2026 NE Crit Week?

[Alex Duncan]

HI NEBRA Promoters,

Welcome to the offseason! For those of you who don't know me, my name is Alex Duncan, and I'm the current president of B2C2, and promoter of the Devens Grand Prix. I've been racing for 15 years now, but only in New England consistently since 2020.

An idea I've been exploring and am asking for some help or input on - is restoring New England Crit Week in some capacity. B2C2 is willing to provide some sponsorship to prize money and/or jersey's, and we have the Devens Grand Prix (date TBC but likely late July). 

The CX series have been highly successful both the RVCX and the Project Mayhem CX, so can we use that thinking + the legacy of NE Crit Week to drive some hype around our events this year.Last year on 2 consecutive weekends we had: Devens GP, Sunshine Crit, Thompson GP, and the Yarmouth Clam Festival. We don't have to have those 4 events, but what I'm asking of this group is:

1. Is there sufficient interest in bringing this back?
2. Do we think that it would be mutually beneficial to all of the events?
3. Do we have the events and dates lined up to make this happen?

I'm starting the conversation now, but would love feedback from this group on the feasibility and we can work on what it might look like. If we think this can work, we can take the conversation to a smaller group and talk through what it might look like.

Thanks!

Alex

[Adam Myerson]

Hi Alex, and all,

I “own” New England Critweek, as much as there is anything to own. Right now that mostly consists of a website I keep paying for and a Facebook page I ran:

https://www.necritweek.com/

https://www.facebook.com/NewEnglandCritWeek

2019 was the last year. When the races didn’t come back after the pandemic, the series didn’t come back. I continued to talk to events and organizers, but aside from the pandemic, people’s lives had moved on from being able to organize some of the classics. Fitchburg, Salem, Exeter, Beverly, Greenfield, etc. There were many, many factors that kept the races from coming back.

My work for Critweek when I took it over was based on what I did for the New England Cyclocross Series, which is in a similar dormant state. Individual organizers owned their events, but followed a standard and structure that was consistent between each in terms of categories, race durations, and prize lists. I secured sponsorship for the series, leaving individual event sponsorship to each organizer. I used that money to pay staff for marketing in the form of press releases, photography, and social media, I offset some costs for the individual organizers (like hard fencing and signage), I paid overall series prize money, and distributed leader’s jerseys. I tried to promote my own business as a form of sweat equity for the work I was doing. I worked primarily with Alan Cote, Ryan Kelly, and Cindy Berhtram on that.

The idea behind Critweek was to have something modeled on Superweek, where we had a consecutive run of the best crits in New England over a short period that people could focus on and travel to, as opposed to a collection of events over the course of a season. Think Tulsa, Chicago Grit, Gateway Cup, Speedweek, ToAD, etc.

I agree that a series does get people’s attention, and it can be done at many different levels. Critweek (and the NECXS) are meant to be the best we have to offer. National level races, but at home. It was important to me that each of those races could stand on their own first. They were already “big” New England races. The series made them bigger, but it wasn’t what kept them alive. That’s what I’d be looking for if Critweek were to come back. But also, I understand, we have to start somewhere. It may also be that there is room for something more grassroots, just to help rebuild things, that doesn’t have to be Critweek.

Right now, none of the events you listed meet the standard of the events that were in Critweek in the past. But the sport has changed, too, where small races have gotten smaller, big races bigger, and lots of races have just gone away. The races on your list are so important to NE racing right now. They’re all we’ve got. But Critweek was about downtown events, with spectators and prize money. Would I want to bring back Critweek at a production and participation level below that, based on the reality of the sport right now, in order to help bring the level back? Maybe. But I’d want to see a group of individual organizers who were also committed to making that happen with their own events. And that’s just really hard for anyone to do right now. The Easton crit last year comes to mind as an example of something with future potential.

I guess I’d summarize by saying there are two questions here. First, is there a desire to string some existing NE events together in a series for some extra hype, and second, is New England Critweek the structure to do that through?

Adam

--
Adam F. Myerson
President and Head Coach
Cycle-Smart, Inc.
Northampton Cyclocross

37 Mallet Street
Boston, MA 02124
(413) 204-3202 Mobile
ad...@cycle-smart.com
He, Him, His

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[Alex Duncan]

♥️

Alex Duncan reacted via Gmail

[Adam Myerson]

And one important correction, it was Lauren LeClaire who was doing media director work for us!

[Benjamin Kramer]

Thank you for writing this up, Adam. I was a recent crit week lover, so much that I wrote cringy blog posts about it, and love ne crit week enough to link them here to get roasted

https://benjaminkramer.me/words/2019-prerace-necritweek

https://benjaminkramer.me/words/2019-fitchburg

Adam covers all of the most salient points, and in my opinion the real secret sauce to the #necritweek magic. Anything is better than nothing, yet can be special enough that doing close enough to right is worth doing

Alex and I branched off to a different thread, the bit I want to share to the group is if it’s a question of venues or key manpower, and more of that secret sauce, I got a rolodex of info and am happy to dispense it as desired (it’s too much to write multiple  essays into group e-mail) 

