Adam Myerson on the Decision to Withdraw Northampton's UCI Status

More on the race's decision to not be a UCI race following the organizing body's rule on transgender athlete eligibility

The Verge Northampton Cyclocross race is an institution in American cyclocross, dating back to at least 1991, if not longer. The race celebrates its 32nd edition this year with Adam Myerson helping organize the race.

Northampton was elevated to UCI status in 2000, and it has been a mainstay on the national calendar every year domestic racing has occurred since then.

This season, however, Myerson and the race team made the decision to withdraw as a UCI race following the organizing body’s rule excluding trans women from competing in the Elite Women’s category.

I spoke with Myerson about his race, the decision, the state of the sport, and more for this interview.

Interview: Adam Myerson on Northampton’s UCI Status

Zach Schuster: For folks who are newer to the sport, this is what year for Noho? 

Adam Myerson: It's the 32nd year. I took over in 1991 and we've missed one year, so 33 years but the 32nd edition.

Zach Schuster: You were in college when you took over the race, right? 

Adam Myerson: Yes, I raced it in 1990 as a freshman at UMass. It was an on-campus Collegiate mountain bike race. That was admittedly low-key, and half the field was on cyclocross bikes anyway. They had raced cyclocross in one form or another at the apple orchard on campus in the 1980s and I've been told even in the 1970s. As long as there has been cyclocross in the U.S., there have been races in this spot.

Paul Curley told me about racing there in the 70s and 80s. That history is not well-documented, but who knows how long there had been races in that spot. I took it over in 1991, so that's where I start counting editions. 

Zach Schuster: What year did it get elevated to UCI status? 

Adam Myerson: 2000. I had been assisting Tom Stevens with running the New England Cyclocross Series and the first edition of the SuperCup had started. We’d had the first U.S. UCI 'cross race in Colorado, followed by the Super Cup and then the Monkey Hill race in Wilmington, Delaware. We were kind of learning how it was possible, and it seemed like there was a path for us to do that. I had raced the previous seasons in Switzerland doing all the UCI races there and thought I could recreate that in New England. 

I had convinced Tom that the New England Series shouldn't be every single race, but instead a shorter series of just the best races. Then eventually when I took it over from him in 2000, the goal was to make all the series races UCI. That took us until 2003. UMass, or what we call Northampton now, went first. I can't remember who went the next year. Probably Gloucester and Worcester. Then by 2003, all the races in the New England Series were UCI. It stayed that way until 2021. We had 14 UCI races in New England at one point.

Zach Schuster: In a previous interview, you told me cyclocross is your expertise. That's what you know, that's what you do, and you've been so involved in so many different aspects, you totally could have been forgiven for stepping aside and not doing the work to put on Noho. Why have you continued to put on this race and serve as the race director? 

Adam Myerson: I would say it's not an intentional thing, but just a reflection of my personality in general. I'm not much of a channel flipper. I know what I like, and I know what I like to do. I tend to stick with things I believe in. I couldn't imagine not doing it at this point. I think organizing Northampton isn't just a thing that I do, it's part of who I am as a person.

That's part of why it was hard it step down as a UCI race. I don't just organize a UCI race, I'm a long-time UCI organizer. I was on the UCI cyclocross commission for four years. I’ve been on the USAC ‘cross committee for a decade. There's all these things that kind of become who you are, not just what you do. I would say organizing this race and contributing to the community in that way, it's hard to imagine not doing it. 

That said, I imagine not doing it all the time. There are often times when I think it would be nice to stop, but when I really think about it, I can't imagine not doing it. I also don't know who I would turn it over to. I have a great staff. Al Donahue is my race director and my partner in the effort. JAM Fund helps out. Northampton Cycling Club helps out.

I could probably step aside, and the race would continue to run, but we'd probably all stop at that point and the race would just stop. I don’t know that anyone really wants to do it. It’s a labor of love for all of us.

Zach Schuster: Can you walk me through the process and how you arrived at the decision to not be a UCI race this year? 

Adam Myerson: It really is pretty straightforward. When the UCI decided to change its transgender inclusion policy, it essentially created a situation where our friends, our athletes, our previous participants, last year's winner, all these people who are part of the race and part of the community who have always been there and been part of the race were all of a sudden not included. And not just included in the some other way, but not included at all. It's not as if other opportunities or avenues were created for them. 

