Candi Murray

USA Cycling has changed their upgrade procedures. They have mailed us a new
reciprocity agreement that I hope to have in hand this week. The Board of
Directors meets on March 8 to discuss,review and/or accept this change.

Ok folks the USAC has changed the upgrade guidelines. Everyone who might be
interested in upgrading should go to
http://www.usacycling.org/forms/USAC_rulebook.pdf
and download the pdf and review the new guidelines.

Basically the USAC adopted a form of the NCNCA alternative points system for
all categories. All categories will now get the same points schedule for
races. The number of places that get points and the number of points will
change based on the field size.

In Crits and circuit races if the starting field has 5-10 riders then the
top 3 finishers get 3/2/1 upgrade points. For fields of 11-12 the top 4
finishers get 4/3/2/1 upgrade points. for 21-50 riders the top 6 get
5/4/3/2/1 points and for 50+ fields the top 6 get 7/5/4/3/2/1 just like
before.

For road races the points schedule goes like this

5-10 riders 3/2/1, 11-20 riders 7/5/4/3/2/1, for 21-50 riders
8/6/5/4/3/2/1 and for 50+ riders 10/8/7/6/5/4/3/2/1

So basically there are a lot more points to be had in road races now.

For Cat 3 to 2 upgrades and 2 to 1 upgrades the stage race GC upgrade points
also have various points based on field size. For 3 to 2 upgrades it should
be noted that riders are limited to getting a Max of 15 point from a single
event ( ie even though the points schedule says a rider gets 20 points for
winning the GC in a race with 50 or more riders you can only apply 15 of
those points towards an upgrade to Cat 2).

Also new are the Max number of points a Cat 3 or Cat 2 rider earn before
they get an automatic upgrade. Cat 3s will earn an automatic upgrade if
they get 40 upgrade points in a 12 month period and Cat 2 will get an
automatic upgrade if they get 50 points in a 12 month period.