". So Eric S is out of town, AT almost never does the group ride, Ben P has been rock climbing instead of riding his bike and you are calling for a rumble. If I can recruit Bobby S and Shawn G (both doing a tech elective special topics course in bicycle aerodynamics with me in the Fall) then we are ON!:roflmao2::roflmao2::roflmao2:

Yeah, I'm a 352 guy. An OLD 352 guy. I'm older than Dave Low. I'm probably older than Eric S's father. I'm retrogrouch that races on steel bikes. I am an older than Kerry guy, but not quite as old as Tom Wells guy. And I'm too fat and too slow for this sport, but I love it anyways.

What's funny is Eric's really not substantially faster than some other guys racing in the 3s (I have his wattage numbers), he's just a tactical genius. He knows when to go and when to stay put saving energy.

And he's got a strong desire to win.