AthletePath offers fee-free race registration, now a $20 race really is a $20 race!

I agree that it may seem dubious when you sign up for an event and then get hit with the “fee”

This is unfortunately the world we live in, air travel, concert tickets, major sporting events, this is normal.

If you think the event organizers are making gobs of $$ think again and look around at the event, the “fees” they deal with are enormous from medical support, grounds rental, local permits and law enforcement.

And I always think it’s commical for a race buddy to show up to a race driving a new Subaru with a fancy rack on it holding 2 $2k plus bikes and a couple of extra wheel sets inside, then hear the complaints of how expensive the “sport” is.

Sorry for the rant, must be the coffee.

“Now, if only we could convince promoters to drop the USA Cycling sanctioning, we’d be entering a glorious era of truly fee-free racing!”

And no one would come to any road racing event, and few would come to the cross events. USAC’s fees are out of control – few will argue that, but as racers, especially on the road, every time you line up you’re taking a big physical and financial risk. Insurance issues aside (like the woman suing the mountain bike event recently), at least the ranking, categorization, etc system USAC races comes with the benefit of being able to progress, being roughly pitted against fair competition, etc. It’d be great if we all just raced to race, but we don’t, or we wouldn’t see USAC events being so high attended. There will always be the big non-sanctioned events that people will go to anyway. Your Barry-Roubaix, Leadvilles, etc. will always do well, but for your weekly summer crits, people want the infrastructure USAC provides.

The reg fee business is a double edged sword. If you really don’t want to deal with registration (read, merchant processing) fees, you can accept cash or checks, onsite. Promoters have fixed up front costs though, before the race can happen, so they rely on that pre-reg money to make the races happen, and most of us get that, and realize that that – and the convenience of not waiting in a line and filling out a form, or driving to an event to find it filled before you get there – outweighs the dollar or two charge to pre-register. The backwardsness of it is ONLY because promoters have tried to incentivize pre-registration because they need the money before the race. So you see “day of surcharges”, etc. Like Stackr says, cycling race promoters aren’t killing it financially. Most of us (I’ve put on more than a few locally, and know quite a few other race promoters) are doing it because we like doing it, not trying to screw people out of a buck or two.

Cycling as a revenue generator based on registration dollars is a completely broken model. The only races really making any money are entry level races, and that’s because there’s no obscene payout schedule attached to being able to participate. Look at any other amatuer sport and the small field sizes, especially compared to payouts is completely upside down in cycling. People pay 40$ to do a fun run with 1000 participants, and payouts aren’t even an issue. Ironman events can cost close to a thousand dollars, and you get a T-shirt and a cheap bag of sponsored goodies.

The reg fee stuff is a red herring. What has to change is the “pro” mentality we as racers have that says we must know exactly where we finished, and we must be paid if we were in the top three, whether as a cat 4 or cat 1. Get rid of non-elite payouts, unify men and women’s payouts, and the rest of the categories get a medal or trophy if in the top three. Cat 3, 4, and Masters races don’t need payouts. Let’s work on that before thinking we need a “fee free” registration service that’s accomplishing nothing more than what any reg service can accomplish if set up that way by the promoter.

And we don’t need another social network. Ever again.

@b – Sorry, I guess I meant more like, exact time back in a criterium. Placing, yes.. timing, that’s an unnecessary expense in anything but a stage/road race or a time trial.