The U of U Bike for Kids was a huge success this last weekend.  We had great turnouts on some very good courses.  The support from the promoter and the community was awesome.  Ridership was very high.

Unfortunately, we did not anticipate the number of last minute “day of” riders trying to sign up for the road race.  The promoter did not have the cat 4 and cat 5 fields split and we did not have room on the schedule to split the fields.  USAC requires that there are no more than 50 cat 5 riders in a field unless the field is a combined field.  Then the limit goes to 75.  I am sure that we had well over the 75 limit in the race.  This was a huge liability, but due to the circumstances, we had no real way of knowing until the racers lined up for the start.

To complicate things even more, we had a lack of help at the registration table and there was no late fee for “day of” registration.  That is why so many riders waited to see what the weather would be like before they decided to race.  We apologize to those that were turned away.

There appears to be a great influx and interest in bicycle racing this year.  We are very excited about that.   We will coordinate with promoters and try to accommodate everyone by increasing the number of cat 5 races available at an event and work on registration issues.  That being said, if you are a cat 4 or 5 racer and you want to race, I would highly consider pre-registering for the race and not waiting until the day of the race to try to register.  This will save you the late fee and guarantee your participation.

Again, we are sorry for turning so many away, but we will work on ensuring that this will not happen again.

Ferg