We still have a couple of weeks to go, but I thought I’d get this post up now because I’m so darn excited. The ECCC has categories for all (yes ALL) racers, so anyone who has any interest in racing should definitely come along!
There are categories A through D for men and women, AND the all-important intro field for people who have never raced before/have absolutely no experience; it’s a super fun, all-inclusive way to get into racing! This race also has open categories for non-university students, so you don’t even have to go to McGill to race in those! There will be an individual time trial, a road race, and a criterium. Everyone is welcome to do any (and hopefully all) of the events, and more info about each of them can be found here: http://collegiatecycling.org/eccc/wiki/uploads/Calendar/2015-Road-Beanpot.pdf
We’ll be leaving Friday (the 27th) afternoon/evening and coming back Sunday (the 29th) evening, most likely staying at a hotel in the area (unless someone has connections on a place to stay–let me know!). Let’s get as many people going to this weekend as possible!
Deadline to sign up is end of the day Thursday, since we need to know numbers before figuring out cars, housing, etc. If you’re in a non-100% category, switch to 100% by tomorrow if you’re in! (If for some reason you can’t know for sure by then, message me.)
Everyone’s pretty much in charge of their own food for the weekend (obviously breakfast will depend on if we’re hosted vs hotel, etc.). You’ll probably pick up dinner on the way down on Friday, then we usually go out to a restaurant together Saturday night, and home for Sunday night. It’s a good idea to bring snacks, etc.
For warmups, it’ll be good if we have a couple of trainers/rollers that we can all share. We can figure out who’s bringing what as it gets closer to the weekend.
Also worth mentioning that you can sign up the day of the event but the fee goes up $5. You also need a UCI license to race in any of the weekends events. If you buy a Quebec license you will probably not have received it but if you can show them your confirmation email that you in fact purchased one you’ll have no issues. You can buy a day license but you are restricted to racing in the lower categories with one, I think on a day license last year you could only race D in the men’s field and I imagine the rule is similar for the women.
So what type of licence do I have to get? They have a massive table on the fscq. I was going to race eccc and couple of Quebec events. Also is there any confirmation that there will be racing. Montreal is not ready for a bike race so how would Boston be with all that snow?
There’s always the risk of weather-related cancellation, but my plan is to stay blindly optimistic and hope for the best. I’m not an expert on which license, anyone have better knowledge of this?
Dom, are we able to contact race organizers this weekend/early next week to get confirmation on race scheduling… aka if its on. I mean next week and next weekend looks great in Boston, so I’m sure there won’t be a problem.
Gab, if you are starting off racing I would suggest buying a Senior 3 road license (Route & Piste Senior 3 (Élite) homme), the field is very competitive and almost all the races hold Senior 3 events, often joined with the Juniors.
You can start the process of getting a license by creating an account here. Just a warning for everyone, the entire site is in French so if you need any help translating feel free to PM me and I will help you out.
Massachusetts, despite having a rough winter has had warmer temperatures than Montreal so the roads are clear and the races should go on as planned, the ECCC in my experience do everything in their power for the show to go one. Last year despite flooded roads on one of the courses they rerouted the course which made for an awesome race and another weekend the melting snow froze over night causing dangerous conditions but they found roads to hold a ITT and the TTT on regardless. The races last weekend went on as planned despite terrible weather and the worst case scenario for Massachusetts weather in late March from my understanding is cold and rainy so I see no reason why they would be cancelled.
Yeah, what Phil said. We can’t really contact them ahead of time, because usually the only thing that would really mess things up is when crazy weather happens during the weekend that was unexpected. And looking at the extended forecast, there don’t seem to be any blizzards predicted next week or anything (knock on wood).
