Should there be combined ladies and "less able men's" races?

QueensGael

I was all set to do the women's race this weekend. However, when I found out (Fri) that the men >50 were going to be lumped in with the women, it really put me off and ultimately I decided not to travel.

I haven't done a whole lot of racing, but I'm not encouraged when I hear it's not even a women's race. When there's already plenty of men's categories available, why is there a need to put men in with the only (formerly) women's race?

I'm not posting this to incite a riot, but genuinely interested to know if this is common and why it's necessary.

feck sake lads

no idea why the older men are allowed to enter why don't they just do the mens vet racec maybe its just to make up the numbers.

C3PO

QueensGael wrote: »

I was all set to do the women's race this weekend. However, when I found out (Fri) that the men >50 were going to be lumped in with the women, it really put me off and ultimately I decided not to travel.

I haven't done a whole lot of racing, but I'm not encouraged when I hear it's not even a women's race. When there's already plenty of men's categories available, why is there a need to put men in with the only (formerly) women's race?

I'm not posting this to incite a riot, but genuinely interested to know if this is common and why it's necessary.

Certainly for me (an over 50 A4 guy!) the idea of a slightly slower and less aggressive race is very appealing! Riding in a big A4 field can be very intimidating if you're new to racing whether you're male or female! I'm assuming that the feeling was that the standard would be roughly similar between the Ladies and the Over 50s A4 Men which was borne out with yesterdays result! Is there always a seperate Ladies race?

Beasty

feck sake lads wrote: »

no idea why the older men are allowed to enter why don't they just do the mens vet racec maybe its just to make up the numbers.

They have introduced the "A4 over 50s" as a new category this year, mainly, as I understand it at the request of Cycling Ulster, who are running a league this year

There is no other category of vets racing under the CI umbrella (other than vets championships, which I believe are for over 40s), although clearly the IVCA do run them. This was only open to men in the A4 category, or who had a club licence (and in the latter case there was no alternative, although A4s could have taken part in the separate A4 race)

In this particular case it clearly did not make sense to put on a race for this category - there is limited road space available, and in the event only 3 men entered

I would welcome comments from any ladies who did take part, as I thought it was a good race, I am led to believe that ladies racing tends to be a bit more tactical, but I don't think there is any harm in putting a few of the "less able" men into some of these races (and I'm not suggesting it for all ladies races). If the three men had gone up the road and had their own race I could understand the reservations. In fact two of them were dropped, and ladies took the first 2 places. I would ask any of the ladies participating if they felt intimidated by our presence?

feck sake lads

just clear this one up please. if a man wins in the ladies race does he ,get first prize or is it first man then first lady

killalanerr

Beasty wrote: »

I would ask any of the ladies participating if they felt intimidated by our presence?

Im always intimidated by the presence of the Beast

Beasty

feck sake lads wrote: »

just clear this one up please. if a man wins in the ladies race does he ,get first prize or is it first man then first lady

To be clear it was not a ladies race - it was a combined "ladies and A4s over 50s" race

As it was a combined event, they simply placed the first 6 (5 of whom were women) - guess I can lay claim to first man though ...

Beasty

Posts moved from Traders Cup thread

ThisRegard

Oeerr, take a look what happened in ART when someone asked about men in the Mini Marathon, it raised all sorts of hell
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056557547

jameverywhere

Ugh. Why segregate by gender at all?

They use weight classes in stuff like wrestling. Surely there can be some system devised to group cyclists by ability and level of fitness? That doesn't involve gender...?

Tenzor07

I seriously doubt if there were a combined racing category that the male uptake on it would be sufficient enough for it to be worth doing at all...

Anything that could potentially decrease the number of women participating in road racing is a v bad thing....

jameverywhere

I just don't like the assumption here that women are always worse than men...

feck sake lads

my take on it is leave the women to race there own races.. there will be a lot of very experienced over 50's in a combined race, guys that would have raced all there lives and know how to just sit there for the entire race then pop out at the last couple hundred meters. there only playing with the ladys at this time watch what happens when the season really gets going.

