Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark McM
I was under the impression that gravel races were run point-to-point or on one big loop (rather than multiple laps of a smaller loop). If so, then why not have an interval start? Maybe start the Elite/Pro women 15 or 20 minutes after the Elite/Pro men, and then the amateurs in one or two groups at another interval after that?
|
The specific problem for the women is that non-elite amateur men are faster than many of them, and so if you give The women 20 minutes on a 10-hour race, that's really not enough. On the other hand, if you give them an hour on a 10-hour race, that pushes back the start of the amateur who might be taking 16 hours to do that race, which really stresses the organization. And they also need enough time between them and the elite men, because if you give the elite men a 15-minute Head start, that's usually fine, but if a few riders have crashes or flat tires early in the race, they can get caught by the women and then the women can hang on their wheels. So then you need even more time between the elite man and the elite women, and even more time between the elite elite women and the amateurs, and the end result is that the entire event starts getting unpleasantly long.