Racing demographics

Dave Taylor

Dave Taylor

Rex kwan Do
I'm fascinated forever with bikes. I'm not the best but I do recognize trends. Whether talking to people or just observing you can see where things are going.I've noticed lately that endurance racing has died a bit and xc is picking up. Is this because of the competition NICA has created?I've talked to a couple of local teams and they were primarily road and cross. They have stated that they have been growing but because of incoming XC racers. To me this is awesome.I'd love to see more completion at the xc level as the last 5+ years things seem to have died down. If you looked 3 years ago endurance outnumbered XC but I'd be willing to bet that has changed now and XC is the class to win. Thoughts?
 
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I don't know if endurance racing has died as much as there's now way more choices with all the events. XC, Endurance, Enduro, Gravel, and CX are all stepping on each other's toes. With so many choices, and the entry fees increasing, maybe people are limiting how many events they participate in. If anything, the NICA participants are breathing new life into the local race series (MASS and H2H) as people age out, start families or lose interest.

From what I've observed during my time racing in the MASS series, Endurance participation goes up and down depending on the race. For races that offer both XC and Endurance at the same time, XC has always had higher participation numbers than Endurance.

This can be used for discussion too. Majority of the Endurance Open Men and Women were juniors at The Challenger.
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Way back, endurance was 24 hours?

I gotta believe that the required number of people that can commit to a long day of racing then recovery is too small
for all the work which needs to go into producing the event. The ROI isn't there - not only money, but the satisfied athletes per work hour.

Ironman type races are usually a peak of a season for an athlete - with many smaller races building up to it.
Marathons aren't that long if you can keep a sub 10 minute mile for 4.5 hours.
And those are target races for a season - most people (looking to PR or just finish)

RAGNAR seems to continue growing - but that is a team event

Multi-day adventure racing takes a special kinda person. Again, team oriented.

Perhaps XC fits today's daily schedule ? Hit the trainer to get your numbers up (work from home!.) Do an endurance ride on the weekend.
Race during the season?

Hopefully NICA is contributing - as you mention.
 
Bike N Gear said:
Endurance racing has died because most e-bike batteries die by 60 miles.
Click to expand...
Makes for an interesting thought tho....there are ebike endurance classes...are you allowed to pull into your pit and swap a battery? No idea. I do want to try an ebike race one day tho, looks fun as hell.
 
Patrick said:
Way back, endurance was 24 hours?

I gotta believe that the required number of people that can commit to a long day of racing then recovery is too small
for all the work which needs to go into producing the event. The ROI isn't there - not only money, but the satisfied athletes per work hour.

Ironman type races are usually a peak of a season for an athlete - with many smaller races building up to it.
Marathons aren't that long if you can keep a sub 10 minute mile for 4.5 hours.
And those are target races for a season - most people (looking to PR or just finish)

RAGNAR seems to continue growing - but that is a team event

Multi-day adventure racing takes a special kinda person. Again, team oriented.

Perhaps XC fits today's daily schedule ? Hit the trainer to get your numbers up (work from home!.) Do an endurance ride on the weekend.
Race during the season?

Hopefully NICA is contributing - as you mention.
Click to expand...
I don’t really agree with this, as gravel does not seem to be hurting at all, and those events are us usually four through six hours or more. The reply that John posted just supports my thoughts here as there were only 10 people signed up for that race. I remember when endurance was 30 people each class. The mass.
 
Dave Taylor said:
I don’t really agree with this, as gravel does not seem to be hurting at all, and those events are us usually four through six hours or more. The reply that John posted just supports my thoughts here as there were only 10 people signed up for that race. I remember when endurance was 30 people each class. The mass.
Click to expand...

are people "racing" gravel ? there are a few at the pointy end, but not many.
Sure people are looking at their AG placing (I do all the scoring for RSG Adventures gravel races/rides last 5 years or so)
I agree the longer courses are more popular - with the shorter ones being first timers.
People pull into the Aid Stations - and hang!

Had a European pro show up in CT a couple years back. He destroyed the field, but finished with a group - cause why not?

Can you have a "real" race that goes through stop signs?

We've been scoring on multiple gravel segments - then there is no pressure to race through a stop sign, or take chances on roads that are open.

What is replacing Cathedral Pines?

I'd also attribute gravel popularity to the fact that roadies and mtbrs will do it.

Also - starting a race before all the shorter races, doing laps, and ending after everyone sucks - but it isn't any harder for the promoter.
 
Dave Taylor said:
I don’t really agree with this, as gravel does not seem to be hurting at all, and those events are us usually four through six hours or more. The reply that John posted just supports my thoughts here as there were only 10 people signed up for that race. I remember when endurance was 30 people each class. The mass.
Click to expand...
And that was only the open endurance classes. Adding 16 Men 45+, 4 Women 45+ and 2 in SS brings it up to 38 total racing Endurance. In my opinion, The Challenger race course sucks for Endurance (my opinion only) and is very beginner friendly, it was the day before Father's Day and it was hot.
 
Are we looking at enough of a sample size to make any conclusions? We had a race this year where MTBNJ made up 7% of the total registration. When your races are so small that 1 team can make such a difference by going/not going, I don’t think you’re even in the realm of standard deviation.

How many people are doing the closest marathon to where you live? 50x more? 200x?
 
I would be curious to see what the real impact of NICA is long term. Obviously it will introduce more riders than before to XC racing, but in my 5 years with a NICA team, which 4 of those as the head coach, I didn't particularly a huge number of people continuing with XC racing outside of NICA. PA NICA is starting there 9th season and NJ is one year behind that.