CramCycle

RPL1 wrote: »

Certainly for me (an over 50 A4 guy!) the idea of a slightly slower and less aggressive race is very appealing!

Are you sure about that?

Lumen

jameverywhere wrote: »

I just don't like the assumption here that women are always worse than men...

There is no such assumption. The women are welcome to race in whatever senior category they are good enough for, AFAIK.

I personally think that the "A4 is too hard for old men" argument says more about A4 than anything else. It's supposed to be an introductory category, but there is this idea that you should work your way up to open races by doing club races first. That results in a some very strong riders in A4 who should really be in A3 (including some outrageous sandbaggers who are just filling the trophy cabinets on the way back up to A1/A2), with the consequence that riders who are not served by a local racing club don't really get much of an introduction.

I think C.I. have done a great job of clearly signposting A4 as a "just for fun" introductory cat, but you can take a horse to water...

Tenzor07

Lumen wrote: »

I think C.I. have done a great job of clearly signposting A4 as a "just for fun" introductory cat, but you can take a horse to water...

Dunno bout that, my impression from doing a couple of A4 races is that there are some v serious racers taking part and certainly the speed would be the same as A3...if slightly less agressive in there racing (but not by much)

Chips Lovell

Tenzor07 wrote: »

Dunno bout that, my impression from doing a couple of A4 races is that there are some v serious racers taking part and certainly the speed would be the same as A3...if slightly less agressive in there racing (but not by much)

I think that was his point, no?

doozerie

If each such race were officially labelled as a race for "ladies and less able men" then the problem may well resolve itself as the number of men willing to line up under the title of "less able" is likely to be in or around zero. To make certain just rename the category to "ladies and doddery old codgers".

Incidentally, the standard of women's racing that I've witnessed in the past has been quite high. I don't see that an average over-50 male rider could join such a group and expect to dominate at all (mind you I haven't seen much women's racing in recent years, but I doubt the standard has dropped much, if at all). As Beasty mentioned earlier, it wasn't like he had it all his own way in the race by any means, and what's more from what I can gather (from someone else in Swords) Beasty is not what I would consider an average over-50 rider. That's not to say that it's a simple option to merge ladies and over 50's but it's not necessarily as unbalanced as some might think either.

killalanerr

It should be pointed out that the girls are able to go into any race depending on the lic they have,so a lady with an A3 could if they wished have entered the main A3 event they have the choice.
As far as allowing the over 50s in with the ladies i feel their is a need for a class to fill the gap between full A4 and over 50s the numbers are small so the best way to facilitate this class is to allow them in with the ladies,indeed if it was to bring up the numbers it may even encourage clubs to run more combined +50/ladies races
However their should be a points system and when a +50 reaches the required number of points they would have to move up to A4 races
I still cant help thinking this is CI way of puting a bit of pressure on the vets

smacl

jameverywhere wrote: »

Ugh. Why segregate by gender at all?

They use weight classes in stuff like wrestling. Surely there can be some system devised to group cyclists by ability and level of fitness? That doesn't involve gender...?

They use gender as well as weight category in wrestling competition, at least they have in any I've entered. Same for boxing, judo and most other competitive martial arts. I'd guess that for the same amount of training average power output per kilo is not the same across genders, so it wouldn't really be fair.

jameverywhere

I don't have any stats or anything but I would imagine that men and women are more equal than one would think on a bicycle.

It should be ability based, tho, imho.

"ladies and less able men" sounds like ladies = less able men. As in, they're less able by default. That's what it sounds like is all.

Chips Lovell

jameverywhere wrote: »

It should be ability based, tho, imho

There is ability based licensing though. Women have the same licences as men, i.e. A4, A3, etc. And they can race against men every weekend if they want.

However, nearly every single woman racer I know favours women's races. They'd do mixed races regularly, yes, but usually on days when there's no women's race and their season's goals are all based around women's races.

manwithaplan

For "less able" substitute "old".

