USA Cycling released last month their new national calendar for 2016, which merged the current National Racing Calendar (NRC) and the National Criterium Calendar (NCC) into what they hope will be a more marketable 24-event series that combines one-day road races, stage races, criteriums and omnium events.
Micah Rice, USA Cycling Vice President of National Events, said that the merging of the two calendars was decided upon after USA Cycling was given feedback from race directors of US-based teams at the National Symposium held in October.
Cyclingnews reached out to a series of riders and teams for their reactions to the merger, and although the overall response was positive, there were a few concerns. For example, some felt that the calendar offers too many events, particularly criteriums (17 in total), others were concerned about how it would affect their budgets, and many are patiently waiting for USA Cycling to announce the ranking system.
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To gain some perspective from the US event promoters, Cyclingnews spoke with four members of the National Association of Professional Race Directors (NAPRD). The association came into existence about a year ago and the majority of their members are on the new national racing calendar. Their mission statement is, "dedicated to improving the experiences of spectators, participants and teams at pro/elite bicycle road racing events in the United States. A particular emphasis will be to increase the number and engagement of fans with the long term goal of growing bicycle racing into a mainstream sport."
Cyclingnews spoke with Dave LaPorte from the North Star Grand Prix, Marco Colbert from Intelligentsia Cup p/b SRAM, Malcolm McCollam from St. Francis Tulsa Tough and Rob Laybourn from the Air Force Association Cycling Classic.
Cyclingnews: Why was there a need to start the NAPRD and what is its affiliation with USA Cycling?
Dave LaPorte: We have been going to the USA Cycling Summits for years and the goal was to have different event promoters share their practices and bring in outside speakers who could help us raise our game. Over the past few years, the agenda was pretty much the same thing every year. Not that it wasn’t important but we had heard it all before, and so for 2014 Rob [Laybourn] reached out and said, ‘let’s talk about the agenda and get some influence on it so that we can gain more value out of going to the event.’
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
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