Napa may have been districts before 1997, but anyway - locations for Masters district crit:
1997-2002 - Napa Valley Classic
2003 - Santa Rosa
2004 - present - Minden

FYI the Napa race went away in 2003.

The Masters Criterium Championships was September 21, 2002 in Santa Rosa. The number of entrants wasn't huge--the largest field was the 40-44 age group (51 riders). The total number of women was 17 in a total of four categories.

Santa Rosa hosted Masters championships once several years ago on their twilite crit course--perhaps 2002 or 2003.

If it worked like that, the idea would be great.
The promoter has to be the one to opt in to be considered, not the district deciding who the host will be.

It hasn't been held in Minden out of tradition, it was held their because there were no other promoters interested in hosting it.

It hasn't always been in Minden, I am sure. It has been for a while, but I am sure one of the more veteran Masters can tell us some historical locations prior to Minden.

I too like the idea of changing it up, Vacaville, Davis...etc. Lots of great courses. Each one with it's own character. Hey, how about a Fresno Tower District one year?

None of this is knock on Alta Alpina, they do a fantastic job.
On that note, why not take that weekend and add in a time trial Friday late afternoon and make it a Masters Stage Race Championship?
Now that would be FRIGGEN cool!!!!

Look for the opportunity in change, not the negativity.

Ron

I like both the Minden course and the Diamond Valley
course for the district master championship.
The Alta Alpina club are excellent hosts and both venues
are challenging, fun (6 turn crit), (power hill rr),
and the elevation is a perk. I absolutely love
the drive, I love the alpine air, and I love the Sierra
range and all the activity that surrounds. It is
wonderful to get away, breathe clean air,
race a district master championship race, and
then go for a swim in a clear, cold local creek,
or Lake Tahoe afterward. I say keep the tradition
and keep it at Diamond Valley and Minden.

I like Fort Ord too (more power hills). Although if
we were to change the crit venue I would like to
see a course like Vacaville/Lodi (turns, hill, wind, downtown)
replace Minden.

You Gotta Just Love those Power Hills in July!
Laurie Fenech
w master 50+

I do hope it works out.

I am not sure I buy the argument that it being early (since when is 4 months into the season considered early?) has validity.
Hernando lived in Reno and had no problem stomping the fields flat in February for several years.
There are a lot of riders here in the Bay Area that can't train outside during the week due to work schedules, yet they manage to win plenty of races.
If you want it bad enough, you find a way.

If we don't get it, then we will just crank it up a couple of notches and make it the "Masters Criterium Championships of the Universe"(insert deep voice and echo).
The winner of each category will receive a special glow in the dark sparkly championship jersey and a free ride on the InfoVista Space Shuttle*.

Ron
*We don't really have a space shuttle...yet.

To my thinking, the fact that the race has been in Minden for years is exactly the reason to change the venue. It is unfair to riders that don't live at altitude to have districts at elevation every year, particularly when the location is so far away from where the significant majority of riders in the district live.

hey Ron,

I commend you for stepping up to hold masters' districts. Your crit has always been well run, the course is challenging, safe...BUT, I think that May 2nd is just too early in the season to be holding a championship event.

Moving the race up in the schedule almost three full months to the first half of the year will make this race more difficult to prepare and peak for, especially for riders who live in colder areas (ie the mountains/Nevada), people who take a break after CX season, and people who simply don't get in a lot of weekday training until DST starts.

I also do not see a problem with the Minden races, Alta Alpina has done a great job for a lot of years when no one else seemed to want to do it...I think there needs to be a very strong reason to take the race away from them, which I do not currently see...

Hi Ron! Thanks for your post about this. As I've mentioned to you before, we will make this decision at the January NCNCA meeting. I've just sent an email to the NCNCA promoters email group with more information.

FYI -- if there are any race promoters and directors lurking out there on the forum, please join our promoters email group:

http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/NCNCA-promoters

Cheers!

Lorri Lee Lown
NCNCA President

InfoVista Cycling Team is ready to put together our race flier and categories to hold the race in Pleasanton on May 2nd.

We will copy the format that has been run in Minden and conform to whatever is required.

We just need the go ahead from the powers that be.

Cheers,
Ron

Let me give you some perspective on how the Masters ended up at Diamond Valley. I was the person who initially proposed holding them there for the first time.

Our state/district championships have evolved quite a bit over time. When I rode (paleolithic era), there was one state championship RR event - juniors, "seniors" and one class of "Veterans" that became masters. The event qualified people for Nationals, so it was a big deal.

