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2010 USA Mountain Biking
2010 USA Mountain Biking

Ty Kady From Us Cup. Part 2

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Uploaded by Colt McElwaine | December 21, 2009

This week, we check in with Ty Kady from the US Cup Event Management Company. We talk USA Cycling, UCI, and the future of domestic mountain biking in the states. There will be a new video each day, Monday 21 - Friday 25. This episode, we talk about the future of the US Cup and it's mission to support the middle of the pack pros.

Speakers: Ty Kady
Categories: Interview
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Comments24 comments

 R. Scott Tedro 2 years ago

Hello Everyone,

I just wanted to say thank you to Andy for the support. Ty and i really like Andy a lot, he is a great guy and he has dedicted his life to this sport. Yes Andy had some issues at his race last year, however it was still a great event and we all worked together pulling it off. To me the best thing about Andy is that he will take constructive critism and do something about it, he never shys away from input and he just wants to put on a great event for everyone. I know that his Pro XCT race this year will be great, he has addressed all areas of weakness and has spent a lot of time and money insuring success. I look forward to bringing our pro team Team Sho-Air riders out in 2010 to compete and enjoy a great event.
Keep up the great work Andy, and call us if you need anyting!
Scott Tedro
Us Cup Chairman

Colt McElwaine 2 years ago

Hey Andy,
Your Email wasn't working for me but you can reach me at Colt@Cyclingdirt.org. Thanks for the input here.

Andy Bohlmann 2 years ago

Andy Bohlmann here: Of course the STXC was a "joke." We knew it, too. Please use the contact page at http://www.sandcreeksports.com to contact me directly. Almost everyhting with the race weekend has been changed and all races will use the same S/F line at Cheyenne Mountain State Park. We may add a HC, too.

And, Scott Tedro from the US Cup just called me as I was about to shovel snow here in Colorado Springs. Thanks Scott! I almost got out of that one.
While not part of the 2010 US Cup Series, we all hope that we can return as a US Cup race in 2011! For so many reasons, it just couldn't and didn't work out for 2010.
Scott and Ty were very good to work with, brought much to our 2009 event (and US mtb racing as whole), and we all know that 2010 will be a great US Cup year as well as a great Pro XCT year. I think we're all on board with that and I believe all of the US Cup and Pro XCT races compliment each other and will make for great racing for all classes and categories. We 100% support the US Cup Triple Crown and hope to see them and all of you at our Carmichael Training Systems International Classic this coming summer.
For 2010, our Carmichael Training Systems Summer of Cycling will feature so many races from grass roots mtb races, CO State Senior Road Race Championships at the most difficult venue to obtain (the US Air Force Academy), Rocky Mountain Games of The West mtb race on the Falcon Trail at the AFA (100km), a possible Rocky Mountain Ultra mtb race in Victor, CO to a road race up Pikes Peak, though this one is tentative pending sponsors.
Now, if only I had bike to ride! Too many races, and no time or a bike to ride.
Andy Bohlmann
Colorado Springs, CO
Sand Creek Sports, Inc. http://www.sandcreeksports.com
Tour of Colorado http://www.tourofcolorado.co

Matt Benassi 2 years ago

Absolutely correct. The short track was a fairly last minute add on to our event and that forced us into a location that was certainly less than ideal. For 2010 we are planning on using a course at Cheyenne Mtn State Park that should address all your concerns. We've been talking about having at least some of the short track races under the lights but haven't come to any firm decisions there yet.

TXMTB 2 years ago

Matt/Andy,
That STXC in Colorado Springs was a joke! No spectators, off site, no announcer, awful course for that many pro men and on and on. What have you guys done to address that for 2010?

Matt Benassi 2 years ago

Richard,

Andy is right we had some problems specifically at registration and then some issues with the starts depending upon which category you were in. I think we received maybe 5 or 6 critical emails right after the event and I or Andy personally spoke with each of those individuals and resolved their concerns on a case by case basis. But more importantly we incorporated those same concerns immediately in our planning for the 2010 events. I would be very happy to hear your specific concerns to make sure we have them covered for our 2010 event. I can be reached through the contact information at sandcreeksports.com and please call me Matt.

