USA Cycling's new rulebook has some interesting changes to the upgrade requirements on the road.

Racers still need 20 points to upgrade to Cat 3 and 25 points to upgrade to Cat 2, but the points now vary based on size of field and criterium vs. road race. Furthermore, the points are now standardized across categories.

Let's look at the requirements to become a Cat 3. Previously all races awarded 7-5-4-3-2-1 points to the top 6 finishers, regardless of the size of the field. In 2008 points will go five deep (5-4-3-2-1) for criteriums of 21-50 riders and seven deep (8-6-5-4-3-2-1) for road races of the same size. For bigger races, more points are available. For smaller, fewer.

With fewer points available for criteriums, this could make it harder for 4's to upgrade, given the dearth of road races close to Chicago, but I expect many 4's will continue to upgrade based on a combination of top 10's and the discretion of our wise and benevolent technical director.

The same tables apply to 3's upgrading to Cat 2. Of note is that the points warranting an automatic upgrade are now 40, down from 60. Sandbaggers, you're on notice.

Requirements to upgrade from 5 to 4 remain the same: 10 mass-start races.

Similar adjustments have been made to the cyclocross guidelines, which have lowered the bar for entering the 3's: One need only "experience" 5 races (not necessarily finish?) or score seven points. I think this will be good for the Chicago Cyclocross Cup, which this season saw more than 80 riders line up for 4's races but only 20 for the 3's. Ben Popper (Killjoy), who first brought my attention to these changes, disagrees.

One other major change in the cyclocross guidelines, emphasis mine: "If the road and XC categories do not correspond to the same CX category, then the higher one will be used." This means Cat 3 roadies can skip the Cat 4 cross races altogether. (That clicking sound you hear is me applying for my upgrade.)

This weekend is your last chance to see the Pieter Ombregt photography exhibit at City Gallery, 806 N. Michigan Ave. If you are downtown, it is well worth your time to visit.

• » I've linked to it before, but the Punk Rock Cycling Web site has had a flurry of activity lately, much of it specific to issues women face in cycling. PRC is a new Iowa team founded by former Chicagoan Donny Quixote, and its roster includes former Chicago messenger and XXX Racing-AthletiCo rider Jen Greenberg. (Thanks, Jim.)

• » A truck pulling a horse trailer struck three cyclists riding near St. Louis. One of them, Shawn O'Neal (The Bike Center), says the driver "went out of way to run us over." Unlike our own hit-and-run this fall, this one caused significant injuries, and the driver remains at large.

• » David Zabriskie (Slipstream) has safety tips for motorists and for cyclists, part of his "Yield to Life" campaign. (Thanks, Jeff.)
  

The Illinois Cycling Association is rolling out its new Web site, including a new dot-org domain. Not all features are operational yet, but ICA vice president Steve Hansen (North Branch) promises quicker results and more timely information.

XXX Racing-AthletiCo on Friday unveiled its 2008 uniform. In a bold departure from previous color schemes, the black kit will pay tribute to the two riders the team lost in 2008, Beth Kobeszka and Pieter Ombregt. (Ombregt, some may remember, was known for wearing a black jersey when he rode unattached prior to riding for XXX Racing-AthletiCo.) Overhauling a uniform is no small gesture, and the team hopes that the kit will highlight its efforts to improve safety in 2008 and be a stark reminder of why safety is so important.

(Note also that the team is overhauling its Web site for 2008. I secured the webmaster's permission to give CBR readers an exclusive first look.)

Julie Eisenhardt has called Chicago home for only two years, but already she's had quite an impact on our cycling scene. She's had a hand in founding two teams, most recently Half Acre Cycling, and she was part of the team that constructed the IRO Sprints apparatus. Twice she has co-chaired the popular Sadie Hawkins Day Alleycat; its 2007 edition raised $2,400 for the Chicago Women's Health Center. And while the endurance specialist earned several medals for her mountain biking in 2007, her biggest score may have come in December, when she accepted the marriage proposal of fellow bike nut Ben Popper (Killjoy).

