Would you pay $5.00 more in races fee knowing the officials were getting better pay?

Yes, I would be willing to pay extra for more officials/better paid officials. And, yes I think that some categories that make sense to be combined, should be combined. I know that I'm getting close to ACA third rails, but we'll all going to have to compromise in order to have a better system.

I am posting to this topic since I believe that instituting a wholly new masters categorization system (ability-based) would be more disruptive than nudging the current system (age-based) to somewhere between this year's fiasco and previous years system. (Let's at least get back to where - at a minimum - all masters open categories are running. No more races with three 35+ cats and no 45+ or 55+/65+.) I think that no matter what you do, there will be problems and constituencies that won't be happy. But why not put our energy into trying to fix the current masters category structure, and then reassess. In principle, I'm not antagonistic to bringing in an entirely new system - but let's make sure we do it only if we can't make the current one work.

On the contrary, there is every reason to "reinvent" the categories. Master's categories/age based categories are not actually categories! They are simply groups that promoters run and the ACA holds some competitions for. *Categories* are cat 1,2,3,4 (and 5) - they are separations based on ability level that are created in order to allow people to learn to race without getting their doors blown off by the likes of Scott Moninger the day after buying their first bike. In fact, in designing the new database for the ACA, we had to separate the concepts because they already have to be handled differently - age-based groups (and various promoter's whims) are being called "race groups" as opposed to categories. If you've missed the distinction, stop for a moment and contemplate that nobody upgrades from 35+ to 45+ (and unfortunately, nobody upgrades the other way either).

The problem everyone has with introducing cat 5 is nobody wants to downgrade - and that's fine, you earned that cat 2 on your license years ago. Now you simply want to race with others of your ability level without applying to have your license say "3," which would be a demotion. So let's say that you've noticed that all of the people who aren't upwardly mobile in the category system are over 35 - why not have a 35+ open field?

So we add 35+. But that gets faster, and the men's 4s are insanely hard for beginners, so we follow our earlier line of thinking (slow people are all over 35, right?) and add the 35+ 4s. And the 45+ masters. And guess what? Those get faster too! Now we have 45+ 4s and 35+ 3s and who knows *what* else coming down the pike ... all because we dealt with the symptom of the problem and not the problem itself. In the parlance of computer coding, this is called a "hack."

The problem itself is not aging, it is the following: how do you allow fair racing for those who are no longer moving up the category ladder? As we as a population start aging more and more gracefully, there will be more and more fast people over any given age. The answer is a masters ability level. It's simple, it makes sense, it solves the actual problem ... and it doesn't negatively affect anyone's pride or current category standing (thank you again Beth Jordan). It is in fact the obvious solution in all respects - except for the fact that we started out with 35+ groups in the first place.

Now as far as "disruptive" ... I don't even know what that means. If I want to race masters, I don't care if you call it masters 35+, 45+, A, B, or C; I'm going to show up and race masters in whatever group is available to me. I don't see how anyone can seriously suggest that numbers in masters categories will go down just because you rename the race groups! Certainly having a 35+ category, a 35+ open category, and a SM 3 category (all of which I personally can race, and all of which are roughly the same ability level) all go in the same day is a disruptive force. My case in point is the Louisville Criterium, which had 85 cat 3 men start, but broken in roughly in half. The 35+ open had only 26 riders. This is valuable promoter bandwidth that could have been used to run a women's 4 field (they're showing up in numbers of 30s and 40s this year), none of whom got to race that day - and Boulder Racing might not have lost a single male registrant.

First off, I am utterly confused as to why there are 35+, 45+, etc. cat 3s and 4s and how points are distributed, and why someone can get points in CAT 4 45+ to move up to CAT 3. I raced BMX in the old ABA days in Michigan, the categories were easy to understand - beginner, novice, expert, pro. After so many races you moved out of beginner to novice, then you had to place to get to expert, pro. The biggest problem in my mind, is there is no place for beginners to get into the sport, so superfluous categories were created as piecemeal. Here's a scenario, a 38 yr old male gets all jazzed-up after seeing Lance podium the TdF. He thinks, I'll give racing a try and gets his license. So he races in a CAT 4 35+ crit race with no experience, gets his arse handed to him, almost causes like five crashes because he gets in the way of experienced racers....and never races again. If a beginner category existed at least he could possibly do well, he may come back next week and all of the newbies who are more prone to crashes are stuck together, thus not jeopardizing the safety of more experienced riders.