Andy Bohlmann 2 years ago

Richard,

I am the race director for the Colorado Springs event.
Each and every item you mentioned has been addressed and confirmed for our 2010 event. This was done within 7 days of the 2009 race! The race will be two days in 2010 to give everyone a better race.
For 2009, we expected 200-225 riders and 385 showed up. We knew several days prior to the race, based on pre-reg numbers, that these very things you mentioned would be a race day problem but it was too late for us to do anything.
Just make sure you (all) read between the lines when reading about this
recent turn of events at the National MTB race level.
Sincerely,
Andy Bohlmann

Richard Stevens 2 years ago

As an inspiring amatuer racer, I can't pretend to know anything about the UCI, associated costs, how it affects pro's etc. However, I did compete in the Kenda Cup West events this year, as chasing the jersey and title was a big goal of mine.
Just from my prospective as a racer, the Bonelli and Fontana events were clearly a step above the finals my wife and I attended in Colorado.
Maybe Mr. Benassi should have taken the fee's and costs he saved and invested it back into the event in the form of better scoring staff, a real race announcer and other things that made the other Kenda Cups so fun.
For any rider like me, its a big committment to fly from California to Colorado. To get to the event, and find it rather unorganized, was a bit of a let down.
Thank You.

Ty Kady 2 years ago

Matt, thanks for sharing this info, this is great dialogue. I’ll let you and Scott chat off line to compare notes, as he ultimately cut the checks this year.

However, I do stand by my statement of a C3 costing us around $5500. I was referencing our $805 inscription fee, and the $2588 we paid for the UCI officials at the Fontana event. That’s roughly a $3400 added cost for us, compared to our Kenda Cup opener race at Bonelli for example, where we paid a sliding scale Pro payout based on field turnout, and fed 500+ racers In-N-Out Burgers on the rig.
I was simply sesting that maybe it’s in the US Cup’s and the sports interest to reinvest that $3393 back into deeper Pro payback, (and paying more than $280 to beat of field of 120 men) or even back into the event itself, instead of going to UCI fee’s.
Obviously you’re working with a different pay structure than what the US Cup is working with. Quote : “USA Cycling waived the event fees and the remainder of the UCI mandated costs is prize money.”
For us, when you add in the prize pursue required by the UCI for a C3 men and women’s event, that’s another $2054, given a 1.4 Euro exchange rate. I even left out the added cost of the US cup of paying the women top 5 equal pay, which is not mandated by the UCI, but was our choice as a promoter. I know $5447 isn’t exactly $5500 or whatever I said, but again I did say I didn’t have the paper work in front of me.
The dialogue I think we should continue off line, is why the US Cup paying $5447 for a C3 and you are saying you paid only $2K, as you said permits and other fee’s were waived. I’m not sure if that is because you’re located in Colorado Springs, home of USAC or if you really did get the deal of the century!
If that turns out to be true, then the next follow up question for me is, why the Federation asked the US Cup to help subsidize the other 3 promoters of the 2010 Pro XCT with cash subsidies to help elevate the prize pursue? In your case it was the difference from a C2 to a C1, again possibly costing us around $3703, when apparently they were giving you special consideration by waiving fee’s etc.
You have my e-mail and #, and I look forward to discussing this further before I draw any conclusions.
Take Care.

Scott Tedro 2 years ago

Well maybe we should chat, because I know what I paid and we both know what was asked of the US Cup this year to pay in not only our UCI events, but also in assistance to the other Pro XCT promoters, so let's just agree to disagree as I want to keep this positive and on point, if you want to chat about you costs vs mine or talk then give me a call. Other then that I guess the point is, since this is our cash and our events, we want to choose how we spend it, and if it's 1.00, 100.00, or 1000.00 more for a UCI race, at this time we choose to do one to support our Federation, not 3 and subsidise 3 others, I don't think you can dissagree with this as you are only doing 1 event and it is a UC2 vs our UC1 so I think we are doing our part. As for the rest of the cash we were going to spend, we close to spread it around and putit in the pockets of as many Pro riders as possible while putting on a great show with great swag and extras for the amatuers as well.