Cheers,

Benjamin

~~~

On Wed, Dec 17, 2025 at 4:54 PM Adam Myerson <ad...@cycle-smart.com> wrote:

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[Chris Dehahn]

Adam described everything perfectly. Crit Week, in its heyday, was can't miss racing. The two things that separated races like these from all of the others were:

1.) The race was held in an urban setting

2)  The race drew spectators that were not directly related to the competitors, i.e. the general public

Right now, we have two that qualify, and maybe two more:

The New England Grand Prix

Stage Four of the GMSR in Burlington

Potentially the Yarmouth Clam Festival

Potentially the Concord Crit

The Yarmouth Clam Festival is more of a circuit race rather than a crit, but it meets 1 and 2. The Concord Crit isn't right downtown, but it's close. They are also all in the same rough timeframe in the season.

As Adam said, it may be too much to ask early on to build a top tier race series from the jump. It may be better to string a few smaller races together, and make them collectively bigger via cross promotion and potentially series rewards. We have many candidates here, some of which have already been mentioned. 

No matter what, the NEBRA BOD is here to support your efforts.

Chris

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[Alan Cote]

Hello All:

Catching-up on this, as I started NE CritWeek in 2014 (when I was organizing 3 days of Longsjo crits), before handing it off to Adam in 2019 for it's final edition before COVID scrambled everything (I think those yrs are right).

Credit to him for taking it -- and as he says, there's not much to own. I think I gave the domain name and a box of Verge podium jerseys. 

Adam did a good job summarizing what he did and the overall purpose of thing, so I won't repeat things. The way I structured it:

-- Each race in the series contributed $500, with the total split between elite men and women

-- Verge, as such strong supporters of racing, provided leaders jerseys/socks, merchandise. And maybe some cash? Can't recall. I think bikereg was a cash sponsor for a year or too also. 

-- I focused it as a team series at least for a while, with the payout to top teams. Team leaders got custom yellow socks to wear. Maybe that switched to individuals after a while, can't recall.

-- In later years I tried to have it run as sort of cooperative effort among race directors. That was clunky -- I think 1 person needs to run it. 

-- I also did the publicity/media work. As Adam mentioned, having a dedicated person for media would be preferable.

-- It was 100% volunteer effort, no $ paid to organizers. 

The current crit/road calendar is thin now compared to then. I don't know if a new version of NE CritWeek makes sense right now,  but I hope it could be part of a revival the scene sooner or later.

Alan Cote

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[Joshua Burgel]

Neophyte promoter here, so: scale of 1:10 where 10 is imperative, it sounds like these are the requirements for a crit "week":

10/10 Pro level execution

9/10 Downtown or

8/10 Public Venue

9/10 Calendar concentration

10/10 Payout for Series Winners

10/10 Consistent categories / race length

8/10 One Executive

8/10 Jersey Sponsor

1/10 Socks

To me, TOAD and Speedweek in GA are the bar, but I think we have two that meet that right now in New England: Burlington and New Haven GP.  Could we add one, or several, in Boston or Cambridge?  I really like Clam Fest and Easton .  Devens course is excellent, but it isn't a "downtown" crit.  Could we bring back Fitchburg and build around that?  

Consider me interested in figuring this out ... and have no current crit / road race to promote. 

Josh

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--

Joshua Burgel
Landscape Architect
617.899.3823

[Benjamin Kramer]

Josh,

Per what's been said and seeing how the last couple (2015-2018), my interpretation utilizing your rankings for a successful 2025 necritweek would be:

9/10 Pro level execution 

10/10 Downtown or 

8/10 Public Venue 

10/10 Calendar concentration

10/10 Payout for Series Winners 

7/10 Consistent categories / race length 

10/10 One Executive (note: this is not necessarily one race director)

3/10 Jersey Sponsor 

0/10 Socks

10/10 sponsors

8/10 USAC officials crew 

10/10 party for the non-racer spectators

10/10 volunteer organization per event

10/10 principal stakeholder associated to the venue

It blows my mind that I got to race in downtown Salem, MA, several times and to try to imagine a race director in 2025 making that happen without some serious resources or getting exiled by the local municipality. Same goes for keg stands in shops at Beverly. And at least local television coverage of multiple races (can't remember if Longsojo broadcasting was greater new england or not) And the weekday race directors were balancing those budgets with 3-4 race starts. The kind of sponsorships making that happen were car dealerships and legacy foundations, one per race

Draw up course maps anywhere in Boston you want, speaking as a race director that permitted two metro Boston crits (and catastrophically failed one of them), a significant stakeholder associated with each venue is also crucial. I think even with enough money and legalese all it took was one key person saying "no" to cancel races we had signed permits for

To end this e-mail on a more optimistic note: the first time I got to watch the UHC train race was Chris Thater, Binghamton, NY . At least the year I did it, they had two days of racing on the same course: they just ran it in reverse on day 2. Nowhere on this rankings list does it list "need for different race venues." Considering how important and difficult to implement all of these factors are, anyone that has enough of a these factors can contribute to multiple consecutive days if they place the finish in spots clever enough to have two good course on the same pavement. If it was good enough to fly out Ty Magnar for, it's good enough for national level crit racing

Benjamin

~~~

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[Lee Jarm]

Complete amateur "promoter" here but agree ToAD (I've never experienced speedweek in GA, but I'll take Josh's word for it) is a standard to shoot for. That being said, would it be completely off the wall to connect with the folks who run ToAD to see about any sort of help, partnership or otherwise? I've interacted with the ToAD folks in the past and there are certainly connections in this group with them. Or, is there enough "native knowledge" in this group where that wouldn't be necessary? 

Great idea bringing up the idea of resurrecting this, I've wondered if that would be possible here as the potential exists to assemble a series like ToAD here - I think that would be awesome. 

