ATTENTION MASTERS RIDERS from USA Cycling
Monday, March 22, 2004


There have been many changes regarding rider eligibility in both the USA Cycling and the UCI rules. Many of these changes impact your ability to qualify for masters races during the season, including Masters National and World Championships.

Riders who are over 30 are automatically classified as masters by our system and would have a masters license. However, a rider over 30 is classified as an Elite rider by several different scenarios, and this is significant as elite riders cannot ride masters races.

The following summarizes these criteria and their effects on your eligibility:

-Riders who are members of trade teams (Road, Track, or Mountain Bike for men or women) are elite riders for all disciplines. Thus, a rider on a road trade team cannot ride masters in any event or discipline including Master National or World Championships.

-Riders who compete in Elite World Championships, Elite World Cups, Elite Continental Championships, Pan Am Games, or Olympic Games in the Road or Track disciplines are classified as elites in all disciplines domestically but only for that discipline for the purposes of riding Masters Worlds*

-Riders who compete in other international calendar races, except for masters calendar races, mountain bike races, and cyclocross races will not be allowed to participate in the Masters World Championships for the discipline in which they had participated in an elite event.

The World Marathon Mountain Bike Championships do not count in bullet 2 above. Thus, a person over 30 can participate in both the elite and masters classes in MTB marathon in the same year, including the World Championships.

The biggest change here is that a master will no longer lose eligibility for masters worlds in cyclocross or mountain bike because he or she rode an elite race on the international calendar. This was a big problem in past years when our masters would ride one of the many international cyclocross races on our calendars and then find out they were ineligible for worlds.

Another change is the fact that elite status is discipline specific for qualification for Masters Worlds when it is acquired by participation in elite world level events. However, our rules specify that domestically, if you are elite for one discipline, you are elite for all disciplines. *

The one thing that has not changed, but which has been clarified, is that membership on any type of trade team means you are elite for all disciplines and are never allowed to participate in a master’s race.

* However, according to rule 1H4, an organizer may state in his race announcement that elite riders over 30 are allowed to compete in the masters class. This rule only applies to the riders who earned their elite status by riding world-level events. Trade team riders may never ride masters events!


This Article Published 2004-03-22 09:24:12 For more information contact: [email protected]

photos by Jonathan McElvery, Jack Milton, and BikeReg.com