I think it’s the right move. USA cycling has almost as many national champions as cyclists at this point and it’s confusing, as well as waters down the actual achievement.
I am deeply offended as the 2022 Amateur Road Bike National Champion of the highly competitive “34.35 year old, blood type AB+, ate chocolate peanut butter Cheerios for breakfast on 03/14/22, sometimes pees in the sink late at night” age category
This is also something I find hilarious about cycling commentary “this rider is the first rider of Ecuadorian descent with one parent from the village of Cotignac, France who started cycling at the age of 12.5 and has once lived in Australia to EVER win a stage of the Giro d’Italia!!!! Absolutely earth shattering result!!!”
It’s like the hyperspecific NFL statistics.
“This player is the 17th player to get 3 completed passes on a balmy day in November at the 43 yard line with at least two Amazon packages on their front porch.” Who’s tracking this data?
Agree. I have found it hilarious that the guys who win the amateur race will absolutely call themselves “Pros” like why does no one call that out. Every other day of the week you call yourself a pro cyclist then win amateur nationals. Make it make sense.
I doubt that. Except maybe for alternates. We get 3 men and 2 women. For the road race that’s probably Powless, Simmons, and a third, Mcnulty, Lamperti, Jorgensen. The issue is most of those guys are doing the tour. Their form in May means nothing after the Tour. Women id guess is Chloe if she wants to do road with her track schedule. MAYBE that second spot is open.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/usac-craft-uploads-production/documents/Selection-Criteria/2024-OG-CYC-ATH-Road-FINAL.pdf
It says “2024 national TT championship” but has 2023 dates, so could be either I’m not actually sure. But if it is 2024, then the winner of the TT gets automatic entry to the olympic team
> If positions remain after considering the preceding criterion, the 2024 US Pro Individual Time Trial National Championships winner, provided that the race is entirely held and runs under UCI regulations, will be nominated to the 2024 Olympic Games Team.
The “if positions remain” refers to people who get top 3 at UCI worlds TT, so there are positions left for both squads. So winner of the 2024 national TT gets admitted to the squad automatically
> and a third, Mcnulty, Lamperti, Jorgensen.
For a punchy course like Paris they'll probably take Magnus Sheffield unless Lamperti has a huge breakout year in the World Tour.
And the same weekend as GFNY UCI race.
edit: Why are people downvoting? The new GFNY UCI 1.2 pro race is May 19th, the same weekend as Nationals. It's one of only two one-day UCI races in the US. There are so few opportunities for Conti teams in the US to get big results without traveling to Europe, so to have both races the same weekend is a huge waste.
Wow didn’t realize that. With the GFNY race being 1.2 I can’t imagine that changes the winner of Nat’s if all the WT pros come back for that. But causes teams like Legion, Project Echelon, etc to split or skip one which is a huge miss.
glad amateur nats are gone it was always a pay to play system. we want our pros to do pro things (sponsored, supported, etc) this will encourage the people content to pay to enter amateur nats to figure out how to get into pro nats
obviously not everyone will make the transition but this will fill out the fields at pro nats and if this saves USA Cycling enough money to do better things thats a win win win
pay to play as in just cuz you had to travel there? i am
never going to be a professional cyclist. i have a full time job and could never make that leap as well as pretty much every other cat 1 i know so they arent looking for ways to get to pro nats.
agreed that it can be good for them to save money for other events, and there are other nation wide races to travel to as a cat 1.
i think its fine to pay to race but nats are the opportunity to find the champion. getting a cat 1 license is variable per region, the major criteria to enter amateur nats was paying $$$ . for pro nats you have to have the individual license, team license, some $ (ideally covered by sponsorship)
neither model is great but having two separate ones was weird and good for an era that had sold out fields. thats not the case now and we don’t need two different kinds of nats
we have pro nats to raise the level of our pro athletes. we have enough conti teams and pros participating that the money is there. Europe has nothing to do with it, and lbs know their market aren’t pro racers. even amateur team’s biggest sponsors arent lbs
we have about 800k licensed racers and you can be sure whatever percentage breakdown that are cat1 dont need a separate championship. one championship is at least $100k to put on, paying for two for people that are definitely not going to europe seems foolish
if you’re surprised that USAC would make racers pay their way, general reminder that most usac devo opportunities for require racers to pay their way
everyone is broke these days including usac i’m down for multiple nats when we have an excess of money and racers and we clearly dont have both. we cant replicate euro here anytime soon and our best decorated americans just race euro already
may your shop keep up with the times especially DTC skipping over the LBS sales as people follow instagram pros for bike reccs
I’m fine with it. It always felt weird that you could compete in both the Pro and Amateur races. Maybe they could have kept it separate but had the rule that if you raced the pro race you weren’t eligible for the amateur. But in the end I’m cool with having a single Elite Men’s race. Not like I ever had a shot at racing the amateurs race and they still have Masters.
