Submitted

[James Carney]

I have put this forward. I'm sure it will ruffle some feathers, maybe even some of you, but we need to change some things, or the slow death will continue. There is no doubt that is precisely what is happening right now.

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Track Nationals Rule Changes
1. Bike Check. All Bikes get fully checked in a jig before the competition. If they pass inspection, they are recorded. No bikes that fail inspection can be used. If an official or another competitor asks for a bike to be rechecked and it fails inspection, that athlete is disqualified for the remainder of Track Nationals.
2. Gates for time events. Hosting the Collegiate National Championships requires starting gates for all standing-start timed events.
3. All events are equal distance. This conforms to the new UCI standard.
4. Forget all the above and make massive changes to the entire program. Or, at the very least, eliminate aero-bars. We don't use them on the Road for our TT and TTT. The excuse that they're needed for USA Cycling eyeballs for the National Team is a farce.

BIKE CHECK: It is unreasonable that some rules are enforced and others are ignored. If we are disqualifying people for pulled feet and other incidences, like the Team Sprint this year. We should be disqualifying people for illegal positions and illegal gear. The way this rule should be written and enforced will not add much time. Each bike gets checked, and once it passes, it gets a sticker. If someone suspects there has been an alteration, it can be asked to be rechecked. If it fails, that is a flagrant infraction, a violation worthy of that individual being eliminated for the rest of the competitions (at the very minimum, I would support even more substantial consequences).

GATES: We can all debate the USA Cycling financial system. We all put on bike races that cost 10% of what USA Cycling says it costs to put on Nationals. I'm sure Trexlertown would open their books and show us how much it costs to put on a very successful Friday Night event. Anyway, with the massive amount we pay in entry fees, the bare minimum that USA Cycling could do is to supply starting gates so we have accurate times, fewer false starts, and a more professional experience.

EVENT DISTANCES: Team Pursuit 4K, Pursuit 3K, Time Trial 1K, Scratch Race 15K, Points Race 25K, Co-Ed Team Sprint 3 men laps and 3 women laps.

CHANGE PROGRAM ENTIRELY: Stop catering to the three or four big team’s wishes to keep things the same and boring and bring back the masses. Make the racing more entertaining for all. No more aero-bars. We don't have them on the road for the TT and TTT. I would eliminate the Pursuit and Time Trail and add the Elimination and Kierin. The new rules for Kierin make it safer than the Points and Scratch already. Athletes have a minimal amount of time to prepare for Track Nationals. Eliminating aero-bars allows them to concentrate on a single bike, LIKE ON THE ROAD. Why has Track Nationals stayed the same? It has been a slow death to club. Change is necessary to bring them back.

General Rule Changes:

1. Move back to Division 1 and Division 2 from Varsity and Club.
2. Lacey Dates For Nationals. Again, please take it to a vote instead of listening to a couple of “big” parties.


DI & DII: The varsity experiment didn't work. We had 25 teams for the 2016-17. I believe we are down to 19 now. It is arguable that the 25 teams back then were in a healthier position than the 19 teams are now. Most rosters are down from what they were. Losing more teams than we are gaining should be alarming. It is excellent that CMU, FLC, Marian, and Milligan are thriving, but no one else is. That system will eventually fail. We aren't growing more healthy varsity teams. Switching back to DI and DII will allow some powerful club teams to back up and let smaller no-athletic scholarship schools drop down to DII without being labeled “Club” (which could hurt some of their funding). This move stabilizes what we have. Stopping the slide should be the most critical issue for USA Cycling. Listening to the almighty and not to the struggling has got us into this situation. Why haven't we listened to any of these teams on the way out? Retention should be the priority. Then, we can focus on Growth. Those two will increase Participation. Switching back to DI and DII is healthier. It includes everyone and gives everyone a home in which they belong. The big four will be fine. CMU and Marian can still be Kings. Milligan was the DII National Road Champions in 2015-16. They’ll be great in DI now. Fort Lewis (my alma mater) is varsity right now, but how they operate by charging their members dues is a club thing. By switching to DI, no one questions how they raise their funds. Could you take it to a vote? All existing schools have a single vote. I think DI/DII wins handily. DI is athletic scholarships, big schools with big teams, and schools that petition. DII is for schools under 10,000 students (maybe 5,000) with no athletic scholarships and fewer than ten members—something like that.

LEGACY DATES: We are back to what didn't work right now. We have Track Nationals in the middle of the MTB season, and we’re back to an early MTB Nationals at a high-altitude ski resort. So what we have now are athletes spending time on different disciplines simultaneously. It is easy to look at the data. There is an overlap between Track and MTB. There would be a lot more of we adopted concrete dates. We have had Track Nationals multiple times over the past eight years, the week after Labor Day weekend. It has never been a problem. It has never hurt participation. That is easy to check. If that date were locked in as Track Nationals every year, we could all focus on track and then move on to mountain. This will increase participation in mountain. Athletes will have a more straightforward path to upgrade and qualify. Again, listening to the schools that already have their A squads in place is not the best decision. If we want retention, growth, and participation, we need to care for the athletes who don't start as A’s. Those are the majority of the athletes.

So Track Nationals, the weekend after Labor Day, locked in. That's where it stays.

Second, we all know how those multiple-year contracts work. We’re locked into Powderhorn for the next two years, and we know it will be early because of the risk of snow. Let’s commit to ending the risk after this contract concludes. There has been a lot of turnover at USA Cycling, so many don't know or forget that we had snow and issues in 2016 (Snowshoe, WV), 2017 (Montana), and 2021 (Purgatory/Durango). The soft agreement (Tara & Company) was to complete the Purgatory/Durango contract and avoid the high-altitude ski resorts for Collegiate. Those sites are fine for other USA Cycling Nationals because they aren't held in October. We moved on to Ride Rock and Bentonville, but now the dilemma is back.

Bonus! If we move off of the ski resorts, we can incorporate CX into an “Off-Road” Championship at a later date. This does three significant things. It gets our CX Nationals off the December date, during fall graduation and finals. We are now not low priority at the Nationals. It is one big travel event for those two nationals instead of two. USA Cycling makes as much money or more from us as it puts on one event.

My legacy proposal is:
Track - weekend after Labor Day

MTB/CX - 1st week of November (after Powderhorn is complete). Travel to the event on Saturday, media day Sunday, Monday XC, Tuesday DS, Wednesday XCC & TR, Thursday DH (or Enduro), Friday CX, TR and Banquette/Media Day, Saturday travel home

Road - last weekend in April (to get off spring graduation and finals)

Best,

Jame