UCI Codings..

[cheesebeanie]

Hi
I am new around here and to the sport.
I was looking at the race calendar for road racing events and see that every race has a UCI code 1.1, 2.1, etc.. and wondered what these codings mean?
Sorry for being so ignorant, but i have dived into the sport and want to know as much as i can about it!!!
Thanks in advance!

 

[rgmerk]

Wikipedia has a brief explanation, as does this site archive (though that's a little out of date).

The short version is that a 1.x event is a single-day race, and a 2.x event is a multi-day race. The second digit is an indication of the UCI ranking points available for the event (and thus a rough idea of the standard of the competitiors). HC indicates the most points (and thus the highest expected standard of entrants), with 1, 2, and so on indicating successively lower levels of points and (roughly) prestige.

There's also ProTour events (which, by definition, have all the ProTour teams racing and thus are amongst the strongest fields in the world) and National Events (which don't attract UCI points but the most prestigious of which sometimes have fairly strong riders competing), and special events like the Olympics, World Championships, and National Championships.

 

[cheesebeanie]

Thank you for taking the time to answer my question.
Really appreciate it.
That makes sense now!