That doesn't really help, does it?

Beasty

I really would appreciate it if some of the ladies who took part (who I know to be boardsies) had their say here (don't worry, I won't take any offence - I just think you guys have the most to contribute to this discussion). I suspect opinion is divided amongst them, but one thing I would add is I think that the occasional race like this, where the ladies are not swamped by riders of much higher ability, could be an ideal way for ladies to race a bit harder and improve their own ability, without having to enter Open Races (where men are much more likely to dominate)

I also really hope ladies are not put off by men competing - in response to feck sakes lads' comment about there being lots of 50+ racers who have competed all their lives, I've only been competing for 2 years. There are a couple of other over 50 A4s in my club, but I suspect they would have struggled to stay with the bunch yesterday. I really don't think there are that many out there that fall into this category and would be competitive in such races (although there may well be a few more 50+ club racers who could hold their own)

If I'd had previous experience of A4 racing (and was not on the new bike, and didn't have a cold, and ...;)) I may have been tempted to give the A4 race a go, but I really do not think there are many A4s in the over 50 age group that could dominate a race like that. Indeed (and I suspect this is down to the way the women's grading works) there were a number of A3 ladies in the race, who presumably would have needed to enter the main race if this particular option had not been available.

manwithaplan

It's better (I think) that we all race on the same day, over the same course. There's more of a sense of occasion with bigger numbers and it's good for clubmates to support each other in their races.

That puts a lot of pressure on race organisers though and compromises have to be made. I'm not sure if Cuchulainn CC's solution was the right one but fair play to them for trying it. It would be good if there were a fair mix of "road time" given to the various categories over the season and that clubs would look at the overall pattern of races in planning their events. This might mean that the A4-only race gets sacrificed some weeks to make way for a women's race etc. etc.

niceonetom

Speaking as someone who is neither a lady nor an over-50 A4, but who was there to spectate at the race at the weekend I'd have to say that I side slightly with those who'd prefer these races to be women-only.

The vets have their own governing body, their own very active league and a thriving community of racers. And good for them. When the time comes I hope to find myself among those ranks. If the guys in their 50s find the guys in their 40s too fast, well, take that up with the IVCA. I sympathise, I've been schooled by enough super-vets to know that the IVCA races must be no picnic. But just because the over-50s and the women face similar problems in mixed ability races doesn't necessarily mean that their problems will be solved by combining those two groups.

The ladies, on the other hand, have less resources, fewer races that cater for them specifically and, crucially, fewer riders - I think that is in part down to the fact that they must usually race among the A4s where, jameseverywhere's high-minded but nonsensical thoughts on parity aside, women never feature in the inevitable sprint. You cannot deny biological reality.

Racing among the A4s poses a considerable barrier to recruiting female riders from the leisure ranks to racing. And women-only racing might prove more appealing as well as allowing the strong and experienced women to really go head to head and race against each other properly without the influence, dare I say interference, or men racing each other in parallel.

I say this because from what I saw even the modest male presence in the race on Sunday was very influential in the shape of the race as it progressed. I don't by any means intend to take away from the achievements of our dear Beast, he rode well and got a result against strong experienced riders, but he choose to prioritise beating his male rival above his own best interests against the women - as a consequence he rode harder on the front than anyone else in the final stages and then was (rightly) mugged in the finish by riders canny and strong enough to let him scupper his own chances in the sprint.

That was interesting - but it was a race-within-a-race. That's what the women always seem to have to contend with. And what they're expected to find sufficient. Races-within-races.

How about, for a few races a year, they get to race. Not to race-within-a-race. Just to race. I don't think that's much to ask.

jameverywhere

jameseverywhere?

My name's Jam.

and y'know, I was just thinking, if women-only races encourage women to cycle more, then by golly let's have more.

peace.