Our course for RR championships included Nevada, Petaluma (Spring Hill/Chileno), Diamond Valley, Copperopolis etc. As masters classes grew, we started having those races piggy back onto existing events, most notably Berkeley Hills.

The crit champs were the Napa Valley GP for men and Wheels of Thunder/Davis 4th for women from at least 1999 to 2002. The Napa race was not held in 2003.

There are several issues involved in deciding where to hold championships, including:

1) ease of travel
2) suitability of course
3) championship event/piggy back on other events

There was a strong feeling among masters that they wanted a championship-only road race after Berkeley Hills was used. This was in response to two main issues: (a) the championships were not the main focus of the event; (b) classes were combined and picked separately because of limitations of the number of fields that could go out on the course - influencing race tactics.

In response to this we moved *all* the RR events to Fort Ord. At the time we had access to a big loop course (20+ miles/lap). After a couple of years we had a couple of issues. For Jrs it was not a good place for several reasons - the terrain was not suitable for younger jrs, and it became awkward to run the shorter races - we had to ship them out to somewhere midway on the course to get the distance right. To be frank, the young juniors also did not get the attention that they deserved because so much else was going on.

There was also the issue of easy geographic access. In my *personal* opinion, this is most important for jrs, where people who are relative new to the sport and dependent on their parents may be competing in championships.

We moved the junior RR to a fairly easy loop north of Livermore for all but U18 men, who are really preparing for elite-like events. We also moved the TT from Sattley to Davis for all jrs for the same reason.

We had some of the same course issues with older masters that we did with young juniors - suitable course and getting the distance right. There was also a sentiment for their own all-masters event. We moved the 2003 masters championships to the Markleeville area. This put them a week before Masters Nats (in Santa Rosa). Alta Alpina had been putting on the weekend for several years, but was not getting big turnout and was willing to make masters the entire focus of the weekend.

Moving to Markleeville worked. The events came off okay, and over the years the organizers got things dialed in. Since that time we have not had any real proposals from another organizer. For an existing event, there would be a huge hit in entry fee income that would not be fully offset by possible lower prize budget. My *guess* would be that if the RR moved, Fort Ord might be the spot - although with the currently shorter loop it would be tough to handle all the classes.

It partly boils down to whether people think that a CHAMPIONSHIP is somewhat of an important concept and should be treated separately, or is more of an incidental part of the racing scene.

Let me make it clear that I am not involved in the decision about which events will be championships - that is made by the NCNCA - I coordinate the calendar and get the word from them.

I love Diamond Valley. It's championships, for heaven's sake. That's worth the trip. Even though I got shelled the first lap this year (I still finished, though) versus having been competitive the last two, I didn't feel like the weekend was at all a loss: camping under the tall trees, riding Carson Pass on Sunday morning... Had the race been in the central valley, even with a shorter travel time, I would have felt differently. Sorry, Motel 6 with 99 as an acoustic backdrop just isn't the same.

And the course is as close to perfect as you can get.

But given I personally find finishing a crit to be as good as a victory, never one to handle surges in intensity well, there's basically no chance I'm going to do the crit the day after the road race. Yet a lot of people do, and the winner of the crit frequently did well the day before.

KevinMetcalfe wrote:JRB431 wrote:

Personally, I like the course and I like the area, but it is quite a drive.

Sorry Kevin, but no sympathy on that one here!! With the exception of the Diamond Valley/Minden races and the Tour D'Nez, the folks from the Tahoe/Reno area drive a MINIMUM of 2 hours EACH WAY to every single race we do and often it's more like 4 to 5 hours EACH WAY.

As far as why the championships are in Diamond Valley/Minden goes, I was involved with the races when we first brought them to Minden and Diamond Valley around 2000. At that point, we had had several years in a row of championship events scheduled at various places around the district and then cancelled at the last minute for permit or lack of sponsorship reasons. Yes, it's a longer drive for most racers, but both courses are fantastic and both the courses and the promoting club have been around for years with minimal problems.

With respect to attendance, it has increased dramatically from the years before they were championship events. I remember one year (1997?)when the host club (Alta Alpina) put up quite a bit of prize money (like $5k or something) and we still only got fields of a dozen or so riders. The appeal of the championship jersey has had a dramatic positive impact on attendence.

My $.02 worth.