Here is my proposal, and it isn't novel:
How about A-B-C-D and 1-2-3-4-5 for cross and road respectively. Get rid of everything else besides a cat for kids, 55+ and have the same system for women. It's simple, easy and provides opportunities for beginners (D, 5) to learn and not get in the way of the faster riders. It's safer and again, easier for everybody. I think a lot of folks are turned away after one or two races because they see the points system and feel like moving up would be too difficult at their age. What then happens is, they don't take racing seriously and only focus on one or two events, e.g. Mt. Evans, and do not compete regularly. If true beginner categories existed there would be realistic goals to motivate (moving up to 4 for example) and folks would enter in more races, become more involved in volunteering, get more engaged, feel a sense of community with their fellow newbies, etc. Instead, the ACA comes across as elitist to beginners and only for those who: A. Don't work or work at a shop B. Rich people who can afford $5k equipment, C. have already raced for several years.

If the ACA wants to grow it needs to compete with other after work activities for grown-ups such as softball and soccer leagues. Anybody can join a league, play and compete in softball and soccer and enjoy some feeling of success immediately. But, as the ACA currently stands, there just aren't any opportunities for beginners to move up and get a sense of accomplishment. And again, if there were beginner CATs there wouldn't be a need for 35+ 3s and 4s or 45+ 4s.

Also, I read through the survey results and a lot of people share my concerns.

I don't know if this has been discussed before but why not make every race a BAR/BAT race for all categories instead of the current system which is confusing. I think that would get a higher racer turnout which the promoters will get more money to cover the cost of hosting the race. USA Cycling has it set up where you get points every race, the problem with their points system is that the points award differ by what event level the race has been permitted for, which is also confusing. I would keep the current ACA points structure for placings since it is simpler, not have different race event levels with the exception of the state championships and stage races where they could say double and triple the points, respectively.

Yes, there may be some drawbacks to both racers and promoters which is open to discussion but I think it would less confusing for everyone. Just my thoughts.

Chris

why not make every race a BAR/BAT race for all categories instead of the current system which is confusing.

this has been discussed over and over and over again for the past ten years.

Making every race BAR/BAT makes BAR/BAT essentially a perfect attendance award, and makes every race on the same level; there's no differentiation. So then, where's my motivation as a promoter to go out of my way to hold a quality event if every event on the calendar has the same reward for turnout? If I can't differentiate my race, well then, I'll just cut costs, hold a crappy office park crit and maximise my return.

It's bad enough the current BAR/BAT point system is both too deep, and not adequately graded / weighted for merit such that in the smaller categories that regularly field <10 riders (i.e. women 35+, men 55+ or 65+), pretty much all you have to do is show up to every event and place dead last every time and you get a medal at the end of the year. How does this reward achievement?

Granted there has been a movement in the past couple of years to create some form of system to alleviate this, but it has been both poorly communicated and somewhat randomly implemented. Part of this is due to turnover in the ranks (and for what it's worth I think Teton does a bang up job), and part of the problem is not just picking a system and sticking with it. The current year's confusion basically boils down to a combination of change management struggles and lack of incentive for the promoters to get their race flyers submitted on time (and/or delays in publishing them on the site).

years and years ago I showed horses. When our horse show association faced this exact same issue of long event days, their ultimate decision became to hold separate events entirely. These days, when you go to one of their shows, it's either a youth (junior) event, an amateur event, or an open/pro event. From my understanding, once everyone got over the "we can't all have a special pony" syndrome, the event promoters ultimately preferred this system because it allows them to focus their sponsorship $$ on the focus group of their choice, and the exhibitors prefer it because Mom/Dad can get their kids ready to show without worrying about prepping for their own classes, etc... Yes it makes for more hauling / travel days, but since they typically schedule youth/amateur days back-to-back on the same weekend in the same locale... *shrug*.