EDIT

in the interest of full disclosure, I'm a female leisure cyclist with bad knees. that is, someone who will probably never race, so.

feck sake lads

jameverywhere wrote: »

jameseverywhere?

My name's Jam.

and y'know, I was just thinking, if women-only races encourage women to cycle more, then by golly let's have more.

peace.

EDIT

in the interest of full disclosure, I'm a female leisure cyclist with bad knees. that is, someone who will probably never race, so.

Say Jam theres always touring;)

jameverywhere

feck sake lads wrote: »

Say Jam theres always touring;)

That's what I'm building up me knees for! Wanna do a three week all-Ireland trip in August if I can.

morana

My personal opinion is that the womens races should be for the ladies. IF they wish to race with the men I think they should be able to which they currently can. We have to treat them with a little bit more care than other cats because they are growing. It would be great if we had Boot inn leagues spread around the country to allow women compete and then move onto National league if they wish.

At Congress a vote was passed to allow over 50's racing as it is growing in Ulster so I guess thats why the race was held there yesterday. The IVCA is a great organisation but are mainly based in Leinster so they wont cater for somebody in Cork. Its my opinion that we, CI need a Veterans Commission. This should have an all ireland vets league consisting of 6 events in the main urban areas and possibly the entry of a team in European/World Masters events. They should also encourage the development of more IVCA type organisations in the provinces if the demand is there. However, the reason why we have no Vets races is because everything is now based on Ability hence the A in your category.

What we do know though is the average age is 39 and therefore thats a lot of vets coming down the line.

fixie fox

I'm a well-over-50 cat 4 cyclists.
Bike racing is hard - there comes a point when you have to do a certain amount of training to compete. I have no great talent but I can race A4 because I train properly. I think any over 50 male or over 40 female can do that (given around 10% difference because of sex).
You can't expect to compete if you don't train for bike racing. Also, I think it can take up to three years for people with no great natural talent to get into racing form.
So, if u want to race u have to raise your game rather than looking for easier than cat 4 I think

feck sake lads

jameverywhere wrote: »

That's what I'm building up me knees for! Wanna do a three week all-Ireland trip in August if I can.

ah you'll be grand your knees will thank you for it no more 20mph average speeds time to smell the roses.:D:D
i'm doing mizen to malin in may.:cool:

Sr. Assumpta

jameverywhere wrote: »

Ugh. Why segregate by gender at all?

They use weight classes in stuff like wrestling. Surely there can be some system devised to group cyclists by ability and level of fitness? That doesn't involve gender...?

Like.
Let's reclassify all categories by weight alone, all category changes should be based entirely on weight lost or gained; any mid-season dramatic increase in poundage/evidence of anorexia should be 'rewarded' with an instant up/down-grade.
Next problem is do we include the weight of your race bike in your total weight for categorisation, hmmmm, another problem, where will it all end......? So anyhow, we'll have W1 (AstraMonti will be in here, and probably most of De Wimmin), W2 (not to be confused with WW2), W3, W4 (fatbloke*, obviously), & WD40 (um, confused yet?).


*@ fatbloke, I've never, to my knowledge, met you, but hey you're asking for it

ROK ON

Sr. Assumpta wrote: »

Like.
Let's reclassify all categories by weight alone, all category changes should be based entirely on weight lost or gained; any mid-season dramatic increase in poundage/evidence of anorexia should be 'rewarded' with an instant up/down-grade.
Next problem is do we include the weight of your race bike in your total weight for categorisation, hmmmm, another problem, where will it all end......? So anyhow, we'll have W1 (AstraMonti will be in here, and probably most of De Wimmin), W2 (not to be confused with WW2), W3, W4 (fatbloke*, obviously), & WD40 (um, confused yet?).


*@ fatbloke, I've never, to my knowledge, met you, but hey you're asking for it

I would be a big advocate ofthis. Although I can think of a few large boned cyclists that would wup my ass, I would still be confident that I could get a few placings in the 90kg plus category.
In fact this would encourage me to combine my love of cycling and eating.

fat bloke

QueensGael wrote: »

I was all set to do the women's race this weekend. However, when I found out (Fri) that the men >50 were going to be lumped in with the women, it really put me off and ultimately I decided not to travel.