There's been quite a few emails on this topic, but was the Mayor's cup mentioned as potentially being a part of this? As someone who has run in a few races associated with the Marathon as well as the JPM Corp challenge, I've always thought that a four corner crit around Boston common would be a fun sight to see. 

Cheers,

Lee Jarm

617.417.4200

On Wed, Dec 17, 2025 at 8:59 PM Joshua Burgel <joshua...@gmail.com> wrote:

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[Joshua Burgel]

Ben, Thanks for this.  I like your additions.  Of course 10/10 Announcers and Atmosphere.  So lets get all the 10's lined up. As calendars are already formed for 26, is this a 27 initiative or can we pull this off for this year?

[Adam Myerson]

Mayor’s Cup was not part of it. Again, it was a series of consecutive races that was born out of the tradition of Exeter always happening on the Tuesday before Fitchburg, and then connecting other big weeknight crits like Salem and Beverly in that same week.

There is more than enough knowledge here at home. We do have the difficulty everywhere right now in that the pandemic wiped out a lot of institutional knowledge. A lot of history and expertise went dormant in that time. Before Critweek was the Atlantic Cup, where we raced in Harvard and Davis Square, Northampton, and other places around the state. Before all of that was the Wheat Thins Mayor’s Cup series around the country, which had a stop in Harvard Square, and was the first professional race I ever saw, in the 1980s. Salem was part of that as well.

We don’t really need new ideas. We need individual, ambitious organizers who want to put on races. Again, the series stopped because the races stopped. As I wrote on both the Critweek and NECXS websites, they’ll come back when the races come back. (Unless one single organizer commits to running every event in the series, a la ToAd.) It’s hard to put on big races when we don’t have as many racers as we used to. It’s hard to have as many racers as we used to when we don’t have races.

I’m starting to realize that I’m one of the last ones standing, and a lot of that history is with me. Maybe what we need is an hour on Zoom to talk about where things once were, and what might be possible as we bring new racers and organizers into the sport. And most importantly, what mistakes not to make again. I get frustrated often with it being Groundhog Day. 35 years as a race organizer will do that to you.

Perhaps instead of individual emails, a good next step would be a brainstorming/history session, which I would be glad to host. Are people interested in that?

Adam

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[Adam Myerson]

This brings us back again to “what races?” Do the races exist? Are they ready to be in a consecutive week or is this a season-long series? 

--

Adam Myerson

Cycle-Smart, Inc.

413-204-3202

ad...@cycle-smart.com

On Dec 18, 2025, at 9:06 AM, Joshua Burgel <joshua...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Jonathan DelColle]

If this is to be NE Crit WEEK. What week in the season would we be aiming for within the season. 

I would be into a "session" to learn the history of bike racing. I came into bike as all of these events were going away 07 was my entry point. 

TOAD was mentioned. From my knowledge about that series gained from being a member of National Association of Professional Race Directors. There is a team of organizers that leverage a different club at every different venue. 

Easton was mentioned, with acquiring several other events this year I will not be able to focus on that event. I would love to help another club with the knowledge I learned to make it happen again. 

Jonathan DelColle

Swansea Velo Club

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--

Jonathan Del Colle

Swansea Velo Club

508-916-0812

bikeworkssvc.com

[Adam Sykes]

The only reason the Mayor’s Cup (2010-16 version) was able to happen was because Tom Menino was a cycling advocate and personally thought it was good idea. It was part and parcel of the Hub on Wheels weekend too. It is VERY difficult to get the kind of road closures needed for a bike race in downtown Boston without the direct support of the mayor. Even with the mayor’s support, we faced a lot of challenges to make that race work. It was also extremely costly to produce. I was only privy to the parts of the budget that were directly associated with the racing aspect of the weekend, but I’m pretty sure the total budget required around $150k just to make the racing happen.

One issue that you run into with a race around the Common is access to the garage. When we support the many running events that start/finish on Charles St, we fence things off so the garage can still be accessed. You would not be able to do that if you were running a crit around the Common. Maybe if the course when around the Garden, but there are issues with narrow corners that would likely prohibit that. I do suppose that a crit around the Common could be limited to a short window later in the day but that would probably not be very economically viable.

If someone wants to give me $200k/years/three years, I’ll get Mayor’s Cup up and running again. :)


Adam Sykes
International Cycling &
Event Services
508-380-1892 m
ad...@intlcycling.com
www.intlcycling.com

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[Jeff Dieffenbach]

Adam S, we can race around the Common AND provide access to the garage ... just needs a flyover! [grin]

Moderately experienced CX promoter here.

One, 545 VELO is looking to take on the running/promotion of the Concord (NH) Crit. I've copied in two of my teammates, Brandon Marshall and Noah Peduzzi, for their crit experience and Concord Crit leadership. No guarantees that we can make the Concord Crit happen, but we're going to try. Within reason and the constraints of the venue, we're certainly open schedule flexibility to fit a tight block or a season-long series.

Two, here's my take on Josh's list of criteria (in blue). I'll caveat my reframing by saying that my approach is bottoms-up/grassroots. That is, start small/incremental and build versus coming in totally dialed/professional. The professionalism with which the Adams carry out Northampton and Really Rad is impressive. But they didn't get to that level of professionalism on Day 1. (For Northampton, maybe I'm mistaken--my introduction to bike racing was several decades into Northampton's run!) I HAVE experienced the growth of Really Rad from when it took place at Plymouth HS and then MS. By comparison, BOSSCROSS (run by 545 VELO) is grassroots. One-quarter the racers, one-fifth the budget, one-tenth the level of effort/expertise.

