I am new to racing. I’ve done one race last year at the age of 28 and now I am hooked. This year, I focused on my first century and longer distance rides. I’ve worked my way up to cat 4 for my power times according to training peaks. I didn’t take training for any particular race very seriously this year, however, as I get more into the sport I am realizing there are not too many races out there! I live in Pennsylvania in the Northeast. Bikereg.com really only shows a handful or events. Are proper races really that hard to find?
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You’ve got a typo in bikereg url you might wanna fix.
Some races end up on bikereg. Others are only in the USAC listing. Still others use different event registration systems. I agree it’s all a big ole advertising mess.
If you want some suggestions from people about races in your area ( PA ) you’re going to provide more info, like what kind of race you’re looking for. Crit/road season is practically over. Cyclocross is coming up, so you’ll start seeing those. Be willing to look in neighboring states.
I’m in northern Illinois and the Chicago Cross Cup still hasn’t put any of the series races up despite it starting in under a month. But nearby Wisconsin seems to have all their CX races posted on bikereg already.
Reach out to your local USAC official. They usually maintain lists of upcoming sanctioned events on a website separate from the USAC list. Being in Pennsylvania yours will be David Mitchell who also sends out a regular email with race series rankings and other upcoming events
check out the Race Ready app…the icon is black/white of a cyclist image. Good tool!
Why don’t you want to do cat 5 or novice races? You’ve only done one race, makes sense to stay there for now.
I’d do that too but can’t seem to find any proper ones
Not sure how it is in your part of the world, but over here the road season is almost over. Might have to wait until next year for more races ro show up?
I’d like to find some to start planning a training season for into 2024 but there truly seems like there’s only a handful of events that are more like fun rides then a proper race. I’ve tried a few different websites to look around but maybe I’m just not looking in the right places as others have mentioned.
Pennsylvania is big. What part?
Bikereg will have all the races listed (at least for the east side of the state) along with NJ, MD, NY. But some events will only get listed a month or two in advance.
https://pacycling.org/ covers the entire state but I am not sure if all races will be listed.
Road season is pretty much over at this point. Cyclocross events are starting to get listed on bikereg.
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Yeah, this makes it more difficult. I can tell you for sure that there will be many races around (within an hour or 2 drive depending on where you are in Eastern PA). But most races won’t start showing up for next year until Dec/Jan at the earliest. The big fondos are usually the only ones that will show up this far out.
The easiest (but still too difficult) way to get a feel for the schedule is to see what races there were this year. They tend to be on a similar weekend each year.
To give you some races to start searching for (this is what I did while living in Philly):
- Randall’s Island (NYC) hosts many many races throughout the spring and summer
- Lower Providence (Malvern)
- Wilmington GP (Wilmington, DE)
- Easton Twilight (Easton, PA)
- Tour of Plainfield (Plainfield, NJ
- Tour of Somerville (Somerville, NJ)
- Riverton Criterium (Riverton, NJ)
- Great Valley Criterium (Malvern, PA)
- Hummelstown Criterium (Hummelstown, PA
- QCW Summer Slam (Trexlertown, PA)
There are some others in the area like Grant’s tomb (NYC), Buck’s County Classic (Doylestown), Michael Ross Criterium (Malvern, PA).
Hope this helps!
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The other way to find out about races is to join a club or team who race. They’ll know what races there are, how to get there, what to expect, etc. Plus racing is more fun in a team. You could spend part of the time this year looking for a club or team?
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