For instance, the UCI didn't create an open category that trans women can compete in, even if that was a thing they were interested in. Transgender women don't have a category to race in at the Elite level. In any case, they changed the rule and in doing so, they were going to change the fabric of my race, how it’s existed, and the way we've always done things. It's just unacceptable to me. 

Part of why it’s hard is that I convinced so many other people and taught so many other people how to organize UCI races and helped create the national racing calendar as a result of those efforts, I've been one of the primary drivers of the spread of UCI races across the U.S. and the creation of the calendar that's now the ProCX.

But now we’re in a place where the UCI made it impossible for me to continue with them. In some ways, it was a difficult decision in that it hurt to not do these other things that are important to me, but it was also a very easy decision to make. 

Austin Killips, one of the winners at Noho last year, is one of the athletes affected by the UCI’s rule. © Angelica Dixon

Zach Schuster: Last week we were discussing whether or not to include your race on our national calendar, and I said that I thought it should be. We also discussed other aspects such as payouts you're going to continue, so what what format will your race have? Noho is an institution and regardless of its designation, to not include it on a national calendar didn't seem right. 

Adam Myerson: I appreciate that. I'm one of the folks who helped create the rules for the ProCX, and one of the standards you have to meet to be on the ProCX is you have to be a UCI-sanctioned event. I knew I was removing myself not just from the UCI calendar but also the ProCX. Live by the sword, die by the sword in that regard, and I have to hold myself to the standard I created for other people. 

If you want to keep me on the spiritual national calendar, I think that's fair and reasonable because I plan on running the same event I've always run. In fact, there will probably be a little bit more prize money than usual. I can just make it $2,000 instead of $1,795 or whatever the C2 prize list translates to. It will be the same production level, the same categories, and actually, my race day got a little easier to run.

For instance, I don't have to give the Junior 17-18 Women and Men their own category. I can run a 15-18 or an under-19 category and make my schedule a little smoother and make those fields a little bigger. It gives those fast 15-16s a chance to race with the 17-18s, or maybe the fast 17-18s might choose to race in the Cat 1-2 race, which the men couldn't do previously. 

I think the rider distribution and the race day itself will go a lot better. It also helped me keep my entry fees reasonable. I think you've seen that entry fees have really gone up in a lot of events this year. We're going to hold things at that $50 mark for most of the categories. At a time when we are worried about the size of the sport, I didn't feel like it was the time to ask our riders to pay more money to be there. Hopefully this reduces some of our operational costs a little while running the same event from a production level. 

Zach Schuster: Since you are not a UCI race, in terms of the inclusion policy, what is your policy for categories and where athletes want to race? 

Adam Myerson: One of the things we were waiting to see was what USA Cycling was going to do and how close USA Cycling was going to follow the UCI policy, because if they adopted the UCI policy directly, then USA Cycling wasn't going to be an option for us from the sanctioning body perspective.

That would have been tough because despite all the ways it may be fair to criticize USA Cycling, the people who are there doing the work to try to make things better, people who I work with one-on-one who are people I believe in and want to get behind, are doing their best to improve things. 

It's also the best insurance that you can buy and the best officials you can work with. There's no other alternative that meets the same standard for me as an organizer in terms of liability, rules structure, and officials. We wanted to stay with USA Cycling if possible.

Even though they haven't formally announced their policy I guess what I can say is there won't be any changes from USA Cycling for this season, and I have been given enough information that the policy we can expect will be favorable for inclusion at least to the degree of maintaining what was the status quo. 

That status quo, in my opinion, was working perfectly well. It was working as designed. There was no reason for the change, other than from a few noisy people. And so to answer your original question, folks can race the category represented on their USAC license, as usual.

Zach Schuster: You had an Instagram story when the policy was released discussing what this means for the racing community. I assume you have had conversations with the athletes who are affected by this. What would your advice be for folks who want to be supportive but who also want to race their bikes? 

Adam Myerson: It's an interesting time to ask because the first U.S. UCI races of the season have happened. I had a check-in with my friends and my athletes and even myself—how did it feel? How did it feel to watch the first race of the season happen without you? And how did it feel for your friends whom you encouraged to keep racing? 

