According to VeloNews, there will be a change in the ranking system for mountain bikers in the 2009 season. The move makes the off road catagorise look a lot more like the Road catagories and is designed to enlarge the pro field. How will this affect you?
If you are a Beginner you are now a Cat3
Sport-------> Cat 2
Expert -----> Cat 1
Semi-Pro-----> Your choice Cat 1 or Pro
Pro ------------>Pro
Why they felt the need to rename the catagories is beyond me, but basically they just eliminated the Semi-Pro Field. Leaving Semi-pros the option to go big or go home.
Their gamble is that more of the Semi-Pros will suck it up ang go pro rather than take the perceived drop in catagorization. At first this will probably be true, but I predict that people are a lot more cautious about jumping out of the Cat 1 class that they were in the old system. I hope I am wrong here, but what it will take to really get the move upward started is to ensure strong (numberwise) Pro fields at local races. Riders will want to have some feel that they can ride at a pro level at all of their races and not be strictly limited to traveling to big national events to get enought pros together to have the race be worth while on a pro level.
As it is now I have seen local races where only one pro shows up and only needs to turn the laps to win. There is not fun in that and it is not worth anyones time. With the semi-pro ranking at least there was the feeling that you could race the pros if they showed up and race in with the experts without feeling too much like a schmuck if that was the only competition you had. We will see what happens. Maybe I will actually get a NORBA liscence this year so I can get stomped by a bunch of Cat 1's who used to be semi-pro. (and also probably the Cat 1's who used to be Expert, either way I'm getting stomped)
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