I haven't done a whole lot of racing, but I'm not encouraged when I hear it's not even a women's race. When there's already plenty of men's categories available, why is there a need to put men in with the only (formerly) women's race?

I'm not posting this to incite a riot, but genuinely interested to know if this is common and why it's necessary.

Start getting yourself ready for Irelands biggest and best stage race in September. Ras na mBan. 5 days racing with an international field and not a man in sight. The wife is already up to her neck organising it.

Sr. Assumpta

I didn't race in Dundalk yesterday, but I do race a wee bit (W3, W2 on a good day ), and I am female. I'm fairly easy-going about this tbh, it is supposed to be fun and all, so I'm really only contributing here until the other female Boardsies get back from training (was I meant to say that??.......).

In many respects niceonetom's, typically comprehensive, post says it all; a race within a race.....

But I think it's important to also consider that....

Vladimir Kurtains wrote: »

There is ability based licensing though. Women have the same licences as men, i.e. A4, A3, etc. And they can race against men every weekend if they want.

However, nearly every single woman racer I know favours women's races. They'd do mixed races regularly, yes, but usually on days when there's no women's race and their season's goals are all based around women's races.

....... so the way I see it, women have an advantage over men, in that, even when there is a 'Ladies Race', females also have the option of racing within their CI category if they so choose. In Dundalk on Sunday if one of The Ladies decided she felt like a bigger field / less of a challenge she could have opted to do the A4 (or even, for some, the A3) race; only the over 50-year-old men had a similar choice.
Personally, while I enjoyed the few women-only races I took part in, I enjoy racing with the men far more (this could be related to the fact that I feel no pressure to "perform", except that I never feel this; .....I guess I would if I was any good!). If I had been in Dundalk I'd certainly have seized the opportunity to race Beasty though.
It should also be noted that, while I appreciate that everyone ends up doing an amount of travelling, a female who is not Dublin/The Pale-based would be fairly limited if she were only to do 'Ladies Races'.
Anyhow, I will conclude this rather dis-jointed post by saying that largely, I feel lucky to have the option, pity the poor men, they have to wait til they're over 50 before they can have a choice (although, tying myself up in knots here.... maybe The Men would prefer if The Women didn't race with them at all, maybe there's a quiet underclass of men who wish "we" always had our own race and left them the feck alone?? shockhorror!)..

Vlad, Random Capitalisation fyp

Beasty

Pleased to see some women racers contributing to the discussion, as in my view their opinions on this issue are the most important

I know I have plenty of opportunities to race - I'm lucky to be based in Leinster, and as pointed out by morana the IVCA has a heavy Leinster bias, with only a couple of races typically taking place outside the "Greater Dublin" area. I also have access to a great Club League, and track racing at Sundrive. This year I signed up to CI as an A4 - not so much for open racing, but I need the licence for other ambitions I have this year.

When I saw the over 50 category announced following last year's AGM, I thought great - more racing opportunities. However I did not appreciate the potential implications to women's racing.

It's clear to me that this category on a stand-alone basis is really of benefit to racers outside the IVCA catchment area. Indeed I noted that they had a field of 50 (including one woman) at the Masters race at the Phoenix GP yesterday. However I also noted they had to run the Women's and Master's races in the morning, with the Open races in the afternoon, making it an all-day event, and probably a logistical nightmare.

I took the opportunity to sign-on for the "combined" race yesterday for a couple of main reasons. Firstly I've never taken part in an Open race before - perhaps I feel the Club League and vets races are a little more "civilised", and tbh I'm still not very comfortable in a large bunch. The other reason was I wanted to see if there was any benefit to the ladies of running such events. Yes I would have been delighted to win, but that was not the be-all and end-all to me. I wanted to see if the likes of me and other vets taking place could add anything - perhaps different tactics, which may help some of the ladies progress. That's why I didn't mind leading for a large part of the race - pushing the pace up. As pointed out by Tom, there was a bit of a race within a race with me trying to keep Hugh at bay (for the benefit of me and the other people in the lead bunch - he's promised to extract revenge in the track league though).