10/10 Pro level execution ... here, I disagree--I think that competent level execution is sufficient. Pro level if available, but competent level is enough in trying to build back.

9/10 Downtown or ... here, I defer. I get the appeal of a downtown crit. And that's a great goal. But I think racers would rather have a rural crit than no crit at all.

8/10 Public Venue ... I don't really know what this means--is Thompson Motor Speedway an example of a private venue? I'm indifferent here except to say venue >> no venue

9/10 Calendar concentration ... I like calendar concentration. The CX series go three months, which is pretty compact. But the USCX model of 4 weekends in a row is great.

10/10 Payout for Series Winners ... love this idea to build series-long participation.

10/10 Consistent categories / race length ... this should be easy, with consistent categories being a must--race length can vary a bit, just as courses vary a bit (or a lot)

8/10 One Executive ... one ring to rule them all! Here, "executive" = "cat herder"

8/10 Jersey Sponsor ... valuable, not critical

1/10 Socks ... all racers should wear socks, and not the low kind that triathletes wear ... I'll die on this hill

Over time, features like professionalism and downtown can be folded in where possible. But, and this is just one person's opinion, it's better to start somewhere and evolve rather than try to start with the finished product of yesteryear.

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[John Frey]

  My brother (Andrew Frey) is part of the group that owns and organizes ToAD. More than teaming with a local club in each town, they actually team with the local government. Maybe it is a Midwest thing, but they actually get/require the local town to pay for the safety costs (police, etc) and to provide volunteer support at each venue. The towns sees it as a positive investment. That rarely happens here. That is a huge hurdle to overcome in New England, but it seems to be the crucial distinction between success and floundering.  

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[Joshua Burgel]

Adam M: 100% for a 1 hour zoom. Here is a doodle poll for interest.

Jonathan - Easton was great! 

Adam S. - I specifically raced to cat up to a 3 in order to race the Mayor's Cup it was my GOAL race for 3 years and I finally made it the last year you ran it.  

Jeff D. - There is some weight that comes with the name/history/culture on "NE Crit Week" to make this A level racing.

John F. - Agree, we need local buy in from Town/City government.  Lots of Meninos needed.

Draft Agenda (your input here):

5 Mins Intros

20 Mins History

15 Mins Lessons Learned (Both Do's and Don'ts)

10 Mins Next Steps

10 Mins Commitments / feasibility

Each of these, except intros, is worth an hour, or hours of sharing, but everyone is busy.  Again, the quick doodle poll to get some interest level gauging and availability in the next few days.  Of course if the principles can't do it, then we'll have to reschedule. 

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[Benjamin Kramer]

This is all very helpful context and information

Per Adam Myerson’s point, I would be interested in such a session. Having enough information to make an informed decision is both efficient and less back breaking. Sounds like there’s enough interest here for that

Most of the people chiming in here are metro Boston; I’m not, but to talk about necritweek I’d gladly come down for a pint and a yarn. Happy to help organize any aspect of this session

Benjamin

~~~

On Thu, Dec 18, 2025 at 9:35 AM Jeff Dieffenbach <deep...@gmail.com> wrote:

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[Kurt Maw]

Hey everyone,

I don't have a lot to add to the list, but would be happy to take any group of people through the logistics and costs associated with running the Witches Cup in Salem for 10 years.  With that being said, we tried to bring the race back for several years, switching it to a weekend, making it a twilight crit "under the lights" and the biggest issue that I'm sure every promoter understands was the budget.  When our budget broke the $25k mark in 2018, as racing started to decline during the pandemic, the personal financial risk for promoting the race and the desire of the town to make money directly from the event created a situation that was untenable even at a "grassroots level".  

I would love to jump into a call with everyone and at a bare minimum offer assistance wherever possible, but much like Adam said, if someone wants to hand me $20k in sponsorship agreements, I'm pretty sure we could bring the Witches Cup back.

Thanks,

Kurt

--

Kurt M Maw
Comprehensive Racing, Founder (www.compracing.org)

Contact: 617-429-0454

On Thu, Dec 18, 2025 at 9:35 AM Jeff Dieffenbach <deep...@gmail.com> wrote:

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[Adam Myerson]

This was always Tym Tyler’s approach in Ohio (Tour of Ohio) as well. According to legend at the time (this was in the 1990s and I know you did some of those races, too, John) he had a $10K proposal that he shopped around to every small town in the state. The ones that bit are the ones he brought his circus to, and we all made a lot of money doing big races in towns we never otherwise would have gone to. AIUI they paid him to be there, we all put on a show, we all made money.

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[Lee Jarm]

Meeting on zoom 💯! 

Lee Jarm

617.417.4200

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[Alex Duncan]

Agree with a zoom meeting to figure out what is feasible and what we could aspire to. I love the enthusiasm. Thanks for sending the doodle Josh.

I wanted to start the conversation and I’m excited by the enthusiasm and possibilities here. Truly appreciate the input and ideas here. 

-Alex 

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[Alan Atwood]

I’d be happy to offer my Zoom account to host this meeting; let me know if you all would like to use that.

Alan

--------------------------------------------------------------

Alan Atwood

President

New England Bicycle Racing Association

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[Benjamin Kramer]

If someone has a premium google workspace account, you can integrate Gemini for note taking in Google Meets. There’s also no time limit for Google meets, premium or regular account

Benjamin

~~~

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[Brian Wolfe]

I'm happy to join a group to discuss this. There is a wealth of valuable insights from a range of promoters here. 

