Mike Murray

Master's racing can be a place for such riders, depending on how the race
organizer designs the fields. In most cases this is left up to the
individual race organizer. If the Masters fields are simply age graded then
anyone in that age may compete regardless of ability. Obviously this tends
to make a field of more varied ability. For example, a 40+ field would
likely have some of the fastest riders in the state as well as some guys
that just started riding last week. Some race organizers will also limit
the Masters field by ability; say 40+ Cat 3/4/5. This may exclude that
fastest guys but be more appealing to a larger market.

As I have said before, age is an inaccurate predictor of ability. Keeping
this in mind and looking from a system point of view it is pretty clear that
Masters racing is generally not really about trying to get the fastest guys
in the age group together but more about decompressing the over populated
Cat 3, 4 and 5 fields.

As for ability grading; on the road there are fairly specific rules
regarding categorization. They are posted at
http://www.obra.org/upgrade_rules.html. These rules require a rider to not
place for a year before they drop down in category and to move back up in
category if they place well in the lower categories. Ability grading in
mountain bike racing is more nebulous. Clearly this allows a rider to
downgrade by just not competing and to avoid upgrading by competing few
times. It is far from a perfect system and this does happen but not very
often which is what makes the current thread noteworthy.

Mike Murray

-----Original Message-----
From: obra-bounces@list.obra.org [mailto:obra-bounces@list.obra.org] On
Behalf Of Monty Hill
Sent: Tuesday, May 16, 2006 16:42 PM
To: obra@list.obra.org
Subject: *****SPAM***** Re: [OBRA Chat] negativity and Race Categories

Not trying to add to the 'negativity', but purely for curiosity.

Is the Master's Categories, In road racing anyway, the place for these
'retirees'?

I would be frustrated to race in my lower category and find myself
constantly racing against ex-Olympians who might only race sporadically, but
with the years of riding on their legs, blow me away every time whether or
not they are training. If this were to happen I could conceivable stay in a
lower category indefinitely racing against ex-pro's and never get a chance
to move up and race against riders who may be my equivalent in terms of
performance.

Does OBRA have an official say on this matter?

Montgomery J. Hill
Associate

TVA Architects Inc.
920 SW Sixth Avenue, Suite 1500
Portland Oregon 97204

phone. 503.220.0668

www.tvapdx.com

>>> "Brad Cockman, DC" 5/16/2006 3:30 pm >>>
Whoops, posted this to OBRArace by accident...

I thought this was an astute observation by Dr. Ted here in Bend:

Turner

There is the other side of that coin:

I actually like riding/racing with ex (or not so ex)-pros... be it Larsen, Horner, Sheppard, Willett, Wicks, Goff, Decker, Craig..... It makes for great stories.

Of course, I'm an overweight, 37 year old, professional Cat 3 road racer who will never win a race anyways - but I think its more fun to compare yourself directly to one of them than to say "yeah, I smoked the masters field 8 years ago at a local race" that no one remembers.

Turner Waskom
3rd Place, Cat 3 field, Piece of Cake Road Race, 2003

Monty Hill wrote:
Not trying to add to the 'negativity', but purely for curiosity.

Is the Master's Categories, In road racing anyway, the place for these
'retirees'?

I would be frustrated to race in my lower category and find myself
constantly racing against ex-Olympians who might only race sporadically,
but with the years of riding on their legs, blow me away every time
whether or not they are training. If this were to happen I could
conceivable stay in a lower category indefinitely racing against
ex-pro's and never get a chance to move up and race against riders who
may be my equivalent in terms of performance.

Does OBRA have an official say on this matter?

Montgomery J. Hill
Associate

TVA Architects Inc.
920 SW Sixth Avenue, Suite 1500
Portland Oregon 97204

phone. 503.220.0668

www.tvapdx.com

>>> "Brad Cockman, DC"
5/16/2006 3:30 pm >>>
Whoops, posted this to OBRArace by accident...

I thought this was an astute observation by Dr. Ted here in Bend:

Bash Steve? It depends on what you believe in. If you believe that
race
results depend only upon training frequency and volume, then he should
ride
age
group if he's not training. Leave him alone.

OR

If however, you believe that certain people have a genetic gift for
aerobic
work, and that these people (even if racing "off the couch") can crush
mere
mortals who have to train hard just to finish the race, then such a
being
should always race elite/pro. Bash away.

There are genetic differences in people's aerobic
capacities. Mitochondrial
DNA comes from mom, and sometimes a person's mitochondria is so unique
you
can see the difference under the microscope. Greg Lemond's mitochondria
were

so numerous and active, that a pathologist who reviewed the muscle
biopsy
slide commented that, "this looks like the mitochondria of an Alaskan
sled
dog"...not a normal human's. However, Greg was getting sick and his
performance
was declining when this biopsy was taken, so does the finding represent
an
incidental observation of his extra-ordinary mitochondria or was the
freaky
mitochondria part of the disease process? No one knows for sure, and
there
are
so few of these truely exceptional humans on the face of the planet,
that
science hasn't figured out what exactly makes someone the "one in a
billion"

human athelete. I once had a conversation with Steve, and he feels that
his
success was due to hard work.