I have to say, it wasn't great. It didn't feel good. It was more upsetting than I expected it to be.

You can think you're prepared for something, and you can make a decision about it intellectually. You may have trans friends who are racing at that level who will say to you, "Hey, I really want you to race. I don't want you to stay home on my behalf. That won't feel good for me." But then when the first race happens, even though it's a good intellectual or moral choice, it doesn't mean it's easy or it still feels good. 

I think there were, very clearly, people missing from the races last weekend. It may look to some people that it was business as usual, but it absolutely wasn't. Not all the best riders were there, and for me, that was noticeable. 

Also, I think the fields were smaller, aside from the excluded athletes. There are other things to be talking about, like where is everybody? So many people are not racing this season. Why is that? Why aren't we talking about that? 

As we talk, I'm in the van on my way to Rochester, and Rochester is really the only UCI race I travel to now because they bring me in to do a clinic on Friday that has been really successful. It's nice to be helpful to people and have an opportunity to focus on amateur racers, but it doesn't feel great to be there without some of my athletes and friends. They don't feel good that they can't be there.

I don't know how I am going to reconcile those two things. I might have to experience those feelings at once. I know why I'm there and there are good reasons to be there, but I'm not happy with the fact that everybody won't be there and that they're not allowed to be there in the way they should be. 

Zach Schuster: You have trans athletes who you coach and have relationships with. Have you heard from athletes who are happy with the UCI's decision and how have you incorporated that into your approach to the issue? 

Adam Myerson: No I haven't. But it depends on how you describe "heard from." If you go on Twitter, which I do less and less often, I can seek out those exclusionary voices if I want to go find them. It's essentially the same small group of people making noise back and forth to each other. 

It's amazing to me how I can not be on Twitter for a week or two weeks and live a normal life. Then I go back and see these people have been shouting back and forth to each other the entire time. It only shows me how obsessed they are with trans athletes, when most people are just getting out of bed every morning, putting their shoes on, and living normal lives. 

I do occasionally have productive conversations with people who reach out to me in good faith with questions, and I am able to share my personal experience and expertise with them and they appreciate it. I have very rarely had a conversation with someone that didn't end with them having more understanding and favoring inclusion for the reasons I'm able to share with them. Those aren't conversations you can have on social media or with people who have made their minds up about trans people in general. 

With the loud voices who are against inclusion in cycling, you can just read their own words and see how they feel about trans people generally. It's not just about sports. Even if it just started with sports for them, it's not about sports. It was probably never just about sports for them. And they make that clear with the things they write. You don't have to project onto them, you can just read what they say.

Zach Schuster: You made a good point on Twitter the other day about the smaller field sizes at GO Cross. Both the Women and Men's fields were 11 riders smaller than last year. It seems like that's an issue you kind of called attention to that's concerning for the sport. 

Adam Myerson: It has some overlap with trans athletes being excluded, but it's clearly not just about that. I'll give you one example. People love to talk about trans athletes taking up space in the field that might belong to somebody else, which is pretty outrageous. One way that it’s particularly outrageous is the whole existence of the Nice Bikes team last year. How many women got professional cyclocross jobs and professional level support on that team last year, as both riders and staff? 

That team doesn't exist this year. There are a lot of reasons why the team doesn't exist, but how many cis women had support that they wouldn't have otherwise had if that team hadn't existed? Women who don't have support this year and maybe aren't racing 'cross at the same level because of it? That's one example of how the sport has gotten smaller. Not because one or two trans athletes are excluded, but a whole team full of athletes and staff stopped. 

You can just go through the list of riders and teams who were active last season and see who’s missing, ask why, and ask what we could be working on to address that. That’s work my coaches and I do every day.

I think for all the people who dedicated all of their limited energy to exclusion because they claim to care about women's sports really only cared about excluding trans women, because if they cared about growing the sport, every minute they spent on exclusion, they could have spent on making the sport bigger. They didn't do that, no matter what they say. They weren't at the races. They weren't sponsoring riders. They weren’t creating teams or events. They were just on the internet making noise, and when they did show up at races, it was to complain about trans athletes being there, not supporting women in their racing endeavors.