Looking ahead to the impact of USAC rule changes

Around the country the road season is wrapping up with most conferences having completed their seasons and crowned individual and team champions. While we are all primarily interested in the performances at the upcoming National Championships, we can also take a moment to speculate as to what Nationals will look like in the 2016-17 season under the new divisional structure.

I have previously speculated about the potential negative consequences of making divisional membership based on program type (varsity vs. club), but now we have some hard numbers to work with. I am relying on the information available at CCN and the conference results that are available as of today.

In my opinion, we can see clear negative outcomes in terms of "National Representation", "Showcasing the Best Teams/Riders", and "Field Composition".

National Representation
Currently there are 16 varsity programs with A riders. These programs are distributed as follows:

Midwest = 3
Rocky Mountain = 4
South Central = 1
Southeast = 8

This means that 6 out of the 10 active conferences will not be represented in the premier division. Further, 50% of the schools will come from a single conference.

Showcasing the Best Teams/Riders
Of the 10 active conferences, 7 of the conference championship winning teams are club programs. While this means that in 3 of the 4 conferences with varsity teams, a varsity team was the strongest team, in one conference (Rocky Mountain) a club team outperformed 4 varsity programs.

Further, only 9 of the 16 varsity programs make the CCN.com's Top 25 Power Rankings. This means 16 of the statistically strongest programs in the country will not be competing in the premier division.

From an individual rider perspective, the split also dilutes the quality of the premier field for both men and women. According to CCN.com's rider rankings, only 24 of the top 100 ranked men are from varsity programs. For the women it is only 39. This means that the majority of the top ranked individual riders will not be lining up to contest the premier division.

Field Composition
On the mens side, only 7 varsity teams are capable of fielding a full squad (6) in the Road Race. The remaining 8 programs can field a grand total of 19 riders. The resulting mens field will be extremely small and/or imbalanced (large teams dominating small teams).

For the women it is even more problematic. There are only 12 varsity programs that can field a female competitor at Nationals. Of these 12, only 5 can field the full 6 in the road race (an additional team, Brevard, can field 5 riders). If you were to include club programs, a full 12 programs would be able to field 5 riders. This leads to a very balanced and reasonably-sized field.

Conclusion
While I do favor a restructuring of the divisions, I don't think we have gotten to the point where it can be done on a varsity/club level. As previously stated, I think a transitional period is necessary where the "best" club programs should also be included in a redesigned "Division 1". I think "best" can be determined by considering the following:

1.  Club's interest and activity in pursuing "varsity status"
2.  Size of program/roster
3.  Quality of program--past results
4.  Program's interest in competing in the "top" division

That's my 2 cents, feel free to comment.

2016 Road Nationals - criterium course breakdown

This year's Nationals are back in the Asheville, NC area. The Road Race and Time Trial course remain the same as last year, but the Criterium course is new. Because its new that's where we'll begin. This breakdown is brought to you by myself and Joey Iuliano (@Joey_Iuliano) of the University of Arizona. It was his initial tweets about the course that exposed the course characteristics and gave me the idea for the course breakdown.

In an Omnium-style event, it seems reasonable that every "type" of rider should have an opportunity to shine. The road race typically favors those who can climb well and tends to favor smaller and lighter riders. Generally, the CRITERIUM should showcase the sprinters and riders who excel on the flats and can generate big power and high speeds.

Last year's criterium course was an extremely difficult and selective course. In most people's mind, inappropriately so. The Women's event completely exploded with only 5 riders in contention after a few laps. A shortened Men's race had a largish breakaway get away from a severely reduced field. Many riders were pulled from both events very early, making for a frustrating and unfulfilling experience (not to mention expensive).

Many complained and USA Cycling promised to come up with a new course that was flatter and would provide a more appropriate criterium experience. When the course maps were posted, the elevation profile made it appear that we were going to have a basically flat course. However, upon closer inspection it is clear that the those profiles were somewhat misleading. One must conclude that there is not a mile of flat road anywhere in the Asheville area, because this year's course doesn't look much better than last year (if not worse).

On Strava:  https://www.strava.com/routes/4571974

As you can see the course is about .9 miles with about 105ft of elevation gain per lap. Note this is 105ft over only .4 miles or so. This equates to an average grade of 4.97%. Compare to last year's course: .85 miles with 105ft gained over approximately .35 miles (an average grade of 5.68%). Although we think last year's uphill section was harder, the bottom corner on this year's course will slow the riders even more before starting the climb. This year's course looks to be on narrower roads (with the exception of the downhill on Main Street) which will further contribute to stringing out the fields. Finally, unlike last year which had basically no flat sections, this year has the town square section (this means the elevation loss is over a shorter distance than last year). Small variations aside, the courses are remarkably similar.

Here's some snapshot views moving around the course:

View from Start/Finish area, the highest point on the course

First turn, 90 degree right-hander into the town square

Into the town square, quick left 

heading into another 90 degree left hander

slight downhill following the turn, still in the town square

a left, then quick right leaving the town square and down Main Street

at the top of East Main Street, left turn on to Azalea is at the bottom

nearing the turn, you can see Azalea coming back up on the left

The Azalea turn, very acute! Note the Azalea is the "inner" street, not the 90 degree

A view of the corner from the outside, riders come down E Main on the left side of the image, and turn to head up Azalea on the right side of the image. Almost an 180 degree turn!

after the turn, looking up Azalea

about halfway up Azalea

the last 200-300m before the turn on to Main Street

the sweeping turn to Main Street

on Main Street immediately after the turn, still going up...start/finish is right after where the road crests

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