This month the communications specialist headed to Colorado Springs, Colo., for USA Cycling's four-day mechanics clinic. She returned to Chicago eager to share new knowledge with her teammates, and it didn't take much cajoling to get her to share it with you, too.

Why did you go to the clinic?
Ben has gone to UCI [International Cycling Union] events where they say you need a mechanics license to get in the pit, so I thought that if I'm going to continue being his pit support at U.S. Gran Prix and UCI stuff, I may as well go legit.

How long were the days?
Breakfast at 7 a.m., first class at 8, last class ends at 9 p.m. Forty-five-minute breaks for dinner and lunch, but that's about it. And since the U.S. Olympic Training Center doesn't allow alcohol in the complex, if you want to grab a beer with the others, it's going to be a late night. I think it was 13 hours of sleep in three days.

What were the other students like?
Of the 56, two (me included) were women. It was about 2/3 shop mechanics, 1/3 hobbyists like myself. A good dozen of the younger guys were looking to jump on the caravan with a pro team or tour right away, and they were actually recruiting mechanics on the last day for a few neutral programs.

What do you plan on doing with your license?
Supporting Ben, obviously. But I got really excited about neutral support work, too. I'm trained on how to properly jump off the back of a motorcycle now. May as well use the skill!

What about the officials license that came with the clinic?
I've always been a sort of wonk about the rules anyway, so it made sense to get both. I'll use it to have snooty answers to people's questions. And I might fill in if folks need one more body at the races.

What's an important maintenance issue that the reader of this interview is neglecting?
Torque on crank bolts. It's supposed to be insanely high -- spec'd to 360! We pulled some of the USA team bikes and checked. Even they were ~100. `Find the problem before it finds you.’It's the pressure that keeps things tight, not the threads on the bolt, so torque matters.

Along with that, wash your bike and take time to look it all over. Don't just take the dirt off, but spend some time looking for frame damage, frayed cables or bent components. Find the problem before it finds you.

Any good tricks of the trade you learned?
So many I couldn't list them! The best has to be to carry a multi-sized squarehead wrench, so that if you're stuck at a hotel or facility where the hose hookups are hidden behind bolted metal plates you can open them and turn on the water without chasing around to get permission.

Also, Pam. For cyclocross and mountain events, cover your tires and the underside of your tubing in it to shed mud -- maybe not all of it, but enough. Just don't get it on your braking surface.

If a racer is fortunate enough to be in a race with professional neutral support -- Superweek, Downers Grove and Tour of Elk Grove come to mind -- what are some things she should know?
Even with neutral support, it's a racer's responsibility to have a functional bike. Neutral support can help with flats or little things, but make sure you can trust your rig.

Run a gruppo that's fairly universal: Neutral can't help if you're running Campy six-speed.

Always know where neutral will be, off the back or in a pit, and if you don't see them there immediately, keep riding!

Note whether it's "wheels in, wheels out" or full neutral support. With "wheels in wheels out" you have to have a wheel in the pit to get one, and the mechanics will do the wheel change for you using your wheel. Label your wheel with your name, racer number, and phone number in a way that you can get it off quick if you need the wheel. If you're unsure, bring extra wheels just in case.

You're racing an amateur crit and hear the dreaded hiss of a puncture. What do you do?
You're allowed to cut the course to go directly to the pit, and you're allowed one free lap to get a wheel change. After the wheel change, an official will work with your mechanic to get you back in the right place in the race, signaling when the mechanic can push you off into the pack. Remember, though, that if you think you're going to use the "slow leak" excuse to get a free lap and take a rest, it's the official's call whether the mechanical is legit, and you may find yourself down a lap. And if you took a wheel change, make sure you trade wheels back after the race.

What about in a road race?
Have a strategy with your team for what you'll do if someone in the peloton flats. Usually you'll want to stealthily slip back in the pack while a teammate takes your place, and ride in the back of the pack until you see neutral support behind you. Then, pull over to the right and come to a full stop. You can help mechanics by shouting which wheel it is. Once you're back on your ride, it's up to you to get back in the pack, and neutral support won't draft you back up, so it's a hard ride back in. Make sure you find neutral support after the race to trade back for your wheel. They'll be looking for you!