Good luck with you race this year, see you there and give me a call if you want to chat.

Matt Benassi 2 years ago

Actually I just looked at the actual books and we paid $833 to the UCI which included the cost of our chief official. Sounds like I must have got the deal of the century considering what Fontana says they paid for the same category race.

Matt Benassi 2 years ago

Matt,

Not sure if you have ever put on a UCI race, but i have and i do not agree with your statement at all about costs, in fact i dont agree with Tyson for that matter, Tyson said it costs about $5000.00 for a UC3 race, well i wrote the checks last year and after everthing was said and done, the Fontana race cost me just over $7500.00 and that was the cost of the lodging, doping, prize money, etc, so i dont know how you can claim it is $2000.00!
I also want to point out that we in no way are anti USAC in fact we have a lot of friends over there and are even, as a show os support hosting a Pro XCT event at great cost, at least $12500.00 and once again i write the checks, Sea Otter last year was over $15000.00 when all was said and done so please dont tell me what it costs i paid for it, and i know!
We support the USAC as our federation, i just dont like the model for UC inscription, to me it is about the points or lack there of. Example, for a UC1 race it costs between 12,500 and 15,000 and there are 60 points for first. For a countries (any contries) National Championship event, it costs about the same and the points for first are 125! That is not appropriate and i have asked in a written proposal last year (2008) to the UCI to make changes and they said, well we will see what we can do for 2009, based on thier promise to address this issue, i inscripted 5 events this year and they didnt make 1 adjustment, now they are telling me they will address this issue in 2011, well then i will wait and see. Until then, we are going to try to spend our money where we think it will benifit everyone, and yes that includes 1 UCI event, but it also includes other events like the Triple Crown, etc. Futhermore we have gone to great efforts not to have any of our events conflict with world cup races or other Pro XCT or high impact events.
Scott,

Our race in Colorado was a Cat 3 as well. Not sure how you come up with $5k but no kidding ours was only about $2k. We paid the inscription and the chief official cost to the UCI. I'm not counting the prize list which gets paid to the riders which was about $2200. Our race hotel gave us a few rooms which we gave to our officials (so no cost there). We had local UCI officials so we utilized those but still paid whatever the USA Cycling going rate was. We had no doping control. All that I'm saying is that we should be discussing the actual UCI costs--officials costs along with prize money is really going to be pretty similar if it's a UCI race or not.
To run a Cat 1 race the prize money is something like $8k with the actual inscription fee only being $1200 plus the officials. I'm sure you know all this but the costs are the costs.
And I never implied you had a beef with USA Cycling.
cheers, matt benassi

Scott Tedro 2 years ago

Matt,

Not sure if you have ever put on a UCI race, but i have and i do not agree with your statement at all about costs, in fact i dont agree with Tyson for that matter, Tyson said it costs about $5000.00 for a UC3 race, well i wrote the checks last year and after everthing was said and done, the Fontana race cost me just over $7500.00 and that was the cost of the lodging, doping, prize money, etc, so i dont know how you can claim it is $2000.00!
I also want to point out that we in no way are anti USAC in fact we have a lot of friends over there and are even, as a show os support hosting a Pro XCT event at great cost, at least $12500.00 and once again i write the checks, Sea Otter last year was over $15000.00 when all was said and done so please dont tell me what it costs i paid for it, and i know!
We support the USAC as our federation, i just dont like the model for UC inscription, to me it is about the points or lack there of. Example, for a UC1 race it costs between 12,500 and 15,000 and there are 60 points for first. For a countries (any contries) National Championship event, it costs about the same and the points for first are 125! That is not appropriate and i have asked in a written proposal last year (2008) to the UCI to make changes and they said, well we will see what we can do for 2009, based on thier promise to address this issue, i inscripted 5 events this year and they didnt make 1 adjustment, now they are telling me they will address this issue in 2011, well then i will wait and see. Until then, we are going to try to spend our money where we think it will benifit everyone, and yes that includes 1 UCI event, but it also includes other events like the Triple Crown, etc. Futhermore we have gone to great efforts not to have any of our events conflict with world cup races or other Pro XCT or high impact events.

