A little ventilation

[David Halliburton]

 

 

 

It seems lately that I'm getting a strong push on both the dirt and road side for "micro-categories."  Racers saying they don't want to race because they don't like something about their category.  Masters 3/4 don't want to race if they have to ride with Masters 1/2.  Masters 1/2 don't want to race if they have to ride with the young 1/2s.  Masters 40+ don't think they should have to compete with Masters 35+.  Women asking for women's Masters category.  Cat 4/5s over 35 or 40 y.o. who want a masters subgroup in the Cat 4/5 race so they don't have to ride with the fast guys in the Masters race.  (Hmm, most of my grief seems to come from Masters racers.)  SingleSpeeders who want age subgroups.  Big racers who want Clydesdale groups.  Etc.

 

I'm really starting to question what the point of it all is.  Does a racer feel bad thinking they finished 15th out of 30, but feel better if they were 4th out of 8, and better still if they were 2nd out of 4?  Do we just keep narrowing  the groups until they all consist of 3 racers, and all 3 get to "podium."  

 

At the end of the day, 9.5 times out of 10 the racer who comes out on top will be the one who rides the most, has the better genetic gift, is the most determined, trains the hardest, ate a better breakfast, has skills, has good equipment for the job, and had a good night's rest.  Those factors count for an order of magnitude more on race day than whether they are in the within the same 10 year age bracket.

 

At some point shouldn't we all focus more on challenging our personal limits than on how thinly we can slice the subgroups?   

 

There's only so many juliennes in a frog hair.

 

Peace out.

 

DaveH
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www.nmors.org
http://gotdirtnm.blogspot.com

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[Cliff Loucks]

I am very sorry, Dave, after 11 years of running the NMRS I feel your
pain. I would tweak the NMRS groupings almost every year based on both
what I saw wrong with the prior year and what I heard from the
racers. Several years of this and the small population of riders here
in NM lead to the contortions of recent years.

And I must admit, the age break downs for the masters crept up and I
aged. Not with the intent of me winning a jersey but from the
perspective of my own age while I was still racing the A and B races.
I took some grief for that too.

--Cliff

[Tomas]

Ahh those Masters.  Cranky bunch, eh? Hahaha – I know ‘cause I are one too.

Old guys just wanna have fun.  Racing against a Cat 3 who is super fit when you are 55 and semi-fit is not fun.  But it is a challenge for one to get better.  Why else race?  For the prizes? HA. For the fame? Double HA.  To kick the ass of someone younger but not as fast?  Now we are getting closer.

 

The pain fact is that we don’t have enough participants in NM to have all the race categories of states like CO or AZ.  Many of the masters race out of state and want to have the same categories here.  Selfish and stupid.  My advise Dave is to try to ignore them as best as possible.  Some people want to be number one at something even if it is meaningless.

 

Old and in the way (actually not because I am off the back),

Tom

 

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