While not EVERY crit needs to be professional-level in downtown, our best chance of getting professional-level teams to travel is to base the week or long weekend around at least three high-level (production, atmosphere, etc.) crits. As Josh pointed out, this would be better suited to a 2027 initiative. In my experience with the NHGP, which has been running since 2015 (I've been involved since 2016 and fully took over in 2023), planning starts a year in advance. For us, and likely most metro aread (such as boston, salem, etc) there are a lot of stakeholders and factors that come together to make it happen. It's obvious, but it's crucial to have support from the city/town (financially, bureaucratically, and administratively) to pull it all off.

More than happy to elaborate and provide ideas, but I'll protect everyone's sanity and save it for Zoom!

Brian Wolfe 

Executive Director

Connecticut Cycling Advancement Program (CCAP)

http://www.ctcyclingadvancement.org/

(860) 295-4028

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/nebra.us/d/msgid/nebra-promoters/CAOvUZg7NSdzEs%3DMcz8bQPmG8hAup4SYi06EMXUH-EfHDaAP5Hg%40mail.gmail.com.

[Adam Myerson]

I have a pro Zoom account for work with AI notetaking enabled. so I’m happy to host the call. I put my hand up for it, so I expected to have to host it.

Adam

[Michael Norton]

I would love to be involved in this meeting.  I think I have a lot of information that might be helpful to see where we are now compare to what we had in the past and what went wrong.

Mike Norton

---

From: Alan Atwood <aat...@nebra.us>
Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2025 10:28 AM
To: Alex Duncan <abdu...@gmail.com>
Cc: Lee Jarm <lee....@gmail.com>; Adam Myerson <ad...@cycle-smart.com>; nebra-p...@nebra.us <nebra-p...@nebra.us>
Subject: Re: [NEBRA Promotors] 2026 NE Crit Week?

 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/nebra.us/d/msgid/nebra-promoters/CADy3YhR1smOgxVv3L6fs4GuTF2mPU5ZQvAf3L2avnVZVSwRHgg%40mail.gmail.com.

[Adam Myerson]

Atlantic Cup:

https://autobus.cyclingnews.com/results/1999/may99/atlantic99.html

[Michael Norton]

Here are some numbers since Bikereg opened up. Then 2007 was the peak then things started to go downhill.  the riders started not to show up.  It was small at first then the numbers really dropped off.  

2007

remove

Past	Cyclonauts Road Race 360 Registered  Jun 16, 2007  Registration Closed	more_horiz
Past	Cyclonauts Racers Criterium 135 Registered  May 28, 2007  Registration Closed	more_horiz
Past	Palmer Library Road Race 817 Registered  Apr 29, 2007  Registration Closed	more_horiz
Past	Sturbridge Road Race 698 Registered  Apr 28, 2007  Registration Closed	more_horiz

2006

remove

Past	Cyclonauts Racers Road Race 353 Registered  Jul 29, 2006  Registration Closed	more_horiz
Past	Cyclonauts Racers Criterium 213 Registered  Jun 17, 2006  Registration Closed	more_horiz
Past	Palmer Library Road Race 720 Registered  Apr 30, 2006  Registration Closed	more_horiz
Past	Sturbridge Road Race 680 Registered  Apr 29, 2006  Registration Closed	more_horiz

2005

remove

Past	Cyclonauts Racers Road Race 306 Registered  Jun 18, 2005  Registration Closed	more_horiz
Past	Palmer Road Race 543 Registered  Apr 24, 2005  Registration Closed	more_horiz
Past	Sturbridge Road Race 511 Registered  Apr 23, 2005  Registration Closed	more_horiz

2004

remove

Past	Cyclonauts Racers Road Race 310 Registered  Jun 19, 2004  Registration Closed	more_horiz
Past	Palmer Road Race 580 Registered  Apr 25, 2004  Registration Closed	more_horiz
Past	Monson Road Race 586 Registered  Apr 24, 2004  Registration Closed	more_horiz

2003

remove

Past	Cyclonauts Racers Road Race 350 Registered  Jun 14, 2003  Registration Closed	more_horiz
Past	Monson Road Race 510 Registered  Apr 27, 2003  Registration Closed	more_horiz
Past	Palmer Library Road Race 586 Registered  Apr 26, 2003  Registration Closed	more_horiz

2002

remove

Past	Monson Road Race 404 Registered  Apr 28, 2002  Registration Closed	more_horiz
Past	Palmer Road Race 537 Registered  Apr 27, 2002  Registration Closed	more_horiz

2001

remove

Past	Monson Road Race 218 Registered  Apr 29, 2001  Registration Closed	more_horiz
Past	Palmer Road Race 276 Registered  Apr 28, 2001  Registration Closed	more_horiz

---

From: nebra-p...@nebra.us <nebra-p...@nebra.us> on behalf of Michael Norton <mikea...@msn.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2025 10:47 AM
To: Alan Atwood <aat...@nebra.us>; Alex Duncan <abdu...@gmail.com>

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/nebra.us/d/msgid/nebra-promoters/SJ0PR19MB677607FD4081A687B6551B6DA8A8A%40SJ0PR19MB6776.namprd19.prod.outlook.com.