Tony

I made the journey there once and competed for the Champions Jersey and medals. No cash or prizes. In the crit I was in a break that lapped the field and then it became more difficult to keep track of which guy from Team Spine and Morgan Stanley to cover, so Hutchinson (Spine) had an easier time escaping, then without lapped riders being pulled, us leaders had to fight our way through traffic and try and outsprint each other, but a lapped rider was in the way, caused a crash and took out myself and the other leader that were racing at that point for a silver medal. I so did not understand how the officials didn't pull the lapped riders who were out of contention for the only placings and medals. (no cash, no prizes)
Instead of decent recovery, I had to work on my bike and wheels to be race ready again for the next days road race, which was a terribly negative and frustrating. (nice roads and scenery though)
I HAVEN'T BEEN BACK SINCE.

KevinMetcalfe wrote: You make some good points, but it isnt't all that cool in Diamond Valley/Minden. The forecast calls for 91 degrees in Diamond Valley on Sat. and 98 in Minden on Sunday. Much cooler than the 106 I saw in Rocklin on Sunday though...

And the older groups go in the second wave when it's hottest.

91 degrees at 2:30 pm maybe, but not before noon when most of the racing will occur. Also, they finally switched it, so the old dudes (which includes me, BTW) go in the first wave for the road race. (But crit sched is still young to old, for some reason??)

OK, I'm done chirping off.

JRB431 wrote:I'm not a zealot on this issue and I concede that there are many valid arguments against holding the Master's championships in DV/Minden every year. But here's a response to a few points made above:

Altitude: Higher altitude means cooler temps. If the race is still going to be in late July. 70-80 degrees at 5500' feet makes more sense than 105 degrees in the Central Valley (if the race is indeed going to be "centrally-located). Remember, "masters" includes 65+.

You make some good points, but it isnt't all that cool in Diamond Valley/Minden. The forecast calls for 91 degrees in Diamond Valley on Sat. and 98 in Minden on Sunday. Much cooler than the 106 I saw in Rocklin on Sunday though...

And the older groups go in the second wave when it's hottest.

Personally, I like the course and I like the area, but it is quite a drive.

Please allow me to make a few comments on the recent posts:

To my knowledge, Masters is the only age group in NCNV that has the road and criterium championships on the same weekend. Acknowledging this is completely personal preference, I would be happier to have the events on separate dates. Particularly as I get older (like most masters), recovery between the events is preferable.

The problem with using the same course every year is that it suits the same type of rider. Diamond Valley is definitely a good course for an all around rider, but that is a type of rider just like a climber or a sprinter.

Weather is certainly a valid consideration, but can be addressed by the date of the event, which does not have to be the same every year. Even in the summer, it is frequently cooler at some of the coastal locations (Fort Ord, Pescadero, Spring Hill, etc) than it is at Diamond Valley.

Eric

I'm not a zealot on this issue and I concede that there are many valid arguments against holding the Master's championships in DV/Minden every year. But here's a response to a few points made above:

Altitude: Higher altitude means cooler temps. If the race is still going to be in late July. 70-80 degrees at 5500' feet makes more sense than 105 degrees in the Central Valley (if the race is indeed going to be "centrally-located). Remember, "masters" includes 65+.

Lodging: Rooms in Reno/Carson are less expensive than Bay Area, and more available than most Central Valley locations.

Course Type: The beauty of the DV course is that it's neither a climber's course, nor a sprinter's course. Generally need to be a pretty strong "all around" rider to prevail. Certainly, every type of rider should have racing opportunities throughout the year on courses that will meet his/her strength, but I think it makes sense to have the "championship" on a course that will give ANY type of rider a shot.

Every year when we send out the race scheduling form there is a question on there asking if a promoter is interested in hosting a District championship. The few times when we get someone other than the established races that expresses interest in hosting a district championship is is a vague interest with a notation along the line of " yes we are interested in being the 35+ championship event. Currently there is no other event that holds all the different age groups for master men and women in a crit. This means that for a new event to be selected a promoter is going to have to step forward and commit to running all of the different age groups for men and women. To date no promoter has stepped up to do that. Also there has never been a promoter who has stepped up to offer a weekend package for both the RR and the Crit championship. Sure we could offer two completely different races, one as the RR and one as the Crit but that would most likely mean having two different weekends to travel to who knows where so the total travel time might not be that different for people going to both events.

So just like with nationals it depends on having a promoter who is willing to hold the race and offer all the categories we want to see in the masters championship. If someone approached the NCNCA with a serious proposal that committed to having all the age groups for men and women we would consider moving the event but so far no such proposal has come along.

The same argument as above also goes for the time trial. with a addition of a course issue for the time trial championships. Believe me we have looked for other courses closer in for the TT championship and we have even had the TT championship on a different course a few times. The problems are no other course is really good in terms of race length, traffic flatness etc. Also the Sattly course has been surveyed so that if someone rides a national record time on that course the record can be accepted by USAC. At sea level there is probably no chance of a national record time being ridden and I don't think anyone is going to put out the substantial cost of surveying the course in advance on the slim chance a record might be set on a new course.