If everyone could become a superstar just by following "the program",
some
guru's training regiment, then we would be surrounded by superstars.
Unfortunately, life isn't so fair, and there are a few genetically
gifted
individuals
out there who can do more and go faster when they train. Mere
mortals
can't even get fit enough to do their workouts. Other pros feel that
they
need
to cheat just to be competitive against the few lucky freaks of nature
that
are out there racing. The fact that drugs don't replace training, so
much as

they can enhance the physiologic response to training, suggests that
there
is
a wide variety of potential physiologic responses to a given training
regime.
Another oddity, is the phenomenon that some athelets can actually
improve
their fitness and get faster during a multiday stage race. Most mere
mortals

get torn down, depleted and sicker with the back to back stress of
endurance

stage races. Different people respond differently to training...even
minimal

training during the lunch hour.

This concludes my once per year commentary.
Dr Ted

--
Brad A. Cockman, DC
Chiropractic Locum Tenens
Race Director
Bend Memorial Clinic Cascade Cycling Classic
www.cascade-classic.org
www.mbsef.org

****NOTE NEW ADDRESS****

20389 Rae Rd.
Bend, Or. 97702
541.280.0777
brad21@gmail.com

bendcycling-subscribe@topica.com
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Monty Hill

Not trying to add to the 'negativity', but purely for curiosity.

Is the Master's Categories, In road racing anyway, the place for these
'retirees'?

I would be frustrated to race in my lower category and find myself
constantly racing against ex-Olympians who might only race sporadically,
but with the years of riding on their legs, blow me away every time
whether or not they are training. If this were to happen I could
conceivable stay in a lower category indefinitely racing against
ex-pro's and never get a chance to move up and race against riders who
may be my equivalent in terms of performance.

Does OBRA have an official say on this matter?

Montgomery J. Hill
Associate

TVA Architects Inc.
920 SW Sixth Avenue, Suite 1500
Portland Oregon 97204

phone. 503.220.0668

www.tvapdx.com

>>> "Brad Cockman, DC" 5/16/2006 3:30 pm >>>
Whoops, posted this to OBRArace by accident...

I thought this was an astute observation by Dr. Ted here in Bend:

Bash Steve? It depends on what you believe in. If you believe that
race
results depend only upon training frequency and volume, then he should
ride
age
group if he's not training. Leave him alone.

OR

If however, you believe that certain people have a genetic gift for
aerobic
work, and that these people (even if racing "off the couch") can crush
mere
mortals who have to train hard just to finish the race, then such a
being
should always race elite/pro. Bash away.

There are genetic differences in people's aerobic
capacities. Mitochondrial
DNA comes from mom, and sometimes a person's mitochondria is so unique
you
can see the difference under the microscope. Greg Lemond's mitochondria
were

so numerous and active, that a pathologist who reviewed the muscle
biopsy
slide commented that, "this looks like the mitochondria of an Alaskan
sled
dog"...not a normal human's. However, Greg was getting sick and his
performance
was declining when this biopsy was taken, so does the finding represent
an
incidental observation of his extra-ordinary mitochondria or was the
freaky
mitochondria part of the disease process? No one knows for sure, and
there
are
so few of these truely exceptional humans on the face of the planet,
that
science hasn't figured out what exactly makes someone the "one in a
billion"

human athelete. I once had a conversation with Steve, and he feels that
his
success was due to hard work.

If everyone could become a superstar just by following "the program",
some
guru's training regiment, then we would be surrounded by superstars.
Unfortunately, life isn't so fair, and there are a few genetically
gifted
individuals
out there who can do more and go faster when they train. Mere
mortals
can't even get fit enough to do their workouts. Other pros feel that
they
need
to cheat just to be competitive against the few lucky freaks of nature
that
are out there racing. The fact that drugs don't replace training, so
much as

they can enhance the physiologic response to training, suggests that
there
is
a wide variety of potential physiologic responses to a given training
regime.
Another oddity, is the phenomenon that some athelets can actually
improve
their fitness and get faster during a multiday stage race. Most mere
mortals

get torn down, depleted and sicker with the back to back stress of
endurance

stage races. Different people respond differently to training...even
minimal

training during the lunch hour.

This concludes my once per year commentary.
Dr Ted

--
Brad A. Cockman, DC
Chiropractic Locum Tenens
Race Director
Bend Memorial Clinic Cascade Cycling Classic
www.cascade-classic.org
www.mbsef.org

****NOTE NEW ADDRESS****

20389 Rae Rd.
Bend, Or. 97702
541.280.0777
brad21@gmail.com

bendcycling-subscribe@topica.com