The COVID Boom or a Road Racing Bust? Analyzing 2022 Race Registration

Much has been made of a post-COVID cycling boom that appears to be happening in the United States. But one question has lingered in our minds — is this bike boom is translating into a post-COVID road racing boom? Or is a more than one year hiatus in sanctioned racing is leaving a hangover in the vibrant New York City race scene? And going back to our in-depth analysis form 2018 - is gravel winning, and does that mean road racing is losing?

Over the coming months we’re going to delve into several of these topics as part of our ongoing ‘State of the Sport’ series. We’re kicking this analysis off with the Bear Mountain Classic (registration here). This is one of the last big one day road races left in the New York City tri-state area as events like Pawling, Housatonic, and Hunter Mountain have all fallen off the calendar. We have covered the Bear Mountain Classic extensively in the past, asking as early as 2016 whether the event was an example of a broken economic system for road races.

Unfortunately since those early State of the Sport essays, registration trends for the Bear Mountain Classic have generally worsened. The race appears to have peaked in the Lance Armstrong 2.0 era of 2009. Based on our analysis of CRCA membership trends the actual peak for the race probably would have come in 2011/2012, if not for a stretch where road construction limited the race schedule and ultimately cancelled the event in 2012 and 2013. After a strong return to racing in 2014 and 2015 we were optimistic, but starting in 2016 the race has hovered more in the 500-registrant range pre-COVID, making it smaller than the Orchard Beach Criterium that is traditionally held the week before Bear Mountain (OB benefits from multi-field registrants).

It is still early to fully assess registration for the 2022 edition of the event, especially given typically heavy last minute sign-ups. But at the moment total registration is not showing any signs of a dramatic post-COVID boom for the event. This is especially true compared to that aforementioned 2014/2015 timeframe when the Bear Mountain Classic had a strong resurgence that two year hiatus:

We asked CRCA Open Racing Director Alex Klafehn for his observations on current registration trends, and he raised a few points. Starting with the financial context, he highlighted that without sponsorship for this year’s event, the Club is hoping to just barely stay in the black on the race after expenses. This speaks to the challenges independent events like Housatonic and Hunter Mountain faced - CRCA benefits from significant volunteer labor as part of the Club’s membership based model, and CRCA does not need to turn a profit in the same way that many independent gravel / road events aim to do. Despite this challenging financial backdrop, the Club has tried various incentives, financial or otherwise, to spur registration. As Alex described it:

• Making the race accessible to collegiate racers via reduced entry fees has seen a notable uptick in their representation in the beginner categories — we have gotten multiple emails saying they wouldn't be able to race without the discounts.

• But being the state champs doesn't appear to save it from the post pandemic trend of last minute signups. Incentives such as free refunds before reg closes, steeper price increases, and increased social media promo have had little impact.

For additional detail on registration trends, we break down registration by field over the past several years. As usual there have been some field structure tweaks over time - for this year tweaks have primarily come in the Masters Men’s field where historically popular Category 4/5 fields have been eliminated, in part to align with required categories for State Championship awards. On the positive side, the Men’s Cat 4 and Men’s Cat 5 fields have seen very strong demand and are back to selling out well in advance. Though part of this is likely Masters 4/5’s registrations flowing back into the non-age restricted fields due to the change in field structure:

Unfortunately the M4 and M5 fields are the outliers, with every other field showing a decline in registration compared to 2019. These gaps will undoubtedly close in the final week of registration, but outside of strength in the lower Men’s categories (which comes with a caveat due to the change in field structure), with one week left for registration there are few obvious signs of significant tailwinds from a post-COVID bike boom.

As Alex observed, registration for the Women’s fields are a particular area of concern given the Club’s focus on boosting WTF participation. Anecdotally several WTF racers have cited Farmers Daughter and other gravel/fondo rides as focus events, rather than the Bear Mountain Classic. For traditional road races like Bear Mountain, cheap registration (in dollar terms versus gravel events) and separate fields don't seem to be enough to spur interest — as Alex put it: “there's something fundamental to road event structures that needs to change.” But that is a topic for a different journal entry.

So where does that leave us? Well, as mentioned a few times in this article, with one week until race day Bear Mountain Classic registration shows no obvious indication that the post-COVID bike boom is contributing to a boom for this format of sanctioned road racing. We’ll circle back next week to see how last minute registration impact these numbers, but at least when it comes to this event, it looks like road racing’s struggles have not been solved.

In the coming months we will also take a look at registration trends for the various circuit races held in Prospect Park and Central Park. These events form the core of the New York City calendar and have fewer logistical hurdles (and less climbing) than the Bear Mountain Classic, so they may provide better insight into the direction of sanctioned road racing in a post-COVID world.

In the meantime, if you want to participate in one of the last one-day road races within
close proximity to New York City, Bear Mountain Classic registration is available HERE on Bikereg.