I have another question about upgrade points (I guess I must find these more confusing than others :)). So according to the rules in a mixed category race the number of starters is determined as the number of starters in your category. But how does this work with the following scenarios:
I finished 5/52 in a mixed 4/5 race yesterday, but the officials DNPed everybody after place 30. Among those 30, there were 20 cat 4 racers, so 1 short of getting a point for place 5. But USACycling doesn’t give you the categories for DNPed people, so how do you determine the points? Does this mean that only the cat 4 people among the first 30 count?
The guy who won the race won on a day license, so doesn’t have a category either. (Seriously, he was strong). How does that affect the upgrade points?
If you care to look, here’s the link to the results:
Pretty happy with the race in general: first raceday of the season, 5th in the 4/5 race, 11th (after being involved in a 3rd lap pileup and borrowing a front wheel to continue) in the 3/4 race, so not so bad.
And this is mostly an academic question. A point isn’t that important and I think I’ll be cat 4 for a while, but I am curious about how it works!
In my experience, they don’t go through and count who is a Cat 4 and who is a Cat 5. Maybe it’s different in different regions, and maybe it’s different for men vs women, but in all of my races, they didn’t go through to that level of detail and say, “Too bad! You had 6 starters, but only 4 of them were cat 4 and the rest were cat 5, so you don’t get any points!” [Sadly, those are real numbers from some races I’ve done.] I would just say that you were 5/52, and go from there.
A day-of license is a Cat 5.
Nice job on your racing!! Sounds really solid. And, glad that it was just your front wheel that was affected in that pileup… hopefully it was just a flat, not completely damaged?
great job! This is all done by simply sending in a spreadsheet of your points, so use the # of starters and don’t overthink it too much.
Upgrade as soon as you can and mix it up with the 3s…you’ll have more serious riders in there with better competition, and therefore you’ll get better.
Thanks for all the replies. The bike is mostly okay (just got it back from an LBS checkup). Saddle is gone, tire blew out at the side wall, and my helmet has a dent from someone’s front wheel. Other than that, just road rash. Fortunately it’s adaptation week so I get to take it a little easier before round two on Sunday.
