'Round here (Socal), anybody who doesn’t want to wake up at 4am on race day will be upgrading to 4 almost immediately.
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Based on a conversation with our race director, “there will be A LOT of 3s in 2020.” Will probably depend on region, but, mandatory upgrades are coming. Also, the upgrade request process is going to be done in Colorado and mostly automated, so, less scrutiny around requests.
Someone could potentially go from 5-> 1 in 9 races.
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I know masters riders that have already gotten the 2 > 1 upgrade approved under the new rules (without ever having done any P/1/2 races) in the past 24 hours… so looks like the 10 points from masters limitation is gone.
my impression from friends who have been in a while was that it was always effectively voluntary (e.g. if you had 5 decent races you could cat up early) anyways.
now it’s just codified
That’s absolutely wild! I have some teammates who are going to be very happy if that is true
They’ve added the 10 points limit to the “General Upgrade Policies” if you go to the USA cycling link. Sounds like those upgrades you mention were made in error.
Ooops, looks like they slipped in… I wonder if USAC will go back and revoke.
So all masters points count for 4>3>2?
This will only work if they actually enforce the rules. I had well over 3 wins last year and still had to request an upgrade. In fact, all of the top riders in my cats have had to request upgrades. I only know one rider who was force upgraded.
Also, does USAC list the accumulated points anywhere? I’m sure this could be calculated although it would nice to see everyone’s current category upgrade points.
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Yeah, they always did as far as I know. There’s only a limit on 2 > 1
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No, not publicly at least. I think you’re able to go into your own profile on USAC and look at your race resume. The easiest way to look at other folks’ is to use road-results.
As others have stated, I think it comes down to how well the officials actually enforce the upgrade rules. In my area, this usually only happens once enough people start complaining about someone not moving up like they should.
Also, I’m not sure I like the idea that upper cat riders get to count everyone in combined races for upgrade points. It doesn’t even look like everyone has to finish the race anymore, only start if I’m reading it correct. For example there can be quite a skill/fitness gap between the top 5 cat 3 guys at the front end of a race, and the new cat 4 guys that are there simply to hold on and who may get dropped. Is it right in that case for the winners to count racers who may not even be able to hang on? I think this could lead to racers upgrading into the upper categories before they are really ready to do so.
Just my thoughts and opinions, and I could be totally wrong lol.
This kind of thing happens in triathlon though. We don’t have categories, instead AGs. You can have an age grouper in a local race who finishes third overall, beating a local “elite” or two, but wins the AG by 15 minutes. That person would be a “sandbagger” for not racing that local elite category, and some races actually force “upgrade” that person.
Same guy goes to USAT nationals or ITU worlds and gets “smashed” in his AG, and doesn’t stand a chance in an IM branded elite field, as examples.
(I can neither confirm nor deny this is n=1.) 
Point is, if you’re hanging out in Cat3 because you want to win local races, but would get smashed in Cat2 elsewhere, then it’s still time to upgrade, IMO, namecalling aside! 
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Well that’s irritating for us “rule followers”…
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I think it depends on the upgrade coordinator. Our district’s coordinator denied my teammate’s 4 > 3 request for being one point shy even though he’d won or got on the podium at every race he entered as a 4.
… Interesting… reading the notes, races for voluntary upgrades can be backdated 36 months…
So that means I can submit my voluntary novice-> 4 upgrade as of the first three events last year, then request upgrade based on points earned in races for a 4->3 upgrade now? Hmmm. I’m guessing it’d have to be a field with at least 4s in it. Maybe I’ll just ask and see if they say “no”.
Frustrating anyway, I would’ve competed some of those field sprints for third in masters races instead of sitting up, being safe and logging the finish for a 5->4 upgrade.
It also definitely depended on your LA. Ours is pretty strict on requiring 10 USAC-sanctioned mass starts for an upgrade. Other LAs were very generous with race-clinic points, etc.
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What is the rationale for rushing people towards cat1/2?
I know cat3/4 has been a natural end point for some riders just based on abilities, but why push that problem into the bigger longer races and congest that space?
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I think people are misreading the intent of this restructuring, and are still looking at it with perspective from the prior rules. The prior rules were somewhat restrictive, and encouraged the idea that each category was some kind of badge of honor. This system seems more designed to let people race where they think it’s most appropriate with the caveat that if you’re consistently winning, you get bumped up and let someone else have a turn. If you have life intervene, and no longer competitive, more people may take a voluntary downgrade if the process to upgrade again isn’t so onerous.
Note that Masters can’t be forced to upgrade past cat 3.
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Yeah, I’ve seen this happen to other teammates. What I believe happened on the women’s side was the district upgrade coordinator would look at how many races the person entered and decide that person needed more experience. Now, looking at the new policies, I’m guessing we’re going to end up with more people upgrading faster than is really appropriate, and we will have a lot more unsafe riders. I’m definitely not thrilled with the new “upgrade at will” 5->4. They created a W5 only a couple of years ago, with the thought that this was going to give the women more experience. I’m not sure of the logic now. (Of course, there was never going to be a W5-only race, the way you sometimes find for men. They will race together/pick separately, but that’s it.)
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