It became quite clear to me that I was quite a bit stronger than most of the ladies on the flat and could even (surprisingly) hold my own on the drags (that may be as much down to some of the weight I have lost since last year). I suspect it is a category that, when combined with ladies races, I am a bit too strong for, but I needed yesterday's race to prove that, and hopefully I did not spoil anything for any of the other racers (except Hugh of course:)). Even those who had been dropped may well have benefitted from Hugh's experience when trying to close the rest of us down

Anyway, to cut to the chase - I still think the ladies can benefit from the occasional race like yesterday, but it's really the views of those who did take part that counts most. If the view is we add nothing, I for one would have no problem not signing on again. If the view is that we can help the ladies progress in any way, than I would equally be happy to do it again

Whats a derailleur?

Having taken part in Sunday's women's race, I unfortunately have very little to add to what has been said above - except agree with all of it!

As mentioned, there may have been a race within a race, but with just three men in the mix up, it probably didn't make all that much of a difference in the end. I think the experience of some men, who are prepared to work, in the group doesn't do any harm - in fact adds to the group. However, I think the fact there were just three men in the group on Sunday helped (them not take over/become too dominant).

Overall, I had no issue with the men in the group, and if I had to make a call I'd say they brought more positives than negatives to Sunday's race.

However, if there was as many men and women in the group I think it would be a very different story and then what's the point of making any concession towards a 'women's only (well, kind of) race'?

So, overall, while I have no objection to how Sunday's race went and the male presence in it, when the option of racing A4/3 is there, it would be nice to have complete women only races!

fat bloke

Sr. Assumpta wrote: »

*@ fatbloke, I've never, to my knowledge, met you, but hey you're asking for it

Ha ha ha. Don't knock the wider gentlemen. There's nothing better than a powerful fatty to sit behind into a headwind!:D

QueensGael

Thanks everyone for your comments, it certainly made for a lively debate!

I'm still not totally convinced of the benefit to having men >50 and women together; it seems to me the issues of inexperience/overly-aggressive riding in the A4 men's races need to be sorted there, and allow the women's field to build organically. It's tough enough as a newbie racer going out against the likes of the top three ladies in this instance, not to mind mixing it up with some grizzly veterans!

Anyhoo, I may indeed end up doing a mixed event before the summer is out, so I'll comment more then. For now, I'm at least lucky enough to have sufficient women-only races around the Pale to keep me entertained

Thanks again!

Beasty

I suspect one of the reasons for this being only open to over 50s is that they are generally much less likely to be inexperienced or overly aggressive than other A4s

I think it's useful to experiment with such things, and wanted to encourage the debate. I would certainly encourage you to give one of these events a go (if anyone dares running another!). Based on my own experience of Sunday, I would be prepared to do another, unless those who actually rode against me were generally against it. I see this as an opportunity to help move womens racing along. If anyone chooses not to race because men are present, that's very unfortunate. However when it actually comes to signing on they will already have taken that decision, so whether I personally take part is unlikely to have influenced it.

mc2000

I wanted to add a little bit onto the end of the discussion here, in terms of opportunities that exist for women cyclists to get into racing.

In particular, for women aged 35 and over, the rule for women being able to race with the IVCA is exactly that - i.e. female and in your 35th year and over: http://www.ivca.info/aboutivca.shtml [i.e. for 2012 you'll be 35 at some stage in 2012, so you could for example be 34 now and you'd be able to race].

