More USAC

It was another day around the table in the hotel conference room. We started out with a quick look at some of the new USA Cycling website pages that are still under development, and of course everyone had lots of comments. In general, I thought it looked fairly good, although maybe a bit busy on the home page and aimed more at the general public than I'd like. There were a few key racer-oriented items that need to be easier to find. The rulebook, for example, was still pretty well buried. Perhaps they will listen to our suggestions and make that and some other things easier to find.

Speaking of the rulebook, a few proposals are interesting. There's a proposal to re-redefine Stage Races so that the term covers only time-based events and defining Omniums as those that are based on points. There's a proposal to fine promoters who publish open registration before their event permits have been approved. Another proposal would increase the Cat. 5 minimum field size to 75 (yikes!). There are the usual annual proposals to mess with the Junior gear restriction, ban earpieces (i.e. iPods), and of course numerous proposals to mess with Masters Nationals age groups. There's even one to basically remove all of the details about state/regional championships. No telling what will ultimately happen.

We spent a pretty long time on the National Events topic, especially considering the registration disaster this year at Silver Springs where a lot of good riders got locked out because the fields filled up really quickly thanks to the event being near a number of big metro areas and onling registration having been opened up so early. The USAC will be doing a new UCI Pro Tour in the U.S. (invitation-only, with 5 international teams required). There will also be a new ranking designed so that our domestic pros can compete. Bids for the NRC are still out, but the NRC calendar should be out in December.

Nationals will again all be in Silver Springs like last year, but it sounds like the concept of having all of the championships at the same time at the same event is not likely to happen after '07. The courses for '07 will be different than this year. This year's were too hard for a lot of the classes. The TT course will definitely be flatter than this year. There is an ongoing conversation about some sort of pre-qualification scheme for Nationals, lots of possibilities there but no good clue what the Board is thinking yet.

Long session on insurance, release forms, special offers for members, etc. The lawyers are definitely steering this boat. The reason that the USCF release forms don't have a space to put which race you're entering is because the lawyers are afraid that if someone ends up riding in a different race it could be a problem. Anyway, lots of important stuff that I wish I didn't need to know about. Kind of like communicable diseases.

Finally wrapped it up around 5 p.m. I'll try and write something up for the LAMBRA officers and club reps and whoever else wants it.

Meanwhile, back at home, Keith and Mark text-messaged me to say that Rocktoberfest went off pretty smoothly, although it got really windy and there was one crash in the Cat. 5s when a 60+ rider in his first race hit the deck.

Long weekend. I'm done.......