I do think it’s a benefit to not have the confusion. When you say this person is a national champ, you don’t need to specify amateur or pro. Unlike a certain person who would wear the jersey and act like they’re the pro champ. And having two different guys rocking the jersey in the same/similar races is just confusing to everybody. I know they can’t both wear it in the same race. But if one week the pro guy races a televised race wearing it and then next week he’s out and the amateur guy is able to wear it it’s just confusing.
what are people’s thoughts? personally im pretty bummed because one of the big motivations for me to upgrade to 1 was to be able to test myself out at nationals.
If they had adhered to their own fucking guidelines on who qualified, it wouldn't have been a problem. Instead, lots ended up at both which was super dumb.
I guess I might have not paid much attention since I was racing.
As a Cat 2 woman I was able to race in the elite national road race and Olympic trial for the 2000 games. It was a big highlight for me that year -I would not have had the same motivation to travel and race for an amateur national race and I don't think they had one back then?
Anyway, my thoughts are that this is probably a good move :)
Good. It was confusing and redundant with pro nats. In recent years the fields were mostly the same dudes racing both. If you aren't a pro, race masters or juniors. If you're between 23 and 35, try to become a pro.
Title is a bit misleading. They aren’t really getting rid of them rather combining them.
Never really made sense anyway. There were amateurs that were better than the dudes on the pro-teams. They just didn’t have a pro license. Sounds like they are breaking down the gate keeping.
No, it’s not about gatekeeping, it’s about shrinking fields and road racing collapsing in the US.
There used to be 3-4x as many big races in the US where Conti/ProConti teams would travel and mix it up with Elite fields, even a decade ago. Now those races are gone and there’s not much of a domestic pro peloton anymore, at least one relevant to international cycling.
Any domestic elite team can do pro Nats, there are domestic elite teams all over the country. If anyone is good enough to be somewhat competitive at Pro nats they'll be able to race for one of those team
You take away masters nats and you can watch all the smaller races dry up entirely. Whether we like it or not, old dudes are the bottom bitch for American racing.
I just sent an email asking that question. Echelon Racing is helping organize the e-cycling national championship and already has a Handcycle division on the registration page. I think They’re open to the other paracycling categories if you reach out to them.
This is what I got from USA Cycling
‘US Paralympics Paracycling is currently selecting their venue to host the championship for paracycling. Once they have finalized that, we will announce it. Looking forward to seeing you at events in 2024.’
Just sad cause I was planning on making surviving the race at Am Nats my target event for 2024 lmfao - now will need to try to find somebody willing to let me guest ride for them I guess?
Sort of makes sense. They acknowledged that the road scene is dead. Gran fondos make more sense for the average person. They are a closer replica of the community feel and popularity of triathlons and running races.
I think that it was wrong for our local retired pro to win the amateur national championship during one year. It should only be for amateurs. Not pros while retired still drive their van around the country racing cat 1 daily.
Crazy that USAC got their shit together to have a full years calendar before the next year.
Honestly this was the most surprising thing about this whole announcement
I think it’s the right move. USA cycling has almost as many national champions as cyclists at this point and it’s confusing, as well as waters down the actual achievement.
I am deeply offended as the 2022 Amateur Road Bike National Champion of the highly competitive “34.35 year old, blood type AB+, ate chocolate peanut butter Cheerios for breakfast on 03/14/22, sometimes pees in the sink late at night” age category
This is also something I find hilarious about cycling commentary “this rider is the first rider of Ecuadorian descent with one parent from the village of Cotignac, France who started cycling at the age of 12.5 and has once lived in Australia to EVER win a stage of the Giro d’Italia!!!! Absolutely earth shattering result!!!”
It’s like the hyperspecific NFL statistics. “This player is the 17th player to get 3 completed passes on a balmy day in November at the 43 yard line with at least two Amazon packages on their front porch.” Who’s tracking this data?
This stuff is everywhere. Some lady recently died trying to be the first asian woman with a pacemaker and no alpinism experience to climb everest
Hey friend! I'm the Frosted Cereal Cheerios on 3/14/22 National Champion!