I was once told you should raise your right hand for rear wheel and left for front, corresponding with which hood controls which brake.
So few riders know that code at this point that they taught us to bring both wheels out anyway and look for ourself or listen for confirmation. Many riders who know the left/right hand thing just forget it in the heat of the moment anyway. So we're not supposed to trust it.

How fast can you change a flat?
The clinic focused more on wheel changes. The target is 15 seconds, and I'm around 20 at this point. Flats? Haven't timed it. I think about 10 minutes.

Other than the clinic, where did you pick up your skills?
I worked part time at a shop, but in sales. I've just been taking care of my own bikes and learning as I go since I got serious about cycling about 10 years ago. And I learn a lot by watching people. Sam Van Dellen at Rapid Transit has taught me everything I know about mountain bikes, much of it in the last year.

What are your racing goals in 2008?
My big goal is to finish a marathon. `It's great being on a team really proud of our community and committed to cycling and each other.’Yeah, running like a sucker. I'll be at the track, on the trails and riding brevets, too.

Do you let Ben wrench for you or is he strictly on soigneur duty when you race?
He's a really helpful wrench in the pit at endurance events, since we're usually losing our minds between laps. He actually chopped down some too-wide bars between laps in Wisconsin last year. But I'd never turn down a rub ...

What's the deal with Half Acre Cycling?
We were looking for a tight-knit team where we knew each other's names, we could really work together to get better and we were all friends. It's great being on a team really proud of our community and committed to cycling and each other. I'm excited about the potential.

Where's your favorite bar to get some Half Acre?
Village Tap on Roscoe has it on tap now. It's good stuff. Me, I go for the bottles. You can get it all over now. We're so lucky to have such a tasty sponsor.

Two people in the past 24 hours have asked:

Where do I find information about time trials in the area?

Not at Chicago Bike Racing, I'm afraid. I'm keeping the focus here on mass-start bicycle racing, so help me God.

But ABR sanctions quite a few time trials close to Chicago. Check out its calendar here. And the Illinois Cycling Association is looking to start a series of USCF-sanctioned events with the Chicago Time Trial Series.

I recommend the John Fraser Time Trial the first week of April. (Full disclosure: It's run by ABD, a sponsor of this site.) I expect a handful of mass-start specialists will do it, so you can measure where you are relative to the people you'll be racing against later in the season. It's also on the same route as the Fall Fling, a four-race series in October, so it's a chance to preview the course. Plus, if you do both you'll have a valuable benchmark to see how much you've improved over the season.

I'm not one to recommend gadgets or gear -- your cycling budget is better spent on race fees, nutrition and flowers or beer for your significant other -- but there's one device that all cyclists need to consider: a heartrate monitor.

It's a basic principle of training: In order to improve your fitness, you need to stress your body. But how do you know whether you're stressing your body enough? You can go by how you feel -- "rate of perceived effort," or RPE -- but a much more objective measurement is your heartrate. Cyclists are notorious liars, especially when it comes to how hard they're working. Numbers, on the other hand ...

There's plenty of literature on the Web for how to train with a monitor, and I'm not going to pretend to duplicate it here. Conventional wisdom, however, recommends a heartrate between 65 percent and 80 percent of your maximum during your endurance training, including those long "base" hours of winter. (This is just a general recommendation. Let's not get started on lactate thresholds and VO2 maximums.)

But what, my more well-heeled and analytically minded readers are asking, about power? Power is great! Training by power has its detractors, but there's no denying that it's an even more precise way of quantifying your work. But power meters aren't cheap (yet). For the beginning racer looking to save money and spend evenings doing things other than pore over wattage charts, a heartrate monitor should be the first major purchase after bike, helmet and chamois.

• » Two more new teams for you: The team formerly known as Team Clif Bar Midwest has jumped into a phone booth, spun around and emerged as Vitaminwater-Trek, under the organizing umbrella of Burnham Racing. And from Roscoe Village comes Spider Monkey Cycling, whose creators apparently agree with me that "Talladega Nights" is the greatest cycling movie ever made -- so long as you pretend the cars are bicycles. ("You need to grab hold of that line between speed and chaos, and you need to wrestle it to the ground like a demon cobra.")