The ACA experiment this season with the color system appears to have been an attempt at this sort of breakdown solution, and I was definitely willing to give it a chance, mainly cos it means we get a separate SW3 field on a regular basis, which is what I've been ranting about for years. Surprise: when you actually HOLD that cat (separate from everyone else), 25-30 women have consistently shown up, rather than the paltry 4-6 who typically want to take their lumps with the pros. It's been FANTASTIC racing with big competitive 3 fields, and not only that, it's been encouraging the SW4 to upgrade, rather than shave points and sandbag so they don't have to race against the pros.

So that's great for me. However, unfortunately this has also come at a cost to my teammates in the SM4 and SM3 fields, where there have been a number of days they don't get to race (unless they're over 35, which on my team, most of them aren't). Me, I'm used to not having a field to race in unless I suck it up and take my lumps with the 1/2/3 gals, or race with 4 other chicks in Masters' women. But the "bread-and-butter" senior cat fields (including the SW 1/2) have definitely kind of gotten the short end of the stick on that regard.

it sounds as though the color system was not that effectively communicated to the membership and promoters at large, so it came as a shock when people started seeing flyers for events, and their categories weren't listed on.

I agree, there are FAR too many masters' categories as it is now. I quit racing Masters because the fields are pathetic, and frankly should be done away with if participation remains low. If you look at the women's fields in particular, age group is pretty much a bogus standard -- half the women who do well at the elite races are over 40 as it is, and we got our butts kicked by a gal who's 50+ in the SW3 at Fed Ctr -- she's a darned good bike racer too, by the way. Similar things could be said for the men's fields where a couple years back a 52 year old won the SM P-1-2 state championship crit.

Age is becoming less and less relevant in road racing (and many other sports; c.f. Tom Watson) as training methodology and sports science improves. I say figure out a competent merit-graded system, and leave the age group stuff for triathlons. Cat 1-4 is not a competent merit system when it effectively boils down to only 3 ability splits, as it currently does.

My suggestion would be to cut the Masters' fields drastically to a more reasonable level. I like the thought of Beginner / Novice / Intermediate / Elite (heck call it 1/2/3/4, A/B/C/D or whatever you want, we're quibbling over semantics here) Masters' groupings. Get rid of the age group stuff , everyone "ages" at a different rate anyhow. Don't bother with holding Masters women's fields until and unless they prove they're willing to show up and race. Most of us are racing as 3s anyway, especially now that they're holding that cat.

My suggestion for BAR/BAT would be to build a realistic points system that adequately weights the top 10% to 15% of the finish rankings AND includes a gradient for field size, similar to how upgrade points work now. I have one in mind that works if anyone wants to email for specifics.

/rant

Here's two more cents from a new forum member.

I like Alan's proposal of a new way to break up the Masters categories. My main problem with the current system is that it dictates the makeup of race categories on a given day, and prevents some people from racing at all. Today is a perfect example. I'm sitting home on the couch right now while the Vic's crit happens, and there is no category (SM 4) for me to race. Not all of us have Mon-Fri/9-5 jobs that enable us to pick and choose from every race on the calendar. My work schedule prevents me from doing about 50% of the races right off the bat, and then when one comes around where I'm free but there's no category, that's very frustrating. The Masters A/B/C/D system would provide consistency among the calendar by allowing all of the same categories to run at each race.

Secondly, it makes sense to me to make 40 the cutoff age for becoming a Master. While there is part of me that looks forward to being able to do 35+ races next year, in the interest of simplicity and fairness to all, I'd be happy to wait another 5 years. I'm not ready to play the old guy card yet. I just need to train harder if I want to be competitive in my field.

I've seen some comments on here that suggest that we should just deal with the fact that not everyone is going to be able to race at every race. I just felt the need to speak for those of us who have frequent conflicts, and a standardized system helps us all plan ahead.

Justin