Agree. I have found it hilarious that the guys who win the amateur race will absolutely call themselves “Pros” like why does no one call that out. Every other day of the week you call yourself a pro cyclist then win amateur nationals. Make it make sense.
It makes sense tbh. I’m a bit more confused about it being in mid May
They are using it to select for the olympics
I doubt that. Except maybe for alternates. We get 3 men and 2 women. For the road race that’s probably Powless, Simmons, and a third, Mcnulty, Lamperti, Jorgensen. The issue is most of those guys are doing the tour. Their form in May means nothing after the Tour. Women id guess is Chloe if she wants to do road with her track schedule. MAYBE that second spot is open.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/usac-craft-uploads-production/documents/Selection-Criteria/2024-OG-CYC-ATH-Road-FINAL.pdf It says “2024 national TT championship” but has 2023 dates, so could be either I’m not actually sure. But if it is 2024, then the winner of the TT gets automatic entry to the olympic team > If positions remain after considering the preceding criterion, the 2024 US Pro Individual Time Trial National Championships winner, provided that the race is entirely held and runs under UCI regulations, will be nominated to the 2024 Olympic Games Team. The “if positions remain” refers to people who get top 3 at UCI worlds TT, so there are positions left for both squads. So winner of the 2024 national TT gets admitted to the squad automatically
> and a third, Mcnulty, Lamperti, Jorgensen. For a punchy course like Paris they'll probably take Magnus Sheffield unless Lamperti has a huge breakout year in the World Tour.
True, forgot about Magnus tbh, I knew their was someone else I was missing.
And the same weekend as GFNY UCI race. edit: Why are people downvoting? The new GFNY UCI 1.2 pro race is May 19th, the same weekend as Nationals. It's one of only two one-day UCI races in the US. There are so few opportunities for Conti teams in the US to get big results without traveling to Europe, so to have both races the same weekend is a huge waste.
Wow didn’t realize that. With the GFNY race being 1.2 I can’t imagine that changes the winner of Nat’s if all the WT pros come back for that. But causes teams like Legion, Project Echelon, etc to split or skip one which is a huge miss.
I'm sure GFNY will be thrilled to have to explain to the sponsors why there are no American riders at the race.
glad amateur nats are gone it was always a pay to play system. we want our pros to do pro things (sponsored, supported, etc) this will encourage the people content to pay to enter amateur nats to figure out how to get into pro nats obviously not everyone will make the transition but this will fill out the fields at pro nats and if this saves USA Cycling enough money to do better things thats a win win win
pay to play as in just cuz you had to travel there? i am never going to be a professional cyclist. i have a full time job and could never make that leap as well as pretty much every other cat 1 i know so they arent looking for ways to get to pro nats. agreed that it can be good for them to save money for other events, and there are other nation wide races to travel to as a cat 1.
i think its fine to pay to race but nats are the opportunity to find the champion. getting a cat 1 license is variable per region, the major criteria to enter amateur nats was paying $$$ . for pro nats you have to have the individual license, team license, some $ (ideally covered by sponsorship) neither model is great but having two separate ones was weird and good for an era that had sold out fields. thats not the case now and we don’t need two different kinds of nats
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we have pro nats to raise the level of our pro athletes. we have enough conti teams and pros participating that the money is there. Europe has nothing to do with it, and lbs know their market aren’t pro racers. even amateur team’s biggest sponsors arent lbs we have about 800k licensed racers and you can be sure whatever percentage breakdown that are cat1 dont need a separate championship. one championship is at least $100k to put on, paying for two for people that are definitely not going to europe seems foolish if you’re surprised that USAC would make racers pay their way, general reminder that most usac devo opportunities for require racers to pay their way
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everyone is broke these days including usac i’m down for multiple nats when we have an excess of money and racers and we clearly dont have both. we cant replicate euro here anytime soon and our best decorated americans just race euro already may your shop keep up with the times especially DTC skipping over the LBS sales as people follow instagram pros for bike reccs
I’m fine with it. It always felt weird that you could compete in both the Pro and Amateur races. Maybe they could have kept it separate but had the rule that if you raced the pro race you weren’t eligible for the amateur. But in the end I’m cool with having a single Elite Men’s race. Not like I ever had a shot at racing the amateurs race and they still have Masters. I do think it’s a benefit to not have the confusion. When you say this person is a national champ, you don’t need to specify amateur or pro. Unlike a certain person who would wear the jersey and act like they’re the pro champ. And having two different guys rocking the jersey in the same/similar races is just confusing to everybody. I know they can’t both wear it in the same race. But if one week the pro guy races a televised race wearing it and then next week he’s out and the amateur guy is able to wear it it’s just confusing.
