The first thing any collegiate racer will tell you is how much fun he or she has every weekend. This is the one common variable in the six collegiate categories. There is a place for everyone to race, no matter if they are a first year rider or an elite level racer. Whether you get a top three finish or top thirty you almost have fun in collegiate cycling.
Brian Kull is a senior at the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he is majoring in Business Economics and races for the B team. Brian makes frequent appearances on the podium at collegiate races, having placed top 3 in 12 races last year. The six collegiate categories are Men's A, B, C, and D, and Women's A and B. Riders place themselves based on their ability level and have freedom to move up and down among categories for the first half of the season. After that, they can to move up a category, but not down. Although there are only two women's categories due to lower participation numbers, the races are no less intense.
The lowest categories, Men's D and Women's B are for the entry level rider, similar to a USCF Category 5 (or 4 for Women). These races are shorter than the rest, have fewer primes, lots of crashes and lots of fun. The C's are generally a bit faster with a little bit of racing experience. The Men's B's usually are experienced riders, comparable to a Cat 3.
The A categories is where all of the excitement and fast guys are, with long, fast races and lots of primes. While most riders are Cat 2 level riders, with some 1's and maybe a couple fast 3's thrown in, a few professional riders have been known to show up, such as UCLA's Lane Packwood and UCSD's Adam Livingston. Professional mountain bikers Mike Easter of UCSB and Adam Smith of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo also race the collegiate road circuit. 1996 Olympian Adam Laurent raced and won a national championship for UCSB in his collegiate days, as did current American professional Dylan Casey.
The unique part of collegiate racing is the emphasis on the team aspect of the sport. All of the categories count toward the overall placing of the team on any given day. Although the higher categories are able to score more points, the D's and Women's B's cannot be overlooked. While the 12 points a D win gives the team may seem insignificant compared to the 36 points for an A win, events are often won or lost by less than ten points. At the end of the event, all the teams points, including primes which score 4 riders deep, are added up. The school that wins the event gets 100 team points, second place 86, third place 75, and so forth. A school can count its top ten finishes while trying to finish in the top twelve in the conference by the end of the season.
At conference championships, the fields are large and points are counted double. The top three schools in each of the nine conferences advance to nationals, except for the West Coast Collegiate Conference which sends six teams. Each conference also sends its top six individuals that did not qualify with their team. Last year's team omnium champion was Stanford University.
In collegiate racing, you race with the same people every weekend and get to know them well. Team tactics come into play quite often, with teams blocking for one another and working together to dictate how the race unfolds. The kind of teamwork used in all the categories of collegiate racing is usually not seen until high level racing elsewhere. In most USCF racing, there is little motivation to work as a team, as team points are usually not counted, and if they are, amount to little if anything. For collegiate racers, working for the team can mean a conference, or even national championship. A rider who never wins a race is often an essential member person that the team could not do without.
That is the attraction of collegiate cycling. Everyone can race and be competitive in their respective categories. Everyone contributes to the placing of the team and can take pride in a successful individual or team finish. And most importantly, everyone always has fun.
Conejo Valley Cyclists / Outspokin'
Brian Kull is a senior at the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he is majoring in Business Economics and races for the B team. Brian makes frequent appearances on the podium at collegiate races, having placed top 3 in 12 races last year.