In the second part of our NYC Road Racing feature we provided an unprecedented look at how racers enter and exit the local scene. This showed that new racer recruitment has held relatively steady with the pre-COVID period. However, recent new racer retention trends have been extremely poor, driving smaller classes of racers in recent years.
With those recruitment and retention data points in hand, we turned our attention to translating those figures into model that predicts the future size of the NYC racing community. As we detail below, this exerise shows that - if current trends continue - the racing community will continue to shrink, and local race viability may be under threat.
Analysis throughout by Gregory Hruby, assisted by Matthew Vandivort, edited by Liz Marcello
The Class of 2026 and a shrinking peloton
Using the rider drop-off data from our Rider-Level Analysis (Part 2), we projected the future of the Class of 2026. This forecast combines current first-year dropout rates with historical baseline trends from 2016. This framework predicts a 16% decline in the number of 2026 rookies active in their second season compared to the 2016 cohort. More specifically, the Class of 2016 had 115 riders still active in year 2, whereas 2026 saw a larger rookie class of 217 racers of which may translate into only 97 racing a second year. As we show below, the compounding effect of this year-by-year drop-off paints a clear picture. If we can’t hold onto our rookies and keep them from quitting, local race fields will continue to shrink.
Table 6. The 2026 cohort, projected
Notably, our community has already been shrinking. Figure 13 represents the number of all active riders from our dataset over time. This shows active rider count has been declining significantly since 2023, approaching a historic nadir outside of 2020’s COVID disrupted season. Unless future years show improvement in recruitment and/or retention, this pool of active riders will decline further.
Figure 13. Total active riders in the NYC scene from 2012 to 2026.
What the 2026 numbers tell us about the future of New York City racing
Our analysis above focused exclusively on the Class of 2026. The more important question is what happens to our active racer pool if we roll this framework forward across multiple new cohorts? Do we still have a sustainable local racing community?
To answer that, we mapped out the future of the local racing scene year by year, focusing on the two critical factors we previously identified: recruitment and retention. Our forecast relies on two simple rules:
Every incoming group of riders adds to the total, but then slowly drops off year over year as we measured in Part 2.
Existing racers drop off at their current, recorded rates, while future cohorts exit the sport according to whichever scenario we are modeling.
If recruitment and retention stay at 2026 levels (red line in the chart below), the active racing community continues to shrink over the next five seasons, from about 1,160 riders to just 1,090. Because of a historically small racer population in 2026, the cumulative decline in the racing community is 66% of 2019 levels. Given that current participation rates already make it difficult for race organizers to cover baseline race expenses, this trajectory would almost certainly result in a smaller race calendar going forward.
Figure 14. Projected size of the active racing community under four recruitment and retention scenarios.
But, the future doesn’t have to look like this. There are two other positive scenarios that we include in the table below that assume steps are taken to improve recruitment and/or retention:
Low retention is a serious problem for our community that can outweigh the benefit from improved recruiting. Given current retention levels, if we want to restore the size of the NYC racing community to what it was pre-COVID, we need an 80% increase in recruitment. This is hard and thus, a likely unrealistic goal for the very near-term.
Thankfully, there is a realistic scenario. If we can stabilize recruitment and drive improvements in retention, we can reverse the decline of our local scene. We’re a long way from pre-COVID retention numbers, but returning to those historical low drop-off rates would actually grow the local scene 3% by 2031, compared to a 6% decline if nothing changes. All of this is possible with a cohesive and committed racing community working toward a shared goal to grow and sustain the sport.
Table 7. Projected size of the active racing community
Table 8. What retention alone does, with recruitment held flat
Can we Predict which riders stay in the sport?
If retention is the stronger lever, the next question is which new riders come back. To get at this, we modelled whether each rider in our novice cohort raced again in their second season, using only what we could observe about their first: how many races they started, whether they raced for a team, the average size of the fields they raced in, whether they entered in a Category C field, which park they started in, and their gender. We compared riders exclusively against others who started racing in the same season. When public data was available, we also ran the numbers a second time to factor in a rider’s starting age. Table 10 breaks down exactly how likely a rider is to quit the sport. These are associations rather than causes: a rider who already intends to keep racing will also tend to race more in their first season.
Table 10. Features associated with returning for a second season
The FUture of NYC Racing: Key Takeaways
2026 rookie recruitment seems to have stabilized, though we may still be benefiting from the post COVID bike boom. Importantly, predicting where new riders come from is not trivial and we shouldn’t expect these numbers to remain constant - the community should keep new rider recruitment as a priority.
If we project our retention trends forward, the forecast suggests a continued decline in the racing population when some venues are struggling to keep their head above water. The next five years are crucial; maintaining the size of our community is not a good option when races are already losing money - we need to return the scene to growth.
While the long-term effect of improving retention is powerful, if we want to grow the local community we need to address both retention and recruitment. This will have a multiplier effect on growth trends, and could conceivably generate double-digit growth from 2026’s disappointing racer counts.
We’ll continue our analysis tomorrow with Part 4 on Women’s racing and our Conclusion + Recommendations
Our NYC Road Racing data analysis continues with a model of the future size of the racing community if current trends continue. Unfortunately the model shows continued declines.