Road races, time trials and cyclo-crosses; good beer, better wine and top-shelf whiskey; each has a special, intoxicating quality. Each also exacts retribution the morning after. And for every giddy Sunday spent launching a break or contesting a sprint, there comes a Monday and the sobering realization that some of your entry fee was flushed down the five-ringed toilet at USA Cycling.

  It adds up, once tacked onto the annual license fee: $15 apiece for USCF and NORBA, plus $20 for USAC. That's twice the price of license plates for the truck I use to fetch my bicycles, and half as much as the truck is worth.

  But licensing my truck lets me drive to bike races, pub-crawls and other sporting events. What I get from a USAC license has never been explained to my satisfaction, though various proctological theories have been advanced.

  Well, Uh, There's, Uh ... Races? Puh-leeze. Some other sap who paid his $50 hosts that party most weekends. And he probably doesn't even get to dance.

  International triumphs? Yeah, right. You can stuff all our 1998 world's medalists into a RAV4 and still have room for spare bikes, a zaftig masseuse and a washtub full of Flying Dog Ale.

  Grass-roots programs? USAC's trickle-down fertilization technique involves sacking its district reps, then sipping champagne with sponsors and pissing it all over the membership.

  Insurance? Got some, thanks, and it costs me plenty. You'd better get some, too, unless you're eager to deep-throat a respirator at the Jack Kevorkian Medical Center for a few years while you wait for one of USAC's conga line of as-yet-unfired staffers to forge Phil Milburn's signature on your disability check.

  Why Cast Pearls Before Swine? Me, I tossed that membership-renewal notice. I ran a lot, rode when I felt like it, and came to an epiphany of sorts, which was this:

  There is no reason to give your $50 to those overfed, underworked, button-down bubbleheads in Colorado Springs. They get jillions of dollars from sponsors every year. To hear them talk, your measly half-yard doesn't even cover the insurance you'll never use.

  And regardless of how much USAC spends, the outfit whose self-proclaimed responsibility is "identifying, training and selecting cyclists to represent the United States in international competitions" ranks among the most miserable failures in American athletic history, right up there with cross-country skiing, this year's Washington Redskins and any year's Chicago Cubs.

  Sure, the amazing Lance Armstrong just missed medaling twice at world's. But anyone who thinks that was due to USAC savvy rather than to Armstrong chutzpah is missing a bearing or two in the old headset. And while Dede Demet and Karen Bliss-Livingston were third and 10th in the World Cup, the highest-placed U.S. man was Bobby Julich at 32nd.

  Downhiller Cheri Elliott and kilo' specialist Erin Hartwell scored bronze medals at their respective world's — the only Yankee medals of any color (masters' racers and other dilettantes don't count). And only Alison Dunlap cracked the top 10 in the Grundig series; national champ Tinker Juarez was 17th, and finished 21st at world's in the sport that Americans invented.

  Tim-berrrrr! While the top branches of the talent tree are thinning, USAC's beavers are gnawing away at its base, swapping 32 district reps for a nebulous network of 10 regional reps and volunteers. Imagine how many new customers your shop would land with an unpaid staff and you'll see where we're headed — toward a sport for spectators rather than participants, and a short-lived show at that.

  So when you get that renewal envelope, do American cycling a favor — ignore it as you would any other huckster's pitch. Give your $50 to some deserving junior racer, or, better yet, to any kid who likes to ride a bike. If we're lucky, the kid'll turn out to be another Dunlap or Armstrong, despite USA Cycling.