Anyways, Let's talk about MASS Nesh Classic. If you just look number of kids on the local NICA teams:
Lower Bucks, 60, 50% of the practices are at Nesh
The Somonts 150
Central Bucks 20
These are within teams are within 30 min of Nesh, over 200 kids in any given season.
This doesn't include the close NJ NICA teams (P2, and @Matt_ 's team, etc)

Yet if you look at the number from this year's nesh race:
Now, NJ NICA has a race this weekend too.
Also take into consideration this race is at the end of the NJ NICA season and the pre season for the PA season, which is a Fall season.

2023: 31 U19 Riders, which would include current NICA riders and recently graduated riders
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2021: 49 U19 Riders
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Based this small sample, numbers are down. but like @Norm said, sample size and such.

From my experience, NICA exposes a lot of kids to XC racing, but not everyone wants to race XC. You have the natural competitors who found another outlet, a few that found they are pretty ok at bikes and will race, and then there is kinda everyone else. So of the 60 kids on Lower Bucks, 3 were the naturals, and another 10 were the second category and a handful of others would race just for something to do. In the end, the large majority of kids didn't really care about the racing, it was the practices / trail rides that they wanted to be a part of.

You also have HS burnout for NICA and especially the racing due to the dumb down courses. I praised Mike Kuhn for starting to introduce some legit tech in the PA courses, especially the Blue Mountain course. PA NICA also started to try out "Rally" format, not to be called enduro, partially to give more flexibility in small venues holding races. And what happened, it was the most popular event for the HS kids in the years it was held. They also had two segments that half the coaches couldn't even ride, perfect.
 
stb222 said:
I would be curious to see what the real impact of NICA is long term. Obviously it will introduce more riders than before to XC racing, but in my 5 years with a NICA team, which 4 of those as the head coach, I didn't particularly a huge number of people continuing with XC racing outside of NICA. PA NICA is starting there 9th season and NJ is one year behind that.

Anyways, Let's talk about MASS Nesh Classic. If you just look number of kids on the local NICA teams:
Lower Bucks, 60, 50% of the practices are at Nesh
The Somonts 150
Central Bucks 20
These are within teams are within 30 min of Nesh, over 200 kids in any given season.
This doesn't include the close NJ NICA teams (P2, and @Matt_ 's team, etc)

Yet if you look at the number from this year's nesh race:
Now, NJ NICA has a race this weekend too.
Also take into consideration this race is at the end of the NJ NICA season and the pre season for the PA season, which is a Fall season.

2023: 31 U19 Riders, which would include current NICA riders and recently graduated riders
View attachment 241036
View attachment 241038
View attachment 241040
View attachment 241041

2021: 49 U19 Riders
View attachment 241049
View attachment 241050
View attachment 241051
View attachment 241052

Based this small sample, numbers are down. but like @Norm said, sample size and such.

From my experience, NICA exposes a lot of kids to XC racing, but not everyone wants to race XC. You have the natural competitors who found another outlet, a few that found they are pretty ok at bikes and will race, and then there is kinda everyone else. So of the 60 kids on Lower Bucks, 3 were the naturals, and another 10 were the second category and a handful of others would race just for something to do. In the end, the large majority of kids didn't really care about the racing, it was the practices / trail rides that they wanted to be a part of.

You also have HS burnout for NICA and especially the racing due to the dumb down courses. I praised Mike Kuhn for starting to introduce some legit tech in the PA courses, especially the Blue Mountain course. PA NICA also started to try out "Rally" format, not to be called enduro, partially to give more flexibility in small venues holding races. And what happened, it was the most popular event for the HS kids in the years it was held. They also had two segments that half the coaches couldn't even ride, perfect.
Click to expand...
I've noticed at the MASS races, many of the faster NICA kids are moving up and racing Cat 1
 
UtahJoe said:
Makes for an interesting thought tho....there are ebike endurance classes...are you allowed to pull into your pit and swap a battery? No idea. I do want to try an ebike race one day tho, looks fun as hell.
Click to expand...
I believe one of the fryers is
Patrick said:
are people "racing" gravel ? there are a few at the pointy end, but not many.
Sure people are looking at their AG placing (I do all the scoring for RSG Adventures gravel races/rides last 5 years or so)
I agree the longer courses are more popular - with the shorter ones being first timers.
People pull into the Aid Stations - and hang!

Had a European pro show up in CT a couple years back. He destroyed the field, but finished with a group - cause why not?

Can you have a "real" race that goes through stop signs?

We've been scoring on multiple gravel segments - then there is no pressure to race through a stop sign, or take chances on roads that are open.

What is replacing Cathedral Pines?

I'd also attribute gravel popularity to the fact that roadies and mtbrs will do it.

Also - starting a race before all the shorter races, doing laps, and ending after everyone sucks - but it isn't any harder for the promoter.
Click to expand...
Gravel racing is huge down here in Md,Va, WV, NC
 
Norm said:
Are we looking at enough of a sample size to make any conclusions? We had a race this year where MTBNJ made up 7% of the total registration. When your races are so small that 1 team can make such a difference by going/not going, I don’t think you’re even in the realm of standard deviation.

How many people are doing the closest marathon to where you live? 50x more? 200x?
Click to expand...
Michaux is 200+
 
Dave Taylor said:
I believe one of the fryers is

Gravel racing is huge down here in Md,Va, WV, NC
Click to expand...
It's probably "huge" in NJ to compared to other cycling events.

Besides basically being a newish thing in cycling, it allows the lower 90% of the race/ride to have an enjoyable experience, push themselves out of their comfort zone without an insane commitment or danger. And most events are multi-distance so people can easily pick that distance that's a mild stretch but they can always slow down, chill at rest stops or know that there's SAG if things going totally south. It can appeal to the masses and also the hardcore racers.
 
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