Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Rejection Reaction.


Disclaimer: My rants may seem like they are directed at the author of the rejection emails I have received. They are not, they are directed at USA Cycling as a whole. I do not know who is responsible for their individual policies, but for now I am directing my anger at the entire organization, not any one single employee.

This is the explanation that was passed along with my rejected upgrade request:

I look at Cat.1 results for ALL categories and with that I am looking for top 5 results. For the Pro Open races I do not see the results nessesary to go pro as it's tough to tell which riders are pro and which are cat.1. Please resubmint for a pro upgrade when you have some top 5 results out of all cat.1 times or top 5 results in the Pro Open category.

Few thoughts:

1) To earn an upgrade I have to place in the top 5 against all pros, or in the top 5 against all the cat1s. This equates the pro field with the cat1 field. This is stupid.

2) "it's tough to tell which riders are pro and which are cat.1" Yes, I agree. There is a very fuzzy line between cat1 and pro riders. Your own upgrade policy equates the two. (see: item 1, above) This is the problem, not an excuse to not solve the problem. Road and cross have a very defined system of promotion points which is used to determine who gets an upgrade. The solution is easy, you have a system that works (road/cross), just replace the system that doesn't work (mountain) with the one that does.

3) As Greg pointed out, comparing the times of racers who are not racing directly against each other is stupid. If I'm off the front of the 30-39 field, and I soft pedal across the line and win my race by 5 minutes, I could potentially not earn any upgrade credits because a couple 40-49 cat1 dudes who started 2 minutes behind me, finish 1:50 behind me. At least give me a chance to lose the sprint to the line.

4) Taking the top X number of racers is stupid. It needs to be a percentage of the overall field size. I can't remember the last time I saw more than 5 cat1 women in a single race, does that mean that they should just get upgraded based on (essentially) attendance alone? What if your race happens to be in the middle of a hurricane and no one shows up? What if your race sucks and no one shows up? (yes, I wrote that last sentence just to give me some text to use as a link.) Are you still taking the top 5?

5) Last year the upgrade requirements only counted if they were earned at National Calendar events. It seems like this year, there is a more sensible policy of counting non-National Calendar events. As much as I appreciate the lowering of the bar to a more reasonable level, there is something to be said for consistency. This is (at least) the third year in a row that the upgrade requirements have changed. Hitting the pro upgrade was tough enough in the first place, it doesn't need to be a moving target.

6) "Please resubmint for a pro upgrade when you have some top 5 results out of all cat.1 times" Wait a second, I've got those...

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

USA Cycling Support Ticket #212862 Closed: License Category Change Request

Dear Kevin Sweeney,

The following request to change your INTL/NORBA category has been denied by USA Cycling:
huge_pop - 2010-03-04 11:34
Member: Kevin Sweeney
License: INTL XC
Request to change category from Cat 1 to Pro

Member Explanation/Resume:
At the beginning of the 2009 season, I started out racing Cat1 and in my first 5 races, I never finished worse than 4th, with 3 podiums, and one win. After that I started racing in the Open/Pro category, and usually finished around mid-pack. Highlight of my season was finishing in 6th place (out of 20) at the Massachusetts State Championships Open/Pro race. Also impressive was my 13th place (out of 28) in the Mt. Snow Open/Pro race.

I feel my results from 2009 (below) prove that I can compete in the Pro class, and would like to compete in this class exclusively in 2010.

Thank you for your time,

Kevin

04/11/2009 Root 66 #1 Hop Brook Dam Cat1 3 of 21
04/26/2009 Root 66 #2 Fat Tire Classic Cat1 4 of 25
05/09/2009 UMASS Orchard Assault Cat1 4 of 19
05/17/2009 Root 66 #3 Winsted Woods Cat1 1 of 11 (flat)
05/24/2009 Root 66 #4 Coyote Hill Classic Cat1 2 of 14
05/31/2009 EFTA NECS #2 Bear Brook Blast Off Cat1 DNF
06/28/2009 Root 66 #5 Putney/West Hill Open/Pro 23 of 35
07/12/2009 Root 66 #7 PATS PEAK Open/Pro 18 of 23
07/19/2009 EFTA NECS #4 Harding Hill Cat1 1 of 8
07/26/2009 Root 66 #8 Mount Snow Open/Pro 13 of 28
08/02/2009 Root 66 #9 Hodges Dam Open/Pro 6 of 20
08/09/2009 24 Hours of Great Glen Expert 4man team 1 of 8
08/12/2009 Darkhorse 40 Cat1 2 of 27
08/29/2009 Root 66 #11 Norcross Scurry Open/Pro 9 of 9
09/13/2009 Root 66 #12 Landmine Classic Cat1 8 of 19

Request was denied on 2010-03-10 15:14 by Marc Gullickson

USA Cycling Response from Marc Gullickson:
Kevin,

I look at Cat.1 results for ALL categories and with that I am looking for top 5 results. For the Pro Open races I do not see the results nessesary to go pro as it's tough to tell which riders are pro and which are cat.1. Please resubmint for a pro upgrade when you have some top 5 results out of all cat.1 times or top 5 results in the Pro Open category.