Perhaps the promoters might consider rotating the RR and Crit between Saturday and Sunday. This could bring more lodging to the Nevada side in the much more populous Minden, NV. Then some categories of masters with a later start on a Saturday criterium could do their "six hour drive" that morning, instead of the night before (which is often the case now).

Agreed.

The DV/Minden weekend are great races, but it's sort of silly to have our state championship be two of the most remote races of the season, and at altitude where there is an obvious locals bias.

The Cascade argument ignores that the Classic is probably the best stage race of the year in this section of the country. In any case, there really aren't that many masters from this region going to Cascade - not even enough to support separate fields for the 35's and 45's. Maybe there are 20-25 master guys from NorCal?

Besides the remoteness argument and the convenience argument for an annual location rotation, how about a specialization argument? It's the same two courses every year determining the champs. If Cooperopolis was the Masters RR Championship we'd likely have a different champion than if it was held at Dunnigan Hills or San Ardo. If the c-ship crit was in a corporate park you'd likely have a different winner than at - uh - lets' say - NAPA.

Why not have a system of annual selection?

Same logic and argument applies to the District TT Championships in Sattley. That location is convenient for a very small percentage of riders in the NCNCA district. With fewer riders in the race, I'd say the race is less competitive and less representative of the district. I like the idea of changing the venue every several years.

it is hard to figure sometimes--clearly more riders would attend an event in the bay area.

yet there are a lot of norcal riders planning on going up to cascades instead of districts and that is a longer drive so the distance isn't always the deciding factor.

how is the decision made as to where this event takes place? does a promoter have to put in a proposal to be the championship event?

Maybe Casey can jump in with actual numbers, but I don't think I am going out on a limb to say that if you drew a line just east of Sacramento the vast majority (90%+ ?) of the riders in the district live west of that line. This puts them at close to sea level and a significant distance from the current location of Masters districts.

I am not suggesting that there should be no races in the Sierra's, only that putting the district championships so far from the highest concentration of riders every year does not make sense. The district races should have some of the largest fields of the year, not some of the smallest. The fields are small because it is too difficult and time consuming for most people to bother.

At a minimum, I would like to see the location rotated so we have a variety of locations and course types. This is the same request as moving nationals around the country. As Shaun mentioned, part of the impetus for
this discussion was the frustration of parking nationals in Louisville for three years in a row.

I want to reiterate that the suggestion to move districts is not a complaint about the race organizers. They run a good event although they seem to have trouble getting the highway patrol to get to the road race on time. Not running the weekend as districts would allow the organizers to accommodate other categories because they would not need to run Masters races in 5 year increments. This would probably increase the overall attendance/income from the event. (I am willing to bet they would get a lot more riders in an Elite 4 or Elite 5 race than they get in the several of the Masters categories.)

Eric

Ah jeez, this old complaint again. Seems like we have this discussion every couple of years.

First of all, the road race IS in California (albeit fairly close to the state line). Second, as I've pointed out before in relation to other issues on this forum, the second N in NCNCA stands for --- hmmmm, let me think for a minute -- oh yeah, NEVADA.

As for the altitude complaint, the obvious trade-off is that, while you CA lowlanders are happily training and racing from Jan-March, we're trying to squeeze in rides during the two hours each day when it might be above 40 degrees (assuming there's not 3 inches of snow on the ground).

Same goes for the long drive complaint. Heaven forbid that WE get to sleep in our own beds the night before the race.

I don't want to drive 6 hours to do a 50 minute Criterium for a prizelist that most likely won't cover the entry fee for 1st place.

i agree that it makes sense to move things around, but we should keep in mind that people who live in nevada have to drive 6 hours for races almost every weekend.

but if you are looking for a good payout, you should do a different race
as the prize at districts is the title of "district champion"

I agree with Shaun. The people that put on the Diamond Valley/Minden weekend do a great job, but the location is very inconvenient for the vast majority of riders in the district and very few riders in the district are acclimated to the elevation of the road race.

If my memory is correct (I am getting old after all), the Masters districts road race moved to Nevada from Fort Ord to avoid a conflict with Nationals that year. Since Nationals are now in early July, there is no reason to continue putting the districts in such a remote location.

Eric

So why are we having our State Championships in Nevada every year? Kind of the same complaint as the Nationals in Kentucky. I don't want to drive 6 hours to do a 50 minute Criterium for a prizelist that most likely won't cover the entry fee for 1st place. Change it up a bit.