Are you sure that is cash? I know when I used to bike race, those amounts designated the amount of retail prizes they were giving out, all donated by local shops or sponsors.

And I have done dozens and dozens of small local races with prize money, I guess your answer is just depends??

fair question, i didn't cut/paste the whole description from bikereg.com, but further down it says:
Prize break down
$750= 150,150,150,150,150
$500 = 100,100,100,100,100
$300=100,100,100
$150= 50,50,50

other races on the site usual say "merch" or "medals" in prize category. for that matter, the registration page on bikereg.com has a column for "prizes" along with category, start time, field limits, race price...as if it is of equal importance with start time and price! i think it is ingrained in the culture of cycling to have prizes. it may have been that way with tri in the past, but not now. i can only speak for new england, but FIRM races used to have a great prize table that all AG top3s would pick from. NE tri tour would give free race certificates. *I realize this is a superficial gripe overall* but as race fees and prices go up, and awards disappear, the overall value of the event goes down. But back to the original question, how does a cycling RD get away with giving away 1/3 of the income as prizes?

When is the last time you got a tech tee and a finisher's medal at the local office park crit?

The expectations of the customers are different, so the $$$ go different places.

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Won two races last year here in Hong Kong and both times they gave sports watches as prizes. Nice thought, but surely they should realize that winners would have whatever watch they need already.

Kind of funny actually

A tri is much more expensive to handle. Lifeguard, transition zones, number of officials etc.
Also eveey one expects a fucking medal and finisher t shirt for a locaæ sprint tri. So no money for prize purses.
We do have some local tris with ærice purses here in DK, but yes most just have merchandise for the winners.

I know it's a revelation. Coming from triathlon, I remember my first Cat 5 race. I came in like 20th, but afterward I was handed some tires, some Oakleys, and a $200 gift certificate to a fancy restaurant, and I was like WTF I just got demolished at beginner bikes and I'm getting more than I ever got in my entire triathlon "career"? Apparently I'd been leading a few laps and hoovered up the primes (like triathletes tend to stupidly do in their first bike race).

It's just a cultural thing. U.S. crit culture was all about cash prizes for every race. It makes it fun.

It's changing, though. I don't think it's as prevalent in the new age of gran fondos and gravel racing, where money more often only goes to pros/elite.

Triathlon has a different culture. Age groupers just get medals, money is for pros. (if that).

Yes....there is much more $$ in road racing. Not really sure why there should be money like there is but....its real. Sometimes can be significant even at cat 3.

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And this is corrosive within the sport of bike racing. The top-level events - top men and top women - should get cash. Everyone else, trophies. The cash thing creates a faux-pro attitude among racers and is a waste of resources for promoters/clubs. It's absurd. Trophies - ideally nice trophies that people can be proud of. Or if you want money, get good enough to race the top-level events.

I say this as someone who raced bikes for over 25 years, has been involved in race promotion, category 2, won a few (*few*) races.


EDITED TO ADD: A few times I got some cool local produce from a race from winning/placing in a lower-category. That's kind of fun - won a cat 3 race event in Vermont and got maple syrup (among other things) which I gave to my grandmother. I still remember that. That kind of local flavor is nice.

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Agreed.....100%.

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24 Hour World TT Champs-American record holder
Fat Bike Worlds - Race Director
Insta: chris.s.apex

Amateur tris are treated more like a t shirt 10k than a competitive event, so the prizes reflect that.
The prizes at triathlons are your lunch, tshirt, medal, and if you race in the mid atlantic, podium prizes for 20 some odd AGs/divisions
Makes more people happy.

Kinetic multisports does have 2-3 races this year with sizable prize purses though.

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This is it exactly. Bike races are an actual competition. No one gives two shits if you finish mid pack in crit. You pack up your gear and go home with nothing to show for your day.

Tris cater to an audience where everyone gets a participation trophy and some merch to show off the fact that they raced. I would love to see more prize purses added, but in reality that would just increase the entry fees or decrease the freebies. Which in turn would lower participation and likely have a negative impact on the sport. At the end of the day, there are only so many $$$ that can be spread around and prize purses would entice only a small fraction of the overall population

very much agree, part of me thinks that Age Group categories cater to this participation mentality. does human physiology change every five years? there is no sense in it. how many small races have you been to that only have a few people for some of the AG's? literally everyone is getting a medal. Ability categories (like cycling) would make tri exciting again. racing against people of roughly equal ability (spread across 3 sports) is much more fun and rewarding, and the goal of upgrading is a worthy pursuit. look at how triathletes shun the open elite categories. the top 20 overall should be in that category, but instead they choose AG. Why, for a silly medal?

Be careful what you wish for. Classical category-cycling is suffering. The new cycling is gravel and gran fondos, which follow the triathlon model. There's a usually a genuine race up the road (except in some fondos), and if you want to be super competitive and go take on Peter Stetina, he's up there somewhere. But most people are just having fun finishing it.

