Martha Walsh

I agree with Sirikit's points.  For what it's worth, here's the gist of the reply I sent to Kenji off-list.  -Martha

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> In the Mason Lake series here [in Washington], the promoter combined the women 1/2s with the
> master A/Bs (in order to be able to give the cat 3 women their own
> race--which worked great for the cat 3s!).  The racing
> was awful.  The men wouldn't work in a break if there was a woman in it, and
> they wouldn't let a break of women get away.  If a woman attacked, a man
> chased her down.  There was a lot of swearing, yelling, bickering, and
> generally negative racing.  That was 2008.  For the first race in 2009,
> things were quieter--but there were fewer men than women, and the wind was
> hell, and the two strongest men got away in a break and I think everyone
> else just kind of rolled around.
>
> Last year at Independence Valley, the same two categories were combined.
> Because the most significant climb of the race happens within the first
> mile, they neutralized the race the first time up the hill (and down the
> other side).  That made a lot of men angry (the ones who wanted every
> opportunity to drop their competition).  And I don't think any women stayed
> with the front group of men to the finish.  That means your field is
> shattered and you've got riders spread out all around the course; not only
> are they demoralized but it's not very safe from a traffic perspective and
> it's not women's bike racing.  The tactics for the women's race are pretty
> much reduced to "hang on as long as you can."  While that is usually my
> approach to a race, there are a lot of women who relish the opportunity to
> work with teammates, attack, counter, tire out the competition, etc., all
> things it's really hard to do when there's another--men's--race going on in
> the same group of riders.
>
> Don't get me wrong.  Most of my training miles are with men.  I just don't
> think that combining those categories promotes women's racing--maybe their
> fitness, but not their racing.
>
> Oh, and at the other end of the masters spectrum are 55-year-old cat 5 guys
> who started racing their bikes last week and have incredibly scary
> packriding skills but figure they are stronger than any woman they might
> meet on a bike.  Those, unfortunately, are the ones we get stuck "racing"
> with after the cat 1/2 masters men ride away from us.  That's when it
> gets really ugly: they don't know how to paceline, etc., but are unwilling
> to take advice from women who've been racing for years.  You think there
> aren't very many men like that?  Ha.

> For the vast majority of
> women, adding men to the mix doesn't improve the racing.  And it will
> probably be a disincentive to race for more than a few women.
>
> That's my two cents.
>
> -M