Seth Meyer

Any crit with a short, sharp hill is rad.

I’ll take that short, sharp hill...as long as the races are LONG like superweek style! None of this 20 minute crit junk.

Waitey

8-10 corners (2km in length), twilight, 1.5 hrs long, fast, with the sharp hill that makes the legs burn, a nice long finishing straight, and a prime every 3 laps to keep the pace amazingly high (doesn’t have to be a large prime)!  With a field off 100+

Also loud music blaring along the sidelines. 

Oh and rain is always welcome...just no white painted pedestrian crosswalks…

yeah, evanston did a good job last year, except for the BK Stacker.

crits are the best in urban settings.  evanston got close to an urban setting last year.  the BMC Software crit near Wall Street in NYC is really amazing, and the Chicago Criterium should be exciting this year.

i’d like to see manhole covers covered in rainy conditions.

-dream crit?
podium girls that have “non-stock parts” that give you bonus prizes.

Brian

You took the words out of my mouth, Luke.  The purses and pavement of Elk Grove.  The crowds of Snake Alley, the hill of Fox River Grove, the technical turns of Downers, but with the long straight to the finish of Evanston...oh, and the green grass, trees, and spaciousness of Whitnall Park.

Any crit with Druber so we can all hear throughout the event how stupid we’re all riding and just in case we were hard of hearing, read about what a bunch of idiots we all are a few days later. Gotta love the Drube!

Matt

Evanston had it just about perfect on their first try...but we are talking “dream” crit here:

1.  Evanston’s course (fast, flat, technical, decent pavement)

2.  Elk Grove’s payout

3.  Downer Grove’s atmosphere/spectators

4.  Gateway Cup’s catering to the racers (free spaghetti dinner at a Bocci club)

5.  Superweek’s competition/prestige

6.  Superweek’s race length

7.  Reasonable entry fee (under $30)

8.  Traditional categories (pro/1/2, 3s, 4/5s, i.e. no “3/4” or 1/2/3)

9.  good finishline services/announcer (velotech/fletcher lane)

10. good officials (Gateway cup/Missouri)

11. podium girls (gateway cup - giro della montagne, lafayette sq.)

12. a pro-only event like downer’s grove to watch the big names, or pro-am to cheer your teammates’ just to finish another lap

Crowds of the Snake, course like Bensenville or Evanston (if they patch up the back side a bit, even better).

I’m also a fan of night races, particularly on big streets in big cities. Good pavement, decent lighting, fast course.

Places to fill up your bottle with water.

The big crits were they don’t provide water have an unbelievable amount of waste from water bottles.

Depending on the layout--a place that is shaded or protected from rain. 

A patient official overseeing registration.

Twilight miss and out crit. It would be great for spectators too!

My dream crit:

1. Traditional categories (1/2, 3, 4, 5, 30+ W/1/2/3 and W4)

2. 45min+ races.

3. Hot laps (where you do $10 for the leader of each lap on the last 10laps of the race...we did this last year at our race and it was insane).

4. No whiners...like Mr. Benner.

Sorry to state the obvious, but I think that the biggest goal of the promoters should be to get more riders to the race.  The most important thing is to get the race organized well in advance and promote the race through avenues other than word of mouth.

They need to have a decent course.  I suggest consulting multiple higher category and masters riders before just deciding on a course.  For crits, some people like them flat, others like them with small hills.  I for one love a screaming fast, flat, multi corner crit.  FWIW ten years ago the USCF rulebook stated that a crit should be relatively flat for the area.  Narrower roads and corners make the race more technical and tend to string out the fields, making for much more excitement.  As a side, for those riders that can’t take a narrow corner without touching the brakes I suggest watching a pro race, looking up the term “apex” and perhaps some lessons.  No joke.  I’m sure Robbie Ventura would be glad to help in this area.

Prize money does attract riders.  So get sponsorship early and don’t rely on the entry fees to cover it.  Once the race is established as a good race, higher attendance will help you obtain your goals (read as profit).  For riders that are interested in prize money, races that payout $100 to 3 places deep are not nearly as attractive as those that pay $500 to ten deep.  Lower payouts also make the race less attractive to everyone else that doesn’t care about prize money because the field is smaller.  The higher the payout the deeper it goes, appearing more attainable and attracts more riders.

Entry fees should be reasonable and give incentive to do multiple races to attract more riders, making the fields larger.  In Wisconsin I’ve seen races that charge $10 for a second race and $0 for a third.  It should be no skin off the promoter’s back to allow someone to do a second/third race in a day for peanuts because they probably wouldn’t race a second race if they didn’t feel like they were competitive enough to warrant paying the full entry fee.  There are riders (me included) that don’t show up to certain races because of the fee/prize ratio and because promoters are charging full price for that second race when they could go elsewhere and race for cheaper or spend the day doing a training ride without having to pay. 

Short races suck, especially when the entry fee is high.  That’s all I have to say about that.

I think it would be interesting if there were more races with a sliding category schedule.  Something like P/1/2, 2/3, 3/4, 4/5.  This would allow someone that is in an in between category (2’s, 3’s, 4’s) to decide which race they would like to race in, gain experience from the higher category and would also allow for riders to do multiple races in a day.  A masters rider would theoretically be able to do three or more races.  I know there are some people reading this thinking, “He’s nuts, people are going to be squirrelly because they’re toasted,” but we all do 3-4+ hour training rides and with the races spaced appropriately it would work.  If you can’t handle a second or third race you just get dropped.  This would increase field sizes.

One thing that I don’t think has been touched on is scheduling.  It’s probably wise to run the masters races in the morning from oldest to youngest so that masters riders are putting out their freshest effort for their age group.  Assuming the sliding category idea is implemented, the women’s and junior’s races should probably be inserted in between the men’s categories such that both the men and women could have a break in between races should they choose to do two. 

And oh yeah, Superweek rocks because of their prestigious courses, 17 days straight of racing, deep payout of nice size purses for all categories, long races and probably because the aforementioned whiners don’t show up, but people from all over the country (and world) do.  I also really love the Memorial Day weekend Quad Cities races because they are well run.

Michael84

Twilight Crit! Twilight Crit!
Bands! Food! Spectators and More Spectators!
Deep prize list! Stuff for kids too do! Big Wheel races! Beer! Fun! Big Prize list! $$$$ $30K for 2 days overall! 
I guess all you need to check out a the “Giro d’ Grafton” Sat. June 21st.
http://www.wicyclingseries.com (Site up soon!)
2 days now!  We added a second day in Sheboygan on June 22nd.

I realize there is talk in the original post of a “dream crit,” but it also speaks of a local promoter.  You’re not going to get big pro teams coming to a local race with a small budget.  I think a few of the local promoters need to concentrate on getting local riders to their races and having a sliding category schedule for both men and women will give riders more options.  Promoters can’t have all of their races with $10k+ prize lists, but they sure could improve the races that have smaller prize lists such that more riders would show, therefore increasing their profits.  You have to spend a little to make a little.