Do gravel race participants care about "lining up with the pros"?

[72gmc]

Originally Posted by KJMUNC

Here I thought this thread was about whether or not we cared about lining up with pros....yet here we are.

I'll line up with pros at the post-race feed, but I want to be in front. I bet they take all of the guacamole.

[reuben]

Originally Posted by spoonrobot

I'm a big mickey.d enthusiast, his red hot anger is mainly against Gravel. The gender dynamics are merely a side focus.

He's an elitist about bicycle racing, a sport that has largely rejected such attitudes. If you're the type of person to read his posts and become motivated to go road race or xc or cx you're a ghost going to haunt dead disciplines.

Ride the wave or stand on the beach raging that everyone else is having fun, dude.

[KJMUNC]

Post-script to OP’s question: I lined up at BWR Sunday never expecting to see anyone on course because I figured they’d be too far in front of me…until Valverde wrecked 5mi in on the first gravel section.

3mi later I’m leading a long line of riders trying to catch a bigger group before the Lake Hodges descent and Valverde materializes next to us shouting “Vamanos! Vamanos!” My only reaction was “dude I don’t get any faster!”, which I muttered about the time he took off and promptly left us all in the dust.

We laughed about that all the way to the finish. So that was a pretty cool memory.

[mstateglfr]

Originally Posted by mickey.d

Because gravel is such a sad late-capiltalist dead-end fad, a grotesque simulation of real bicycle racing, it’s hard for me to have an opinion about gravel.

I hope to one day be cool enough to understand what this sentence actually says and means.

[reuben]

Originally Posted by mstateglfr

I hope to one day be cool enough to understand what this sentence actually says and means.

It's a bit of a headscratcher. He's saying something to the effect that it's horrible and disgusting, but he doesn't have an opinion about it.

[sg8357]

Originally Posted by mstateglfr

I hope to one day be cool enough to understand what this sentence actually says and means.

You use semantic algebra and try to get the terms to cancel.
So you get something like this.....

"Early stage Hobbesian resource distribution enabling high social
equity flight responses to uninvited reallocation strategies."

[.RJ]

Originally Posted by mstateglfr

I hope to one day be cool enough to understand what this sentence actually says and means.

I hope I'm never so grouchy about something awesome like bike riding to understand.

[BRad704]

Originally Posted by KJMUNC

Post-script to OP’s question: I lined up at BWR Sunday never expecting to see anyone on course because I figured they’d be too far in front of me…until Valverde wrecked 5mi in on the first gravel section.

3mi later I’m leading a long line of riders trying to catch a bigger group before the Lake Hodges descent and Valverde materializes next to us shouting “Vamanos! Vamanos!” My only reaction was “dude I don’t get any faster!”, which I muttered about the time he took off and promptly left us all in the dust.

We laughed about that all the way to the finish. So that was a pretty cool memory.

That's an awesome memory to have!

For me it was stopping at Midsouth 2023 to help Paige Onweller (Trek Driftless Women's Team Pro) change a double flat. As soon as we were ready, she said "Jump on my wheel, I'll pull". AAaaand that lasted about 5 seconds before she dropped me.

[rice rocket]

Originally Posted by mickey.d

It’s great that riders are trying to advocate for something… but they should be advocating for(and REGISTERING for)their local road races and xc races and cross races instead

Nah.

Been there, done that. Road racing and cross are boring.

[rmhurley]

its hard to say what people really want and, is it because there are pros there? or because all their friends are also there and you get a burrito and beer at the end? I think the growing numbers of race participants and their respective relationship to professional participation is correlative. Seems the fact that it is now "professional" boosts its visibility overall and with that you have more and more regular people showing up. I suspect that participation might be about the same if there were separate races but also I would think that the age categrories would still be sufficient. I mean, why cut someone off if they were really motivated by the fact that they could measure themselves against a pro in competition, even if they wouldnt win? I see no point in that--let people enter in whatever category they qualify. I just hope that as it evolves and grows, it stays somewhat flexible and fun for everyone who wants to show up.

[spoonrobot]

There's been a lot of discussion close to this topic since the last time I posted, around the starting time changes, etc.

Every comment of the 100+ I've read since the announcement for Unbound has been about the commenter's personal race OR other amateur racer's races. Registrants, apparently, dgaf about the pros.

I think that in general "lining up w/ the pros", for however much relevance it had in the past (not much imo), has none today.

[bigbill]

Originally Posted by rice rocket

Nah.

Been there, done that. Road racing and cross are boring.

