I’ve heard rumors of Cedar City, Utah.

It's a pity, but USAC in the springs and the people in the springs who know how to organize races had 'communication problems'. So no Colorado Springs natz for 2020.

Utah would be fun and I'd consider travelling.

I was planning on driving regardless of where Nats was going to be in 2020, Cedar City would be a lot easier of a drive. Just wish they would hurry up and finalize the date and location in writing.

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Mike Plumb, TriPower MultiSports
Professional Running, Cycling and Multisport Coaching, F.I.S.T. Certified
http://www.tripower.org

I’d like to see a confirmed location, date and course. It is in June or August? Kind of be nice to know. But likewise, master’s worlds are in Vancouver this year and there’s no time trial course announced yet.

USAC are busy killing off the local associations and maximizing revenue stream from its members at the moment. They'll get round to master natz later.

Agree, kind of frustrating. The 3 courses in CO Springs were pretty great. Cedar City sounds interesting.....

Yep, this. USAC and Grand Fondo USA have partnered up to have a jersey winning national Championships this year. You have to qualify for nationals which I guess means you have to do a couple of the Grand Fondo branded events. To qualify for the jersey you also have to have USAC license.

Details are a bit scarce, but I know it will be held on my doorstep in Asheville. I'm all for Fondos and whatever gets people on bikes, but I'm a bit put off by this being an actual real championship. I think mainly because the format is "segment racing". One has absolutely no idea where they stand during the race or rankings until everyone is in.

The upside is that, hopefully, there will be some much needed drug testing. A crew from Colombia came in a couple of years ago and smoked a bunch of World Tour pro's KOM's 75 miles into the event. Someone doing 6.5w/kg for 20 minutes 4 hours in should be a known entity, but these guys were pretty much ghosts when you googled their names.

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Heath Dotson
HD Coaching:Website |Twitter: 140 Characters or Less|Facebook:Follow us on Facebook

Are you sure about that? I had a teammate who did two of them, one to qualify for masters grand fondo worlds, and then he went to worlds. Both were full-up mass start road races. They also properly used gun time for results instead of chip time like some gran fondos. E.g. finish place determined the winner, no gaming the system by rolling across the line 5 seconds late and catching on in order to win even if you lose a sprint.

The info for Vancouver looks encouraging. There's also what looks like a pure time trial. Though it's not clear yet if that's like a road bike hill segment TT, or a pure TT-bike TT.

Yes I'm 100% sure about it.

From the announcement:

The need to qualify only applies to the Gran (longest) Route which will count as the one-day National Championship event, using the timed-segment competition format GFNS made popular in the US.

https://www.usacycling.org/...ondo-national-series

What you are talking about is different Fondo organization. AFAIK, the GFNS did not qualify anyone to the UCI Fondo. And yes, UCI Fondo TT (which is kind of weird naming) is a pure TT. The UCI Fondo and TT essentially replaced the Master's world RR and TT that used to be held every year in Germany.

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Heath Dotson
HD Coaching:Website |Twitter: 140 Characters or Less|Facebook:Follow us on Facebook

a lot of this is new to me but it sounded like even if you just wanted to do the TT in Vancouver you still needed to compete in a Grand Fondo road race to qualify?

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Mike Plumb, TriPower MultiSports
Professional Running, Cycling and Multisport Coaching, F.I.S.T. Certified
http://www.tripower.org

That one I can’t answer. I think there is a qualifier for worlds though. Might just be a TT to qualify for TT tho.

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Heath Dotson
HD Coaching:Website |Twitter: 140 Characters or Less|Facebook:Follow us on Facebook

No, I'm talking about the 2019 UCI Masters Gran Fondo Championships.

My teammate qualified for the 2019 UCI Master Gran Fondo Championships in Poznan, Poland by crossing the finish line first overall at the 2019 Cache Grand Fondo in Utah. He was timed start to finish. He finished 49th overall in Poland.

He said that both Cache and Poznan were pure road races for him.

He told me he wasn't aware of any "segment timing" on either course. Other than start line to finish line. His "winning segment" time was 4 hours and 13 minutes.

Maybe some of the other qualifying events had segment rankings or something.

...but I like how that page you linked to promotes the gran fondo series while showing a picture from the start line of a criterium. :)

It was and still is in St. Johann Austria.

Correct that was not run by the GFNS that USAC is partnering with.

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Heath Dotson
HD Coaching:Website |Twitter: 140 Characters or Less|Facebook:Follow us on Facebook

Ah, I see. I'm still going to wait and see how this plays out. I wouldn't take a phrase in a preliminary press release as etched in stone.

Right, Austria, sorry. I don’t think this is recognized by the UCI anymore though?

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Heath Dotson
HD Coaching:Website |Twitter: 140 Characters or Less|Facebook:Follow us on Facebook

Given that they’ve had the GFNS “national championships” here the last two years and they were all segments, I can’t see that changing. The amount of liability and police support as well as just volunteers for corner Marshals on the course they use here would be completely cost prohibitive. I’d love a straight up mass start road race here even though I’d get killed because there’s about 10,000’ of climbing. I go fast on the flats, but I’m a bit allergic to hills. Ha

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Heath Dotson
HD Coaching:Website |Twitter: 140 Characters or Less|Facebook:Follow us on Facebook

It is not recognized anymore as the UCI Masters World Championship but it is still a fine event with strong Masters fields.


All qualifier Gran Fondos in Europe for the UCI Gran Fondo World Championships are "ordinary" mass start road races i.e. the first over the finishing line wins the race. I know for sure that the last UCI Gran Fondo World Championships (2015 Denmark, 2016 Autralia, 2017 France, 2018 Italy, 2019 Poland) all were ordinary mass start races. However not every age group got an individual start but most often several age groups started together.

As someone looking to right some wrongs, I've been checking with USAC regularly. They are totally non-committal on dates and locations, other than to say not Colorado Springs. I've heard rumors of Utah as well. I'm hopeful it's either hilly, at altitude, or both. A flat course at sea level would be a bummer.

On the third episode of the USACommunique podcast, Lindsay (USAC Director of Membership) says locations for masters nats will be announced shortly after the new year.

What is up with USAC and local associations? I've been hearing rumors about "changes" for months now, but no one has provided any detail.

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No coasting in running and no crying in baseball

They're changing the payment structures to the LAs. Funding will be reduced by maybe 50-60%.

Forced amalgamations. Number of LAs to be almost halved.

Taking over permit approval for events and upgrading. This is insane because they are simply unable to have the local knowledge to know if a race is safe or practical to put on. Upgrade coordinators need to have the judgement to refuse or delay upgrades if a rider is unsafe or too inexperienced for the next level. Seen this happen a few times and it has saved lives.

Experienced Promoters may potentially save a bit on permitting fees here, but I can't see new promoters getting the help they need.

This is all for cost savings to pay for something or other. For perspective, USACs LA budget is $400k but travel budget is $3M.

Thanks. Sounds like a cf. Do you know how the amalgamations will be "forced"? I've seen reference to "voluntary" and "encouraged" consolidations.

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No coasting in running and no crying in baseball