By comparison classic road races and crits have really cratered. There's still a core out there. But per the above comments, the masters fields are often a shrinking core of "prof-amateur" guys. For the elites there a fun USA Crits schedule trying to keep things alive.

I'm perfectly happy either way. I'll go race 90 minutes down on Peter Stetina and proudly troll all the finisher-medals-are-the-pussification-of-America bros with it, or race the crits and (sometimes) embarrassedly take my cash while I watch the junior teams doing like bake sales to pay for their hotel rooms.

Either way there's as much race as I can possibly handle. In bike racing there are precious few people who say, "I wish the competition was just better." Maybe Mathew Van der Poel.

does human physiology change every five years? //

Yes it does, what's your point? Probably starting at 30, getting more pronounced at 40, then a steep progression beginning at 50, where it goes off a cliff at 65. I was just looking at the qualifying times for swimming this year for nationals, and it becomes quite apparent where the little/huge drops occur. And I'm keenly aware that I'm at about the worst age possible to be competitive in my age group, will be 64 1/2 when nationals hit..)-;


Cycling is about as dead as the od video/book stores. All the big chains gone, a few mom and pops still around bucking the trend, but losing. When I bike raced in the 70's and 80's, there were at least 15 road races I could do just from central CA to the Mexican border, all in the winter. There are 0 now. And the fields would be between 80 to 140 riders too. What's left of that group is now what you see in masters 55+, with virtually no new blood coming in. There are crits still hanging on, but each year we lose a couple of those two.


Thats the model you want to emulate?

Id love to see the tshirt ride/fondo also support a RR on the same day or weekend. That might stoke the fire a bit

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Your point is completely valid - I'm only listing the remaining RR's so that anyone who still wants to get into road racing doesn't take your rhetorical point as fact.

Some of the remaining USACycling-style road races still in existence in southern-ish CA:

Santa Barbara RR (next weekend) - fun one
UCLA RR (right up near the Empfield compound), Feb 22
San Luis Rey RR (maybe?)
Victorville RR (maybe?)
Lake Elizabeth RR (maybe?)

All of these are kinda on life support, but the first 2 are almost definitely happening (being permitted). The last 3 may happen.

I thought the same thing. Shot in the dark, the one who posted the question is 28.

well i think you made my point for me. the physiologic declines you are talking about mirror the age categories in cycling : juniors, seniors, masters 40/50/60+ etc. not 5 year age groups. physiologically a 22 year old, 28 and 31 year old should all be racing together *if* of the same ability. as for tri emulating this, no i dont want that. too big a shake up, not realistic. i would like to see the open/elite (again not pro card level) class be more popular and respected. i think a descent prize at that level would be helpful. right now, at most local level races there is no incentive to race open if you are looking at zero prize for places 2-10 (and probably nothing for first too), whereas most of those top 10 guys would rather get an AG podium and a sweet medal and pic for social media

jflan wrote:

well i think you made my point for me. the physiologic declines you are talking about mirror the age categories in cycling : juniors, seniors, masters 40/50/60+ etc. not 5 year age

The age categories in cycling at the nationals level *are* 5-year categories. At the local level it can be pretty arbitrary. That can be 45+/55+, etc. Or 40+, 50+. Or 5-year categories for really big races.

I think the 5-year categories came from the time when nationals fields could be completely full at 5-years. Now even at nationals, I think only a few fields are full. They could go to 10, but are just sticking with tradition.

It's not to be taken too seriously. It's just people having fun, and a convenient way of dividing up people so a race makes sense in terms of relatively fair abilities and number of people on the course. Not adhering to some like super strict scientific principle.

Quote:

physiologically a 22 year old, 28 and 31 year old should all be racing together

Triathlon also has to manage wave sizes, etc. There are fewer ability categories, but there are kinda two: age-group and elite. If you're constantly winning your age group and no longer feel challenged, and are under-35, go play around in elite/pro!

If you look at the pointy end, it's usually the younger guys winning even in 5 year age groups. There's a big difference in 10 year jumps. Even from 50-59 and even more so further up the age spectrum.

Maybe in triathlon. In bike racing it's really hard for me to see a correlation. Maybe if I plotted it I could see it. But bike racing tends to be dominated by a relatively few really skilled riders, and they seem to have little trouble competing the full span of an age group decade. A lot of them spend much of the year racing down in age group (until nationals when you're not allowed to).

Edit: Case in point Kevin Metcalfe on this forum. He's almost 60, but could compete in 30+ very competitively. He's a bit of an outlier, of course. But there are dozens of guys kinda like him in every age category. The perpetual pro-amateur class. Only Kevin's not a dick.

Yes, I was referring to triathlon. I don't look at cycling results much, plus they don't always show age. Plus, tri wise it's easier to compare because everyone is on the same course.