Are there still road races? From what I've seen, office park crits are what we call road racing these days. Cross is fun if the weather is epic and the spectators do beer hand-ups.

Gravel racing is like the old road races, a big loop with a mix of terrain. In fact, some of the upstate South Carolina roads we raced on in the 90s would make a good gravel route.

But don't get me started on the proletariat pack fodder that only exist to create a prize purse.

[spoonrobot]

Originally Posted by bigbill

Are there still road races? From what I've seen, office park crits are what we call road racing these days. Cross is fun if the weather is epic and the spectators do beer hand-ups.

Gravel racing is like the old road races, a big loop with a mix of terrain. In fact, some of the upstate South Carolina roads we raced on in the 90s would make a good gravel route.

But don't get me started on the proletariat pack fodder that only exist to create a prize purse.

I saw this argument in the New York Times article a year or two ago and it didn't make any sense then and it doesn't make any sense now. It shows an ignorance of the sport, at all levels, as well as what is provided to all racers, and what is different for the professional racers.

At the most extreme position: Each "proletariat pack fodder" contributes only a small percentage of their entry fee to the price purse. This is easy to review because everyone who finished a given gravel event is listed nice and neat together on Athlinks with the pros.

Taken individually for example:

Sea Otter gravel has a prize purse of $3,000 awarded to Top 5 female and male racers.

~500 people completed the race, so each participant contributed $6 to the prize purse.

Unbound doesn't have a prize purse.

Crusher in the Tushar has a $3,500 prize purse split among top 3 female and male. Around 600 riders completed the race, so each participant contributed $6, again.

Etc, etc.

However, these are just the main event, if we include the shorter distances in our proletariat, the price goes down even more.

The total Lifetime Grand Prix prize purse is $300,000 but this is taken against the results of 7 races, and each of those races has multiple distances.

Around 7,000 racers did the races in the LGP, so each would be contributing $43 to the total prize purse. Plus the additional $6, which means that around $50 would be taken from everyone's registration fee and put into a prize purse bucket for the Lifetime Grand Prix.

Of course, Lifetime doesn't directly apply entry fees into a pool of "prize purse" it creates the prize purse as a financial instrument from it's various holdings.

The other issue is that the registration provides our pack fodder with many different things, that they obviously value in the exchange. Having 10-25% of their entry fee go into an imaginary bucket for the prize purse appears to be acceptable given the value provided by the other 75%+.

---

Now, what's really interesting, is that the "proletariat pack fodder that only exist to create a prize purse" does exist - but it exists in USAC Road Racing. A type of racing where if you're too slow and weak they put you into a different group so you don't lose as bad.

The analogue for our study is the 2024 USA Crits Schedule, which includes a $200,000+ prize purse at the end of 6 races. The results page only shows the Pro category. I had to hunt around all over to find the lower category results, and one race they're already offline to save bandwidth. Humble pie, served with a free lap.

Now, the total racers that will be competing in this series is smaller, significantly smaller. The races are much shorter, some racers will only race 30 minutes.

Looking at one of the bigger races, the Sunny King Criterium - there were around 400 racers with a prize purse of $21,000 split between top 70 male and female racers in various categories. Oh and two separate Masters categories get 20% of the prize purse because if you don't pay 40 and 50 year old men to come race they throw fits on social media.

So we have 400 racers "paying" into $21,000 prize purse - that's $53 just for this single race, wow! Talk about hogs get slaughtered. A huge portion of the field has 120% of their entry dumped into the prize purse. Now of course, there's also 70 places being paid so the odds are better of winning something but taken another way - if you don't win a share of the prize purse you're getting sheared even worse. Ouch.

Of course, we also have to take into account the overall series purse.

Figure we'll be generous and say 500 people at each race so 3,000 total racers for the series. $200,000 prize purse means that for the series each racer is kicking in another $67.

Which means for our "proletariat pack fodder" should he decide to forgo gravel racing and stick to "real" racing like criteriums, is going to be contributing at least $120 to the prize purse for USA Crits.

Wow, that sucks.

[spoonrobot]

"I'm not reading all that"

Yeah you don't have to

[KonaSS]

Originally Posted by bigbill

But don't get me started on the proletariat pack fodder that only exist to create a prize purse.

The pack fodder exists to make the race period. The entire economy of bike racing in the US doesn't happen without them. It is a participant sport, much like Triathlon. So promoters need to know what makes a compelling race. A big expo or event atmosphere, a challenging course, a finisher medal/belt buckle, food and drink, seeing your favorite pro rider, etc. Any promoter who doesn't see this is not going to last long.