Rich 2 years ago

I agree with Ty, if we can grow the series here in the U.S. by having deeper payouts more pro riders will be able to compete. This should help make for a stronger series, stronger competition, more sponsors, and eventually more UCI sanctioned races. And yes the WORS series is worth checking out.

Matt Benassi 2 years ago

Not sure where Ty got his UCI numbers. For a UCI Cat 3 race last year (which we were in Colorado) the actual cost to the UCI was something like than $2000 (this included our chief official) when it was all said and done. USA Cycling waived the event fees and the remainder of the UCI mandated costs is prize money. I suppose you could count the other officials but really you would have those costs no matter if you were a UCI race or not. For 2010 the UCI major costs look the same and in fact it's only a few hundred more dollars to run a Cat 2 versus Cat 3 race. The prize money for the Cat 2 race is about double that of a Cat 3. But based upon all the rider comments I've read on this issue a larger expanded prize list is a good thing.

When we discuss this issue we should deal in facts. The UCI costs are outlined on this PDF from USA Cycling.
http://www.usacycling.org/forms/mtb/2010UCIfees_MTB_Calendar.pdf

mpapet mpapet 2 years ago

This is great content!! I'd love to see more promoter-related content.

I agree 100% with Rick Thorne's post. Martha S's post is right too.

I was involved in bike racing in the 90's and it doesn't look like much has changed.

Daryl Smith 2 years ago

The day Cody Peterson can make a living at this will be the day we've made it as a sport!
Cody Peterson for President!

Rick Thorne 2 years ago

Its good to see the US Cup trying to change things for racing here in the states.

Its going to be interesting to see who the industry, teams and riders support, The US Cup or USAC. Maybe both if the schedule works?
I know the series address two different things, but there is only so much money to go around. I know, I'm a small, local "dinky" promoter, and getting money in this economy and sport is a difficult task.
Too bad USA Cycling couldn't do what they should do, and that is sanction and "bless" these races, and offer support to the promoter. Instead it seems like they want to control everything to the point where these folks who try and step in and help prop up the National Series, just keep going away.

Nathaniel Williams 2 years ago

Is that a parrot?

Martha S. 2 years ago

I too would like to see more attention payed to the mid pack pros and also the U23 field. These juniors and young cat 1's buts their ass to try and turn pro and then get there only to find nothing but debt. If we could help support the U23 who's finishing 50th for a couple years, he or she will stay in the sport long enough to reach that top 15 or top 10 potential.

HSXC 2 years ago

The day Cody Peterson can make a living at this will be the day we've made it as a sport!

Rob Kristoff 2 years ago

I won't pretend that I fully understand the implications of all of this discussion, but it seems to me that Ty has a great point about being for privateers. We want our very best to compete on the world stage, but even more, don't we all aspire to a healthy sport at home? Aren't we always citing Belgium, where they can race all over the place every weekend, and make a living doing it? As I said, I may be missing something, but cash in the pros' pockets (as many pros as possible) seems to be the obvious answer compared to UCI points. Your points won't make much of a difference if you can't afford to pay the bills or fly overseas.

Mid West 2 years ago

Everyone shout take a real close look at the WORS series and what those guys are doing. My vote would be to have WORS just double as the National Series and bring in all the pros!

James Bean 2 years ago

Love the vision of the US Cup. Getting those 6th-30th places in the pro class to be legit will trickle down to all classes. All of a sudden Cat 1's will have that incentive to turn pro not just for the gold star on their license but for a shot at earning cash and trying to make it a career.