Legit

Yes. Very. USA Cycling is the national governing body for the sport of cycling in the United States, recognized by the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee and Union Clycliste Internationale (UCI). 

MABRA, the Mid-Atlantic Bicycle Racing Association, is USA Cycling's local association for Maryland, Delaware, the District of Columbia, northern Virginia, and eastern West Virginia. MABRA officials hold USA Cycling licenses that are recognized internationally. 

We're not mooching volunteers for a charity event or asking you to chaperone a triathlon for a Walmart gift card. Officials are responsible for the sporting aspect of all USA Cycling competitive races. These pages are a casual local communication tool , but this is serious work and we're all business at the races. 

Motorcycle referees, or motorefs, are USA Cycling licensed officials riding on course with the bicycle racers. Within the team of officials, they are uniquely situated to observe, communicate, and help manage the organized chaos of a road race. Good motorefs greatly enhance safety and sporting results for road races, but they don’t just appear; they have to be developed. 

Experience

It doesn’t hurt, but no racing experience is required. You need interest and the ability to grow to understand how races may progress, how racers think, and what might happen when a race, spectators, and the public meet up together on the road. You can develop that experience without having a resume as a racer. We will work with you if you're serious.

To be an official, no, but to motoref, yes, absolutely! You must be a proficienct motorcyclist so you’re not a liability to the race. You should enjoy a long day in the saddle in any weather. Motorefs typically work the whole day of racing (9+ hours?). Races go rain or shine. 

If you're still new-ish at motorcycles, let’s talk anyway. You can get started in parallel as a ground official while you build to where you need to be on the motorcycle.

You can stay very busy working bicycle races if you want. All sanctioned races have at least a Chief Referee and Chief Judge; most have Assistant Judges and Referees, too. Between the MABRA road calendar and our neighboring regions, there are road races most weekends from February to August. Most road races use motorefs, usually at least 2, sometimes 6. The cyclocross season runs from September to December; no motorefs there, but great racing and more officiating opportunities. With experience, officials are eligible for bigger events on the national & international calendars, like a pie eating contest where you can win more pie. 

MABRA is a pretty good place to be. There are current and former local riders doing great things on big stages, some wearing national champion jerseys and holding pro contracts. Besides our active local race scene, there are big national and international races in or near the mid-Atlantic. The top-rated UCI road race in the US since 2022 has been the Maryland Cycling Classic. In 2026 there will be UCI road races in PA and NY, too. The US Pro Road National Championships are in Charleston, WV (2024-2028). Cyclocross has a strong local calendar plus the Charm City UCI race, PanAm continental championships at DCCX (2025-2026), and nearby national series events.

When assigned, officials typically work a full race day. There is no minimum commitment of days per season or such. Scheduling is a dialog between you and the officials coordinator based on need, availability, and ability. If you stay current and only work a couple of race days a year, you're still an asset to MABRA. In the year you get started, try to allow room to do a handful of races so you can consolidate what you learned. Officiating is an acquired and perishable skill. 

No, not if you manage it properly. Competitive cycling is a small world. Everyone is conflicted. You must be impartial and avoid the appearance of favoritism. You probably shouldn't Chief Ref a race put on by the team you manage but you do NOT need to cut all ties to officiate or recuse yourself from every race with a teammate in it. If you're still racing actively, your larger concern is probably the conflict of time with your racing. You typically can't squeeze in a two-fer with a race on a day you're officiating, since there is no excess capacity in the typical officials crew to cover for you while you skip out for your category. 

Check it out

Yes! Only you can figure out if this might be your thing. There's a decent chance it could be if you appreciate the magnificent sport of bicycle racing, want to contribute to competitions in a supporting role as part of a team of officials, and have some free weekends during race season. There's stuff in this site for you to consider, but the best thing for you to do is probably to...

Get out and explore the local race scene; you can find the racing calendars at MABRA and details for specific races at BikeReg. Talk with everyone. There will be racers, families, spectators, volunteers, organizers, and officials. You need to figure out whether this is a fit for you. 

If you're new-to-racing, just go! Races are easy to spectate. They're just there in the wild, free to see, while life goes on around them. If you go to a criterium or short circuit race you'll see the riders go by more often at than at a road race, but all the formats have their charm. And different rules. Cyclocross is a great scene, too:  no motorefs, but extra spectator-friendly, you can see a LOT of the course, and there are more dogs. 

You'll find the working officials mostly at the finish and the pits. It's easy to get a glance of officials milling about smartly; it may be more meaningful to you and your thinking to dig into what they're doing. Engage with them, share your interest in officiating, chat between the hectic moments (there are some!). Perhaps they can give you useful insights and opportunities to better see and hear what's going on. If you already finished your Sudoku for the day, break out your notebook to try to score the race, not just for the winner but for 17th place and the first lapped rider. 

Yes and no, but mostly yes. 

You don't need a license to come out to a race (see prior FAQ). However, there are no motoref test drives. You cannot be on a motorcycle on course in a race, as the driver or passenger, without a motoref license. You need to make a leap of faith to get licensed. 

Getting started

It's all very practical and reasonable. Licensing details are in the next FAQ. The big picture is:

1. Read the rule book, take some training and a test on its application, and administrate a few things. Get your commissaire (official) license. 

