Discussion: Is cyclocross dying?

jShort

jShort

2018 Fantasy Football Toilet Bowl Lead Technician
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Santapez said:
I would like to backup to the comment @pearl made.

No matter what these cross races are a million times better than an XC mountain bike race as far as venue comfort, spectating, etc. The format lends itself to being able to be enjoyed when you're not racing, unlike XC mtb where everyone goes off into the woods.

It's interesting that with all this discussion, it's probably more interesting hanging out at the lamest CX race in December than it is the most exciting XC race in the summer.
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Come on man....
Were you at Mooch Madness? I'd take that over any venue in the cold.
 
Mountain Bike Mike

Mountain Bike Mike

Well-Known Member
Santapez said:
I would like to backup to the comment @pearl made.

No matter what these cross races are a million times better than an XC mountain bike race as far as venue comfort, spectating, etc. The format lends itself to being able to be enjoyed when you're not racing, unlike XC mtb where everyone goes off into the woods.

It's interesting that with all this discussion, it's probably more interesting hanging out at the lamest CX race in December than it is the most exciting XC race in the summer.
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SHUT YOUR FILTHY MOUTH!!!
 
Mountain Bike Mike

Mountain Bike Mike

Well-Known Member
If CX racing is getting too serious, well damn it, let's make shenanigans too serious.

Categories and prizes for hand-up'ers... Same goes for Heckling...

The sport has grown yet the scene needs to mature with the sport. Let's mature shenanigans into an all out too serious endeavor.
 
stb222

stb222

Love Drunk
Jerk Squad
Mountain Bike Mike said:
If CX racing is getting too serious, well damn it, let's make shenanigans too serious.

Categories and prizes for hand-up'ers... Same goes for Heckling...
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Justin-Timberlake-Blank-Stare.gif

They matured and then cross vegas 2015 happened and set hand ups back a solid 5 years.
 
Santapez

Santapez

Well-Known Member
Team MTBNJ Halter's
jShort said:
Come on man....
Were you at Mooch Madness? I'd take that over any venue in the cold.
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I was volunteering with @Carson and a few others doing timing at that halfway point. I missed out on festivities, forgot there were any.

But I would say that's a rarity. Did you race Mountain Creek? That vibe in the dust storm hiding in the shadow of the storage building was not so exciting...
 
Leadman

Leadman

Formerly: Harry Hamilton
pearl said:
I saw over the weekend that the numbers for the HPCX race in the 3/4 category were extremely low. 27!?

I went through and did some digging and try to answer the whole "is CX dying" question. I have no real idea where this is going, but figured someone would find it useful and interesting.

MAC Races. These usually have larger turnouts, all the way from DC to NY.

Cat 4 Nittany finishers by year Day 1/Day 2:
2012: 107/132
2013: 114/117
2014: 98/105
2015: 105/99
2016: 114/89

So this seemed solid, and it usually always is. Always was opening day in the northeast for CX.


Cat 4 Charm City finishers by year, Day 1/Day 2:
2012: 110/98
2013: 101/92
2014: 104/107
2015: 101/102

Second UCI race in MAC? Strong. Seems like the beginner fields are still stacked as ever with people. This is a good sign.

Cat 4 HPCX finishers by year, Day 1/Day 2:
2011: 65
2012: 79
2013: 88
2014: 78/89
2015: 84/57
2016: 78/70

Another UCI race that seems to get a ton of attention and the numbers add up still, or are constant.

My thoughts:
So it's safe to say that the Cat 4/5 fields are not really going anywhere, The numbers seem to be constant enough to not really make a huge impact.

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What about the next category up? The old killer B's, 2/3/4, which then changed to 3/4 2 years ago.

Cat 2/3/4 Nittany finishers by year Day 1/Day 2:
2012: 107/88
2013: 101/95
2014: 106/100
2015: 88/69 *First year of 3/4 instead of 2/3/4.
2016: 61/52

This was the first time I saw numbers low. From what I remember it was a pretty nice day, no reason to be missing out on the first (or second day of cross) in the MAC schedule. Strange. Part of me thinks this has to do with no more 2's in the race and are now either forced to A) race the UCI race or B) race somewhere else that day.

So lets look at Nittany UCI

UCI Nittany finishers by year, Day 1/Day 2:
2012: 39/42
2013: 49/47
2014: 39/39
2015: 61/54 *First year of 3/4 instead of 2/3/4.
2016: 52/55

My thoughts:
So it looks like we found some of those racers, they are in the UCI category. I think this was the goal from the MAC when they made this decision. Looks like a solid 10-15 person jump which would sort of even out the numbers from 2015, but does not answer the 2016 problem. 61/52 for Nittany versus 100+ from 2012-2014? Now as the year goes on you can expect the numbers to dip, lets see how much.

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Let's skip Charm City and go right to HPCX:

Cat 2/3/4 HPCX Finshers by year, Day 1/Day 2:
2011: 64
2012: 63
2013: 61
2014: 69/46
2015: 49/41 *First year of 3/4 instead of 2/3/4.
2016: 30/25

This stands out like a sore thumb for sure. 25 on Day 2? Day 2 always takes a hit by a couple of numbers, but 25 finishers for this race is alarming. Are they in the UCI race? Lets look:

UCI HPCX Finishers by year, Day 1/Day 2:
2011: 32
2012: 36
2013: 31
2014: 33/29
2015: 47/38 *First year of 3/4 instead of 2/3/4.
2016: 41/38

My thoughts:
Now I can't find those 2's that raced Nittany. where did they go? The numbers for the UCI race are higher than the were in the past, but not as much as they were at Nittany. From an average of 64 races from 2011-2014 day 1, to 38 racers from 2014 Day 2 to 2016, with only a ~12 person jump in the UCI category? This is interesting.

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I've already spent way too much time on this, but lets go to the NJ series. The most common race I could think of was the Westwood Velo race in NY. I will do it slightly different this time. There wasn't always a straight Cat 5 race.

Westwood Velo Finishers
Cat 5/ Cat 4 / Cat 3.

2011: N/A / 29 / 23 Total: 52
2012: N/A / 67 / 27 Total: 94
2013: 28 / 26 / 33 Total: 87
2014: 36 / 37 / 25 Total: 98
2015: 45 / 31 / 16 Total: 92

2013 had the largest Cat 3 field, while the Cat 5 numbers have gone up every year. The 3/4/5 numbers remained the same, but the 3's, where are they? Are the in the 1/2/3 race? Holy crap, I cant believe I'm still breaking this down:

Westwood Velo 1/2/3 Finishers, Day 1/Day 2.
2011: 12/13
2012: 24
2013: 23
2014: 17
2015: 17

My thoughts:
Now I know NJ races are not widely attended to begin with, but it seems like we lost even more people somewhere else. The 3/4/5 fields are still the same size, turning over new riders, upgrading riders or disappearing, but they are not in the 1/2/3 race. That "bubble" of newer, non 1/2/3 racers are not sticking around.

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I hope someone finds this interesting, maybe takes the time to appreciate it (not sure why I went that deep to begin with) and let me know what you think and how you can prove what you feel/think.

Now there are tons of variables for this, competing races in different regions, weather, turnover, etc. I just wanted to look just at the numbers. What are you thoughts?
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In hindsight it did seem like the number of NJ participants were down. There were not the usual number of cat 4/5 NJ riders. I did a few more MAC races this year and it did seem like they always had a good turn out. Maybe less newbies to the sport in NJ or we are getting tired of the same NJ races? Could also be that the NYC crowd is not making as many trips to NJ to race. I didn't see as many teams from NYC in the middle and at the end of the season.
 
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