In particular, due to the way the IVCA have the 6 groups of ability, what pans out (in my experience) is that this is a bit more of a chance for women to have a go at racing, especially (but not limited to) where they find the A4 races just too much of an ask. With the CI racing, sometimes the issue can be that the A4 race gets combined with an A3 race, and to some people that just ends up being way too hard - also some of the A4 only races are in themselves very very hard.

While the races do have a Greater Dublin bias, there is also a key aspect to the IVCA races that makes them very "family friendly" (where this is an issue in your household ) in that the IVCA races are run early on Sunday mornings - so your usually back at home by 1 or 1.30pm, allowing you to do all the family stuff and running around and you've the rest of the day free (well at least in my experience it's a deal-maker - otherwise there'd be no racing for me on Sundays). The racing calendar with the IVCA is also excellent, there typically isn't major "holes" opening up during the year, and you've fairly consistent access to racing from the end of March to the first week in September.

My own opinion, is that the IVCA races give you much more of a chance to bridge the gap between leisure/touring where you're starting to build up good endurance and miles, and what you'd like now is some speed, but not so much that you're getting shelled out the back, and demoralised.

If you get round with a bunch, you'll like it, find it more rewarding. If you find it more rewarding, you'll enjoy it. If you enjoy it you'll keep doing it. If you keep doing it, you'll improve and improve.

kincsem

feck sake lads wrote: »

my take on it is leave the women to race there own races.. there will be a lot of very experienced over 50's in a combined race, guys that would have raced all there lives and know how to just sit there for the entire race then pop out at the last couple hundred meters. there only playing with the ladys at this time watch what happens when the season really gets going.

"Ladies and Stalkers"

fat bloke

mc2000 wrote: »

there is also a key aspect to the IVCA races that makes them very "family friendly" (where this is an issue in your household ) in that the IVCA races are run early on Sunday mornings - so your usually back at home by 1 or 1.30pm, allowing you to do all the family stuff and running around and you've the rest of the day free

I think this is a very important point, and it's a pity other races/leagues don't do the same. Regardless of "cat" it's still amateur racing, and people have children and wives and husbands and lives, not to mention pets, mistresses and everything else :pac:.

Anyone I know who goes training gets their a$$ out of bed early on a weekend morning, on the bike for 9 at the latest, so you can still do 4 hours training and be back home at a reasonable hour. The open race schedule of leaving the house at 9 or 10 to sign on for 11, to race at 1.... by the time the race is run and you've changed and returned home, it could be half 5 or 6 o clock. So the day is gone and you're also too fcuked tired to anything but eat and hit the couch or the hay. In addition to that, you might also have been out training the previous day. That's fine if you're single/unemployed/divorced or soon to be, but it's a big ask for.... norms.

Beasty

Could I just get clarification on one thing concerning women's racing. A lot of those I rode against at Dundalk are actually A3s. Is it necessary for women who wish to take part in Stage races to be at least A3? If so, is this not a bit of an issue, in that some women may be "electing" for A3 when they may be better off in A4 for Open races, and may actually disincentivise women taking part in such races

It would also add a little to the argument that those who are eligible should perhaps consider IVCA racing, where they may be more likely to find their natural level to compete at (with the incentive to progress to the faster groups if they show improvement, or drop to the slower ones if they struggle in perhaps a less formal environment than Open racing)

I wouls also add that there are not really that many women taking part in the IVCA events, and I would encourage anyone who does qualify, whatever their ability, to give it a go if they want some racing experience

fat bloke

Beasty wrote: »

I would encourage anyone who does qualify, whatever their ability, to give it a go if they want some racing experience

Don't get me started on the IVCA's age-ist agenda. If i could afford it I'd see you guys in court . Til then, I'm just wishing the days away to my 40th. . 2015 can't come soon enough!!!

C3PO

fat bloke wrote: »

Don't get me started on the IVCA's age-ist agenda. If i could afford it I'd see you guys in court . Til then, I'm just wishing the days away to my 40th. . 2015 can't come soon enough!!!

In an ideal world, you and me could do some kind of an "age swop" ..... I could do with losing a few years!