PRESS RELEASE: USA CyclingUSA Cycling announced the national mountain bike calendar for the 2019 season today. The Pro Gravity Tour (GRT) and Pro Cross Country Tour (XCT) will feature 12 events across 10 states. Spanning March to June, the GRT schedule this year will include 8 days of gravity competitions, while the XCT will feature 20 days of racing.
The GRT and XCT are comprised of the top mountain bike events in the U.S. and track the standings for elite riders in their respective fields. Most events will also carry amateur categories as well. Individual calendar champions are crowned at the conclusion of the calendar.
The GRT calendar focuses on four of the best gravity races across the U.S. with events from coast to coast. The addition of the Breckenridge Epic as well as the Soldier Hollow Bike Festival and the Missoula XCS to the XCT calendar marks a return to mountain bike stage racing in the pro calendar.
| We’re looking forward to a great season of competition in both gravity and endurance mountain bike racing here in the US. This collection of high-caliber races allows our athletes to prepare on US soil for the upcoming 2019 World Championships taking place in Mont-Sainte-Anne, Canada.— Tara McCarthy, Senior National Events Manager, USA Cycling |
Pro Gravity Tour (GRT) Pro Cross Country Tour (XCT) The 2018 GRT individual champions were Samantha Soriano (Littleton, Colo.; COMMENCAL Junior Cartel) for Elite Women and Kiran MacKinnon (Santa Cruz, Calif.; Santa Cruz Bicycles) for Elite Men. The 2018 XCT individual champions were Erin Huck (Boulder, Colo.; CZ Racing) for Elite Women and Christopher Blevins (Durango, Colo.; Specialized Bicycles Factory Racing Team) for Elite Men.
USA Cycling works with race directors from across the country to create various calendars and series that feature bike racing across several disciplines and ability levels. Inclusion on these calendars often includes event support, rankings tabulation and additional promotion. For a full schedule of events and updated standings throughout the season, click
here.
Greater cost, less riding, fewer events. No wonder Enduro popularity is exploding while DH founders in the US.
The same thing is happening in the motorcycle world, for a lot of the same reasons. Off-road/GNCC/Hare Scramble events are packed, MX has a hard time filling gates.
Rider ire in this thread anyway is directed at USAC - for making it prohibitively difficult to host a sanctioned event, whether due to cost or additional administrative burden.
I don't have any inside knowledge, but my guess is that the marked increase in UCI point opportunities this year for XC racing is part of the build up to the Olympics, in the hopes the US can earn more than just the one spot (Howard Grotts) we had for men in 2016.
I predict that DH won't get as much love as you might want from USAC and most other national cycling bodies in other countries until it becomes an Olympic sport (which, obviously, it should be).