Luciano bailey

Just the notion of eliminating juniors ,masters or woman's races is so far away from the real issue. Woman and juniors have fought hard to grow there memberships and numbers at races. These are areas we should be careful to foster, the diversity of OBRA is one of it's greatest attributes. We are fortunate that we have some of the largest woman's and juniors racing per capita ratios. So no offense to the masters let's leave the woman and juniors out of it. I don't know about anyone else , for me the proudest moments as an OBRA member have been watching young riders like Larsynn Staley, Carson Miller, even the young KIWIS who rise to a world competitive level. So here is something which we can all put our 07 efforts into. Pitch OBRA at your local High School, middle school etc. women get out there and encourage others about this great sport, the biggest lesson learned from all the masters debate is that we need more young folks and more women. Oregon is the perfect soil to grow the next crop of world class racers, it's masters will serve as the ultimate fertilizers ( not literally) the best one who has mastered an art can do is pass it on. Hand in hand with all other things bike in Oregon we will reign as the cycling throne of the US. So lets put the keyboards away get on the bike and suss it out on race day cheers.
----- Original Message -----
From: Harry Phinney
To: obra@list.obra.org
Sent: Sunday, December 31, 2006 7:42 PM
Subject: Re: [OBRA Chat] Masters 35 Plus?

The unspoken complaint I detect in this thread is that there are no Cat 2
races. One either races Cat 3, or P/1/2 (or Masters/Women/Junior). While the
P/1 portion of P/1/2 races may not be large in number, they
disproportionately affect the speed and tactics of the races. While I
suspect there are insufficient numbers of P/1 riders to hold standalone P/1
races alongside standalone Cat 2 races, it seems that such Cat 2-only events
might satisfy the competitive needs of many of the currently dissatisfied
35-39 year olds.

A radical (and, I admit, not thoroughly thought-out) proposal:
Do not run Master, Women, or perhaps even Junior races at most events, and
instead run sufficient numbers of ability categories to accommodate the
breadth of abilities represented. Perhaps this is P/1, 2, 3, 4, 5; perhaps
this is P/1/2, 2, 2/3, 3, 3/4, 4, 5. The latter would likely restrict
upgrade point opportunities. Perhaps at times there may have to be multiple
fields for categories such as 3 and/or 4 due to the Masters, Women, and
Juniors increasing the numbers in those fields.

Harry Phinney

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