[Paul Boudreau]

Long time lurker here…

I can’t see past the sponsorship money it takes for these downtown events - or the city partner who would offset the police detail and safety fencing costs.

Until this is solved, I’m probably out of the game. 

 /paul  

Paul Boudreau

linkedin.com/in/paul-boudreau-hf 

On Dec 18, 2025, at 10:26 AM, Alex Duncan <abdu...@gmail.com> wrote:



To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/nebra.us/d/msgid/nebra-promoters/CACKhBhrykVRzbEh%3DDsP5H6yrTwjb80QGsah4VC30DcS17XiLjQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[Adam Myerson]

For the newer folks, Paul is/was the organizer for the Gloucester and Beverly cyclocrosses and the Beverly crit. Some of the best events to ever happen in New England.

At its peak, Gloucester had 1000 racers per day, for two days. It’s hard to imagine now.

Adam

[Alan Cote]

While there are many hurdles to reviving NE CritWeek ... and road racing in general, whether number of events or number of riders ... the key ingredient is a new generation of people to lead a renaissance. 

So I'm stoked to see interest and enthusiasm from Josh, Jonathan, Benjamin, Lee, and more.

As others have said, there's lots of experience/institutional knowledge around and available, and I'm happy to help with what I know from years of Longsjo race promotion, CritWeek creation, etc.

Alan Cote

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/nebra.us/d/msgid/nebra-promoters/A5710553-49B0-4916-9A9F-0DB16B1FFE5F%40cycle-smart.com.

[Myles Romanow]

Long(er) time lurker here, who was fortunate enough to receive mentorship and help from many, many, many people that have commented previously thus my two cents... 

It's great to see the enthusiasm for revitalizing cycling period, let alone an incredible effort like crit week.  FWIW our organization did UCI CX, and had great financial success from state and local tourism boards (I heart NY, etc as our events were in that state) as well as some private investment due to our status as a 501c3 org.  

I'm not sure if those same tourism based organizations exist in your states, presumably they must,  but they have slightly different metrics atmo.   

Production value (from the viewpoint of a race director/promoter) was important, but not THE most important metric, really what these organizations continually wanted to see from us was ROI in terms of people showing up from not their local zip codes, and did they spend money once they arrived.  

We were fortunate enough to have the Kissena cycling club in Brooklyn behind us for our events that occurred just upstate from NYC and so we were able to draw on a rather large sampling of in house racers to poll and quiz and didn't have to rely on outside independant (and expensive) accounting firms or survey systems.    

I was able to cross reference that with bikereg pre reg data and extrapolate that fairly simply to show to the relevant boards and business associations the potential economic impact of getting a race put on in their town(s).     Eg "you gave me $X and with that $X we put on a bike race, and had 800 people from not your zip code show up and spend approximately $XXXXXX".   

The big factors that influenced the Business administration getting involved (this was incredibly important as it mitigated a tremendous amount of bull$hit for us, and put me in touch with lots of other groups that had money/infrastructure/etc)  were 

-people coming from outside the zip code

-a multi day event (as this combined with the above = hotel rooms booked)

-data on how much it cost to get day trippers to and from the event.  (even if you didn't stay in a hotel you still paid tolls, gas, bought food, etc) 

-some idea of media footprint pre and post event.  (this was relatively easy since we were a UCI event and most of our releases got picked up by the important news organizations in our sport plus local media) 

-photo ops for local elected officials who stuck their necks out for us.  

The other important thing to recognize is the above conversations are either taking place right NOW, or have taken place for 2026 already.   

I'm not saying that to scare anyone, but just to point out the need for a concise marketing pitch well in advance for 26 or even 27 if this is an avenue someone wished to pursue.   We would literally leave Supercross set up and sit in on business association meetings to discuss the following season because thats when these budgets were being discussed and determined.  

Supercross was fortunate to happen in fall when nothing else was really going on in Suffern, which was ANOTHER bonus to the above, since there was basically zero tourism happening in the county that weekend.   So we were bringing people to town when businesses NEEDED the help, so like pitching someone a three day crit series during leaf peeping season (or whatever the heck else is going on locally) might not work out.  

It's great to see people talking about this, even though I'm definitely way out now I still believe it's a beautiful sport and realize that the best chance it has at being revitalized is with conversations just like this.  Again, I was incredibly fortunate to have the help and support and mentorship of people like Adam, and Alan, and JD, and guys like Paully B and ECV that put on events like Gloucester and showed us all I think what was really possible.   We were incredibly fortunate, and as a beneficiary of their time and involvement in the past it makes me hopeful for the future to see them still so passionately involved.  

Good luck! 

Myles Romanow

T. Edward Wines and Spirits

Key Account Manager, Prestige Brands Division 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/nebra.us/d/msgid/nebra-promoters/A5710553-49B0-4916-9A9F-0DB16B1FFE5F%40cycle-smart.com.