2. Work a few races to find your footing as a new official. See First Races.

3. Complete the additional training for adding your motoref endorsement.

4. Keep working as a motoref and as a ground official to build experience and proficiency. 

Whether your goal is a few local races or future world championships and Grand Tours, that's how it starts. Bonus: MABRA punches above its weight and is a pretty good place to get started. 

Get licensed

See USA Cycling’s Become An Official page to get licensed. Read slowly. Look at all the tabs. The overall licensing approach has been around for many years and is solid. The administrative process was updated and improved a good bit in winter '25/26 by USA Cycling with the switch to their new portal, and continues to evolve.

Any training opportunities we become aware are posted on our front page. You may see some posted here.

If you dive in, please drop us a note to let us know you're out there working on it.

We've seen enough people go through the licensing process that we have enough of a sense of where some go well and go adrift to collect some supplemental "help me" lessons learned from past licensing wins and woes. If somethere there helps, great, but know that is background and old news, on the outside looking in and backward at an evolving process. As things change, the current info should be at USA Cycling and you will get the best help from officials@usacycling.org. Circle back to the source.

License Help

Sure. But first, it's important to stress again that:

• We're NOT your only hope. Happy to help on the margin if you get a little off course, but...

• Current licensing procedures are in USA Cycling’s Become An Official page. Read. It. Slowly. Look at all the tabs.

• You'll get the latest info from USA Cycling and the best help from officials@usacycling.org. 

That said, here are some gratuitous insights compiled from the recent experiences, sniveling, and lamenting of your predecessors. This summarizes what confused them or what wasn't as super explicit as they wanted, but you probably don't need it because you're wicked smart and paying attention to detail. Beware this is current only as of our last reports from prior victims. USA Cycling continues to evolve the process so pay attention to what they're saying. After you muddle through, let us know if you run into something that may help the next person. The process clickology has gotten pretty good; if folks get off track they're usually missing some context or clear goals which is mostly what this addresses.

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Your USA Cycling account portal is at the center of it all. If you don't already have an account and basic membership, get one. If you already have one -- a membership, race license, whatever -- use that. Your USA Cycling number number doesn't change; you're adding some trimmings. In the new-for-2026 terminology, you're working to add Support License - Commissaire and Moto Referee Technical Discipline.

Support License - Commissaire. Requires 1) entry-level course, 2) background check, 3) SafeSport, & email closure.

• The online entry-level official course is in the portal's LMS. It is available 24/7/365 to DIY. If links are misbehaving, you can navigate there. At the moment, it's at Learning > All Courses > Commissaires > Entry-level; that path may change, look around.

• When you complete the course, you should get a certificate right away and then a while later (24-72 hrs?) a separate email with the latest instructions on how to finish adding your license to your account. Be patient, check your spam box, don't make work for them but if things seem adrift they'll help you at officials@usacycling.org. 

• That email will tell you, again, your license requires SafeSport training and a records check (BI for all, + MVR for motors). The website already told you that. You don't need to wait to be re-told; you can work them in parallel with the entry-level course, which isn't a bad idea since the BI will take at least a few days to adjudicate, maybe longer. Track them until a "Pass" posts in your account profile and then it will be smooth sailing when you send in your course completion certificate. Be sure to start them from within your USA Cyling account portal so the external system handshake correctly comes back when you're complete.  

Moto Referee Technical Discipline. Requires 1) Commissaire license (above), 2) MR course, 3) MVR, & email closure.

• The motoref course is only done as an instructor-led in-person session (often via Zoom). It's a day long and they're not offered often. Don't wait for the motoref course to come along before you get started as an official. More on that thought here. 

• If you didn't already do the MVR check, get that done as the course approaches. It's a second, separate transaction with the same vendor, NCSI, that did your BI; you didn't get it done if you only launched one inquiry and paid one fee.  

• In your motoref course, they will explain to you how to close the deal. Typically once your Commissaire license and MVR Pass are showing in your portal, it's just a simple email to officials@usacycling.org to send in your motoref course completion certificate and ask for the endorsement to be added.

Total time & effort to get licensed? Not sure. YMMV. For the training: how fast do you read and soak things in? What do you already know? On the administrative and transactional end of things, the background check(s) are typically efficient web forms to submit but then take some days to adjudicate. There are some emails along the way with humans in the loop in USA Cycling's small & responsive professional staff, handling things promptly but not at Amazon web click-through speed. It doesn't all happen overnight with a pen whip, nothing is frivolous, but it's all fairly reasonable and necessary for a meaningful certification. You can't NOT expect officials to, for example, read the rule book and review its application in practice. Start early and keep at it with reasonable expectations.

It's incidental. You won’t lose money but look elsewhere if you're after an income. Officials get paid for work at races per the USAC Schedule of Fees and get reimbursed the standard USG rate for commute and in-race mileage. MABRA approved a local fee bump of +$45 on top of those day rates, starting Feb 1, 2026. On the cost side, there are some ankle-biter fees for getting licensed, currently $30 for a new official plus $111.13 for a new motoref. MABRA may mitigate that provided you get your license and work some races; if that matters to you, discuss with the officials coordinator.

Nope. Don't do it to be in the spotlight. It’s always about the riders, their safety, fair sport, and good racing. It’s never about the officials. You are a part of a team that is essential to a competition you ideally do not feature prominently in. Think bass player or sound board, not singer or lead guitar. A good motoref is never in the finish photo.

Officials need very little. Motorefs don't need much more. Don't focuse on gear. The best gear gets out of your way to let you focus on the race. More on the First Races and Resources pages.