From: les@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (Les Earnest)
Subject: Re: womens 1-4
Reply-To: les@cs.stanford.edu
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 22:46:20 GMT

Maria Conchita at PSU grumbles about having to ride against top
riders, then says:
   anyway, why can't women be placed within their category?
   we could all start at the same time and then be placed according
   to category.  I've raced mountain bike races this way and it works
   out fine, so what the heck's the problem.  [.  .  .]

There are two things wrong with this idea, as follows.

1. In most road and criterium races, putting multiple classes together
to race for separate prizes turns it into a wheel-sucking contest.
The lower category rider who is fortunate enough to choose a good
wheel to follow can motor away leaving other riders in her category
who might actually be stronger.  In other words, it is a crapshoot for
the lower categories.  This is not the case in mountain bike races
because drafting is relatively unimportant there.

2. A mass start road race or crit that is to be judged by category is
a nightmare for officials, who essentially must place everyone in
order to be able to determine the order of finish by category.  Again,
this is not a problem in mountain bike races, where the riders are
more spread out at the finish.

As Paul Stek has mentioned, the only apparent solution to this issue
is to recruit more women riders so that *real* races by category can
be held.

Incidentally, one thing that I'm currently trying to do is to reduce
the number of women's categories from 4 to 3 -- I put a proposal to do
that on the USCF Board agenda again this year even though it went down
in flames last year.  The reason for the proposed reduction goes back
to the purpose of the category system: to divide fields into
race-sized groups of riders with comparable abilities.

The plain fact is that there is not a single district in this country
that can muster enough women riders to fill more than two fields.
Thus, two women's categories is arguable enough.

Unfortunately, there are quite a few riders who view the number of
categories as some kind of status symbol -- they hold that if the men
have 5 categories then so should the women.  I view this as short-
sighted foolishness.  In view of the fact that there are over 10 times
as licensed men as women in the U.S., the problems of dividing fields
are quite different in these two groups and should be dealt with
separately.

Until last year there was really only one category system -- the men"s.
Women were assigned categories so that they could be placed
appropriately when they entered men's races and, under the rules, they
could earn upgrading points only in men's races, though many district
reps winked at that requirement.  I initiated the change this year
that gives women their own category system for the first time.

I hope to reform the category system further this year by reducing the
number of women's categories to a number closer to the plausible
number of women's races on a given day, but I'm not at all certain of
the outcome because of the sexual politics involved.  Because they
have been treated inequitably in many ways, there are quite a few
women (and sympathetic men) who look upon any numeric differences in
programs as being "unfair."  By doing so, they act contrary to their
own best interests.

--
Les Earnest                                  Phone:  415 941-3984
Internet: Les@cs.Stanford.edu              USMail: 12769 Dianne Drive
UUCP: . . . decwrl!cs.Stanford.edu!Les         Los Altos Hills, CA 94022