[Benjamin Kramer]

Just because we’re being nostalgic:

Photo is 2017 GPB. I was pretty bummed out that day, reasons on and off the course, and a volunteer walking up to me to present a “crowd favorite” award the crowd gave to me while racing

Alan was on the mic, it was Paully B’s event, and from the beer garden watching Adam sprint that year is probably why I signed up to do event work. Gotta pay it forward. Oh and Adam Sykes encouraged me to help load fencing for the breakdown party before racers got tacos

Big thank yous to everyone that made these key formative experiences and the importance of making those for the future

Benjamin

~~~

[Myles Romanow]

Hi.   

I received a few emails about "tell us more/can you give me data" and figured it would be best to reply to all in greater detail.  

Any numbers are from my recollection, I can dig up real deal stuff if needed but again as Supercross has been gone for quite a few years now the data might not be good but the blueprint may be a useful starting point. 

The first step was figuring out who was in charge in the county I was going to.  We had been bounced from quite a few venues due to the growth of the event, but luckily each time the departings town supervisor or county supervisor knew a counterpart elsewhere that needed to make an economic input into their county and wrote us a great intro.   

Eventually I had a good relationship with a business association in Rockland, who was kind of like a large scale chamber of commerce.  We had to buy a membership, but it was like $200/year and opened a lot of doors for us.  (members get privileges), and in our case this organization was literally tasked with "increasing business revenue in the county" via tourism and special events.   

They were able to coach me with approaching the state, comptrollers, tourism board, all sorts of things that I could have maybe figured out solo, but it was really great one stop shopping.    

Then it was really just a question of designing the data set/survey/whatever I sent around and investigated myself, which really isn't that hard when you sit down and think about it.  

First Question

-Where do our customers come from? 

Very easy to determine via bikereg's data at the time, (and I'm certain there are people reading this that are waaaaay better at wrangling data than I am.), but again in my case the salient point was "99.5% of our customers do NOT come from Rockland county.  Therefore they all TRAVEL to get here.  

We were also a weekend event, which meant people needed a place to stay.   I'd reserve blocks of rooms that people would book out with a listing code at a discount, but still we put bums into beds so to speak, and all the hoteliers were stoked.  This was important for two reasons. 

1- economic impact  (200 rooms at $100 = $200000 of cash brought into the town at a down time of year with bupkiss else going on) 

2- happy hoteliers that reported back TO the business association they had a bunch of smelly skinny racer dudes all over the damn place that were super nice and spent money when no one else was around. 

We also looked into what it cost to GET there.  I didn't analyze this too hard, due to our location the bulk of our customers came from NYCs 5 boroughs.   I used the most prevalent one (at that time brooklyn) and google mapped it to the venue.  

I then knew an average amount that a customer from brooklyn would spend to get up to Rockland by being able to figure out their  Gas, tolls, food, etc.  

I then cross referenced this data with an ask on the Kissena cycling club forum to verify the findings.   Everyone responded, and my calculations were actually way low. 

An interesting factoid, we figured out in very short order that it cost way MORE to commute back and forth to the event.  (gas, tolls, parking , gas tolls on the way back.  THEN again the next day...). 

This was huge because no one realized it at the time.  I pre negotiated smoking good rates in reasonable hotels that made it super attractive to stay IN THE COUNTY.. Because that's what we needed to do to justify their support, and without realizing it made it cheaper than commuting home to brooklyn.   So the NEXT year, everyone stayed and we had more bums in beds in hotels, which made everyone happier.   But even in year one in Rockland, when they did the post event discussion and said "well we only think we booked 100 rooms" I was able to respond with "who cares, the other people actually spent MORE money in town.  Here's the data". 

We also tried to reach out to local restaurants to say "hey dine here", but that was super hard to steer everyone into and honestly never worked out well.  Our strategy became notifying them that people were gonna be in town, throw  out some prix fixe dinners, promote everyone on our instagram or direct emails, and let er rip.  

This was important again for two reasons. 

-people spending money in the town

-happy restaurateurs reporting back to the business association about a bunch of skinny smelly racer dudes that ate copious amounts of carbs and beer

We then asked the question "how much did you spend that night", and threw that number into the matrix.  

The MOST important factor to bringing credibility to the data we provided was that we were doing a two day event.  

EVERYONE regardless of what they knew about the sport, cycling, people, competition, whatever instantly realized that if hundreds of people were converging on this place for a two day event that they had to stay SOMEWHERE.  

We as an organization made it as attractive as possible to stay THERE.  (obviously can't control what people do, but we tried).  Cheap hotels, included continental breakfast, large car parking, a secure room for gear, hoses in the garage to clean up, all that stuff.  

In the end, we produced an honest average of all the numbers, gas, tolls, mileage, food, entries, parking, hotel stays, all of it, and then did simple math based on the verifiable data from the folks in Brooklyn and NYC that we could ask directly without an added expense.  

Economic impact was pretty easy to justify, even if a lot of it was unseen (people commuting in and out each day still spent money) 

I really wanna say after it was all said and done people were spending easily just over $100/day x 2 days, x however many people showed up.  

If you really wanted to, I'm sure you could plot it all out on a map, and figure out where everyone was coming from, and be super duper precise, we just never had to be that precise.   The local association always sent people down for the elite races and photo ops with winners, and it was just so obvious that there were hundred and hundreds of people there that clearly came from SOMEWHERE, out of state plates everywhere in the parking lot, it just never became a thing to justify what we presented more than we did.  