• » Former XXX Racing-AthletiCo junior Rebecca Much has signed with 2007 NRC champion Webcor. After racing with T-Mobile for just over a season, Much took some time off before being cajoled back into racing this summer, as she documents in this diary entry for the U.S. Women's Cycling Development Program. "That's right: I'm back and taking every step to keep it that way." (Thanks, Jeff!)

• » Julie Eisenhardt (Half Acre) attended the USA Cycling mechanics clinic last week. "I felt like for four days I was among superheroes," she says, "and was occasionally treated like one myself." She shares her experiences on her blog: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4.

• » All the construction on Sheridan Road? CDOT insider Grant Davis (XXX Racing-AthletiCo) tells us it's to reduce the four-lane stretch to one lane in each direction plus bike lanes and a turn lane. More information here. This should promote everyone's safety and improve car-bike relations on that popular corridor. The bad news? It won't be done until summer 2009.
  

Starting this weekend, Judson will embark from the Plaza del Lago parking lot because of construction on Sheridan Road in Wilmette. (Wilmette obviously heard my plea for a smoother surface.)

• » Here's another new team you can add to your blogroll: Welcome, Beverly Bike/Vee Pak.

• » Next Saturday, Jan. 19, is the Chicago Winter Bike Swap, hosted by Project 5 Racing.

• » Results for the first of ABD's indoor time trials are online. Once again Mark Swartzendruber (Lucas Oil) delivered some hurt, placing not once but twice in the top three. Coming in 2nd on the day was second-year pro Reid Mumford (Kelly Benefit Strategies).

• » In the time trial results I see some riders from a mysterious Burnham Racing squad. I have no idea what this team is all about. Appears to have something to do with celebrity gossip and supermodels.

• » According to this tentative schedule posted at the Pony Shop Cyclocross blog and elsewhere, the Chicago Cross Cup has seven races planned for 2008. The newest addition will be the Old Towne Vande-Cross in Moline, Ill. That's a bit of a trek, but the more, the muddier. Jackson Park will again kick off the series, on Sept. 21, a mere 255 days away.
  

Like a good-old fashioned burlesque show, the new teams of 2008 are heating things up by revealing themselves ever so gradually. Among this week's revelations:

• » The Chicago Cuttin' Crew is open for business. The Crew is mostly composed of working messengers, many formerly of XXX Racing-AthletiCo. Having been beaten by them in many an alleycat and 'cross race, I can confirm this: They're fearless and wicked fast.

• » Beer remains many cyclists' favorite instrument of carb loading. Thus let us welcome Half Acre Cycling, sponsored by Chicago's Half Acre Beer Company. I recognize on its roster products of Killjoy, Team Pegasus and XXX Racing-AthletiCo. Look for them on the road, on the track and in the dirt in one of the more handsome kits we've seen.

• » Mark Swartzendruber announced on True Sport, as only the 'Druber can, that Lucas Oil is taking over title sponsorship of the team formerly known as Delta Faucet. His squad has picked up a few elite masters riders, too.

Who will be next to drop the veil of secrecy and expose the delights underneath? Stay tuned!

• » Can't wait until March to race? The ABD indoor time trial series starts Sunday Saturday.

• » Alleycat races are illegal, dangerous and irresponsible. But don't just take my word for it. The 10th Annual Tour da Chicago begins Sunday, Jan. 13. Here are videos of some past stages: the 2007 Bricklayer, the 2007 Royalty Race and the 2003 Stairmaster, the Tour's queen stage.

• » Find out the latest about the 2008 USCF schedule and plans for the Illinois Cup -- including better results tracking! -- by attending the Illinois Cycling Association meeting in Homewood on Saturday, Jan. 20.

• » Final overall Chicago Cross Cup results are up.

• » Start the new year right with this brilliant parody of bike reviews, compliments of Bike Snob NYC. (Monday's post was a delight to read, too.)

• » Going for a ride? Bring a yardstick. (Via North Branch.)