FYI

-Leonardo Campos-Moya

The season is in full swing in many parts of the country while other parts are probably wondering if winter will ever end. Here in Colorado we had 65 degree weather 3 days ago and 6 inches of snow the day after that. However, once the Tour of California takes place, there can be no denying that the season is on.

Six dedicated skiers and families accepted the offer of a non-sanctioned officials ski weekend at Breckenridge, with one couple coming from Tennessee to join the fun. We all had a great time and will look forward to doing it again every year. Getting dropped that quickly by everyone took me back to my humble beginnings as a junior racer…

But onto business. In this edition of the update, I would like to discuss national level assignments, upgrades, and new bike rules.

National Level Assignments

The national level assignments have been out for some time, but I had not gotten around to publishing the comprehensive list. They are posted online now – Just follow these links:

http://www.usacycling.org/forms/officials/MTB_appointments.pdf

http://www.usacycling.org/forms/officials/ROAD_appointments.pdf

http://www.usacycling.org/forms/officials/TRACK_appointments.pdf

If you did not receive an assignment from the TC, that does not mean that you cannot work at a particular event. The TC only assigned the full crew for the international races and our National Championships. For all other races the Chief Referee and sometimes the Chief Judge were assigned. To get on a crew for another position, contact your Regional Coordinator or Local Association official’s coordinator. One of those two people will be filling out the rest of the crew.

Upgrades

The upgrade requirements for road and CX have been changed significantly. Please check them out in the USA Cycling Rulebook, either hard copy or online. You can also access the upgrade requirements via the discipline-specific pages of the USA Cycling website. The essential differences compared to last year are as follows:

• There is now a tiered scale of points based on how many participants were in the race. In some cases, this will make it easier to upgrade, especially in classes with small fields, but it will take more races to do so as the points are fewer.
• If road races do not meet the distance requirement to be considered a road race, they may still be long enough to be considered a criterium or circuit race. In that case there is a different points table to use, but points would still be available.
• The parameters for upgrading from 4 to 3 on experience alone have been modified.

A couple of explanations/interpretations are also necessary to address questions that always come up.

Stage Races

First, stage races only count for upgrading from 3 to 2 or from 2 to 1. Second, an omnium is not a stage race. There is no General Classification for an omnium and no points are awarded for overall omnium placings. The stage race can be on points instead of time, but must be a true stage race, which means a rider must ride all stages in order to continue. That is the easiest way to determine if it is a stage race or not. A long series of criteriums where there happens to be an overall prize does not count.

Mixed Categories

The question always comes up about how you handle mixed categories. Here is a play by play to explain how to interpret it if an rider wants to know whether a race counts for upgrading and how:

Let’s say the rider rides a men’s category 1,2,3 road race that is 50 miles and has 72 starters. The rider gets 5^th place. Does the rider get upgrade points and how many? Well, there is no single, simple answer to that question. The answer depends on the category of the rider requesting the upgrade and the composition of the field.

• Rider is a category 3 – Yes, the race definitely counts for upgrading. For a cat 3 to 2 upgrade, the RR need only be 50 miles, so we would use the road race points table. Since the field is a mixture of category 1,2, and 3, all of the riders qualify as starters for this rider, so we would use the road race table with 50+ starters. Did you get 5 points? If so, you did it right.
• Rider is a category 2 – Hmm. Alas this is more difficult. For a 2 to 1 upgrade, a road race must be 80 miles, so this race does not qualify as a road race. However, a criterium need only be 30 miles, so this race qualifies on distance for the criterium table. How many starters do we use? This is even more difficult and puts the burden on the requestor and on the administrator to know the composition of the field. This is why many administrators in the past just refused to use combined fields for upgrades. That is not the intent of the process, however. If of the 72 riders, 55 of them were category 1 or 2, then you would use the criterium table and 50+ starters. You should get 2 points. What if the 72 riders consisted of three category 1 riders, one category 2 (the guy looking for the upgrade), and sixty-eight category 3 riders? That race then had only 3 other riders that were the requestor’s peers or higher. Alas, that race did not count for upgrading as the table has a minimum of 5 to earn points.

Those two examples are the extremes, of course. There would be race scenarios intermediate between those two extremes. We know this will take some getting used to, but we will give it a try.

New Bike Rules

It should come as no surprise that we adopted some new bike rules this year since we had put warnings of upcoming rule changes for a couple of years now. As of now, UCI bike rules are in effect for all of the following:

• International events
• National Records
• National Championships for all ages 17 and above.

It is the last part that was the change and adds masters to the list of riders who must have UCI legal bikes for National Championships.

First, I must emphasize that these rules do not apply to regular domestic races. I have gotten some complaints from riders saying the officials DQ’d them from domestic races because their bikes were not UCI compliant. They don’t have to be for local races. It is great if officials, organizers, and Local Association administrators want to start the education process by measuring bikes, using a scale and jig, etc. However, this must be only for education purposes so people can start to see if their bikes are legal.

To see the full list of rules, you need to look near the back of chapter 1 of the UCI rulebook, which you can get by following this link:

http://www.uci.ch/templates/UCI/UCI2/layout.asp?MenuId=MTkzNg

We will be publishing a more comprehensive explanation of these rules shortly, but to wet your appetites, here are the main issues and differences.

• Frame design – frames must be of the double triangle configuration. Bikes without seat tubes, and other such modifications are no longer legal.
• Weight – Bikes must weigh a minimum of 6.8 kilograms
• Wheels – Wheels must be the same diameter between 650 and 750.
• Spokes – Wheels used in massed start events must have at least 12 spokes, so discs, tri spokes, etc, can only be used in time trial type events.
• Specific Dimensions:
  • Saddle Back position – The tip of the saddle must be at least 5 cm behind the vertical through the chainring axle (see morphological exception below)
  • Handlebar extension position – For time trials, the distance between the vertical through the chainring axle and the end of the bar extensions must be 75 cm or less (see morphological exceptions)

There are lots of other measurements, but those are the most critical issues. At international races and at Elite National Championships, we have always had a scale and jig available. We have a few industrious souls who have built there own and some sell them as well. The big change will be having these now available at Masters Nationals. The bike weighing is easy. With a proper jig, it just takes a couple of seconds to see that the bike makes the correct dimensions.

The bugaboo for officials everywhere is the morphological exception. The UCI rules say that if a rider has an odd morphology, and by that they mean limb length issues, then they can get exceptions.

If a rider is relatively short, say less than 5’6”, then that rider may find the saddle back position overly burdensome. In that case they may request a morphological exception (morph test colloquially). This involves them sitting on the saddle in racing position with one foot fully forward so that the crank is parallel to the ground, and measuring from the front of their knee with a plumb bob down through their pedal axle. The line must pass through or behind the pedal axle. They can move their saddle forward as far as dead on even with the vertical through the chainring axle as long as the plumb bob test still works.

If a rider is relatively tall or has really long arms, they can request a morph test on the handlebar extension position. They can move it as far forward as 80 cm from the chainring axle vertical as long as the angle of their elbow does not exceed 120 degrees. It is this rule that is truly the most difficult to the really tall rider. Someone 6’5” will still be curled up in a ball even at 80 cm, but that is the box that all riders must fit in according to UCI rules.

We will shortly publish more on this rule and its interpretations, but this will get you started. My next TD update will come out within a week or so. Until then, enjoy the 2008 season and don’t hesitate to write if you have questions or specific rule interpretations you would like addressed.

Shawn Farrell

Technical Director