The data from brooklyn truthfully was  super precise, I literally drove it and recorded it all when I was doing set up pre race.  Gas, toll, snacks, dinner, tolls, home.  My friends in the club double or triple confirmed it, and thats what we went to bat with, combined with a brief pie graph of where everyone else came from (NYC, PA, MA, ME, Canada, france, etc...).  Because the belief was "if the people that live closest spend X, people that live way further away are going to spend MORE than X".  

Again I was kinda surprised that literally 1 masters dude was the only racer from the county that came to the event, in all honesty that was just blind luck, (and he was really nice and put up a few pro racers every year) but it allowed us to honestly show them that of the 1000 people that showed up for two days literally 1 was from the county.    

Therefore economic impact. 

That's really all we did to justify town/state involvement financially.  Oh, we also had to feature certain logos (I heart NY) and take out. a few ads that were effectively global (cycling news, velo news, canadian cyclist, that sort of stuff) but most of that didn't cost like anything, but again when the STATE got involved, their whole purpose is to promote people from OUTSIDE the state coming into the state, and they wanted to see the ads we were setting up elsewhere.   In my case it was the very same ad we used everywhere, we just had to show them that it was out there in the wild and people were clicking on it. 

I'll also mention again that the membership in the business association was super important, they literally knew everyone and Supercross became an away game for us the second we went upstate.  But for like $200 a year I had an office of people that knew who to call for a water hose truck, and who to call for a road repair, and who to call for a traffic cop and who to call for a port o potty deal, all that sort of thing, and had a direct line to the state where a not insignificant amount of our funding came from.  They also had an outline of when budgets had to be approved and submitted, and were able to lobby on our behalf.   

Myles Romanow

T. Edward Wines and Spirits

Key Account Manager, Prestige Brands Division 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/nebra.us/d/msgid/nebra-promoters/CAOvUZg6m%2B8PZJs3KxohThxMR0Na-CVSbmzi%3De3%2B%2BmQpcndORuQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[Joshua Burgel]

Hi All,  We have an obvious date/time winner (11 of you said so):  Mark your calendars for Sunday 12/21 at 7 PM.  Adam will send out a zoom link. 

Myles, thanks for the very useful input: seems like a conservative estimate is $100/day/racer.  Did the local groups provide cash or the services like police detail / venue or both?  

Josh

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/nebra.us/d/msgid/nebra-promoters/CA%2Bvb%2B5aJ2rPKX7PHPZMgBJOzJ-guO_yHqU0M%3DJ-kRDuAr1P6SA%40mail.gmail.com.

[Myles Romanow]

So the local business association was instrumental as a go between.    Virtually  any time we needed anything weird I could call Roger at the RBA and he "knew a guy".  

They didnt directly provide cash, but knew about all the grant money available from tourism auspices from the state, and enabled us to take advantage of them.   

We were also in a county with the number one tourism attraction in ny state, so they were up on that.  

Our final incarnation of supercross was at a college campus, which was thus entirely self contained.     We didn't have to deal with cops per se, we did have to deal with campus police.  (Who at that time were nearly all nypd officers that had put in their 25 and moved upstate for a more relaxed life and took cushy campus jobs) 

Any special event required their presence.  Regardless of the size of the volunteer army we had. 

Any officer that was on schedule regularly or came in for the day was billed to me directly at their union overtime hourly rate.    Dawn to dusk, while customers were present on the grounds.   This is definitely something you should ask the locals about and add a line item to your budget if it doesn't exist currently. 

There was no way around it for us, and so we then decided to turn it into a good thing and made those guys love us.    (Free lunches, free red bull, photo ops, and overtime pay. ).   So they never had anything bad to say about us in post or pre event meetings etc.   (it was like a cash bonus come holiday season they said)

I would definitely not choose to walk into a meeting with my recollected numbers, I'd use them as motivation to go out and honestly figure out your own.    

Between bikereg and usac databases I'm fairly confident that a active licence by zip code could be found,  and again someone in this group surely can wrangle said data to project potential economic impact to the towns the events are promoting, literally find someone in another town or run some google map routes to figure out where people come from.    Yank data with permission from an old event in the town, just to figure out  where people came from for those events.  

Again, I can't stress enough that the goal is to create a good relationship with an outside group that can help you accomplish these events for the next ....4-5 years?   Longer?  

That is easier to accomplish with honest data that can be verified or at the very least passes the smell test.   

If you get a local BA or state board to help you out you have to definitely expect a post event meeting to digest all the stuff that happened, good and bad, and how much impact you were able to bring to their town.     If your numbers are way off you're in trouble.   

In our case they didnt look that closely because the county supervisor had to take an uber in from elsewhere because our parking lot was apparently full, so they assumed we had some people show up.  

Its probably a relatively safe assumption that virtually none of the people you will meet/work with on the government side have a single interest in bike racing.    So putting on a "cool bike crit in town" means absolutely bupkiss to them. 

Getting to say "hey I brought 1000 people to town to shop in your stores and eat in your restaurants during slow season  and oh by the way its an election year"  means A LOT.  

Also I neglected to mention that a lot of this sort of thing can be done way in advance, like literally a year out.    We would take a month off after supercross (save for budget stuff,) and to my point while trolling my email I found the grant request forms, they were due to the state by halloween (before my event even happened) for the following year.    

(So grant requests due halloween, grants approved november, recipients announced december, then new years and a bike race 11 months later.   )

But people like a hotelier definitely want to hear from someone to block rooms for june in January etc etc.   So develop a checklist then just start picking off stuff a bit at a time.

Myles Romanow

Key Accounts Manager

Prestige Brand Division


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[Lee Jarm]

Dang! I boarded a flight at 6:30 on Sunday

Lee Jarm

617.417.4200

[Adam Myerson]

I will record the audio/video of the meeting, as well as create meeting notes.

Adam

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