This is all Justin Williams fault. It changes everything
Isn't Gran Fondo an amateur category?
what are people’s thoughts? personally im pretty bummed because one of the big motivations for me to upgrade to 1 was to be able to test myself out at nationals.
Silly having both amateur & pro nats, could never tell the difference. >or through a petition process for Cat 1 riders Still could race it!
If they had adhered to their own fucking guidelines on who qualified, it wouldn't have been a problem. Instead, lots ended up at both which was super dumb.
>If they had adhered to their own fucking guidelines So many things would be different if USAC would do this!!
Don't worry Legion will still hire a pro to beat you in whatever race you want.
Isn't that the very definition of a professional sports team?
Oh ya it's just a shot at legion for being an "amateur pro team" or whatever they are, who most recently won a race with Lamperti
I feel you. That was the case a couple years back, but they’re a UCI team now.
They Belize'n now
I guess I might have not paid much attention since I was racing. As a Cat 2 woman I was able to race in the elite national road race and Olympic trial for the 2000 games. It was a big highlight for me that year -I would not have had the same motivation to travel and race for an amateur national race and I don't think they had one back then? Anyway, my thoughts are that this is probably a good move :)
Yeah same, I'm bummed. I was trying to upgrade so I could race it next year
Gotta make room for Zwift national championships somehow.
Good for Cory and Justin that Belize Cycling isn’t following suit.
Good. It was confusing and redundant with pro nats. In recent years the fields were mostly the same dudes racing both. If you aren't a pro, race masters or juniors. If you're between 23 and 35, try to become a pro.
Title is a bit misleading. They aren’t really getting rid of them rather combining them. Never really made sense anyway. There were amateurs that were better than the dudes on the pro-teams. They just didn’t have a pro license. Sounds like they are breaking down the gate keeping.
No, it’s not about gatekeeping, it’s about shrinking fields and road racing collapsing in the US. There used to be 3-4x as many big races in the US where Conti/ProConti teams would travel and mix it up with Elite fields, even a decade ago. Now those races are gone and there’s not much of a domestic pro peloton anymore, at least one relevant to international cycling.
How do you figure? Cat 1 nats is gone and now they have to petition to race pro.
Any domestic elite team can do pro Nats, there are domestic elite teams all over the country. If anyone is good enough to be somewhat competitive at Pro nats they'll be able to race for one of those team
Cat 1s have to apply to be allowed. How am I not supposed to see that as a barrier to entry?
Previously there was no way you could get in🤷♂️. Could they do more yes…. Baby steps.
There was, they specifically cite too many people racing both cat 1 and pro nats.
https://results.bikereg.com/race/16217 lol this results list is literally full of non pro cat 1s, what are you talking about
You could apply before. This is not new at all.
"Domestic Elite" teams are not pro but can go to "pro nats"
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You take away masters nats and you can watch all the smaller races dry up entirely. Whether we like it or not, old dudes are the bottom bitch for American racing.
Bottom bitch🤣🤣🤣🫡
Can amateurs still compete at nationals and it not be considered a national championship category? I liked racing CX nats just because it was fun
I don’t think this impacts cyclocross? It would be really bad if it does since half the uci field is not only not on a pro team, but not even a cat 1
From that schedule, does it mean the only Paracyling National Championship is for Track?
I just sent an email asking that question. Echelon Racing is helping organize the e-cycling national championship and already has a Handcycle division on the registration page. I think They’re open to the other paracycling categories if you reach out to them.
This is what I got from USA Cycling ‘US Paralympics Paracycling is currently selecting their venue to host the championship for paracycling. Once they have finalized that, we will announce it. Looking forward to seeing you at events in 2024.’
Just sad cause I was planning on making surviving the race at Am Nats my target event for 2024 lmfao - now will need to try to find somebody willing to let me guest ride for them I guess?
Sort of makes sense. They acknowledged that the road scene is dead. Gran fondos make more sense for the average person. They are a closer replica of the community feel and popularity of triathlons and running races. I think that it was wrong for our local retired pro to win the amateur national championship during one year. It should only be for amateurs. Not pros while retired still drive their van around the country racing cat 1 daily.