BC RR Champs - Atomic Course

As expected a tough race.. 80km... While they where awarding prizes based on Masters A/B/C we all raced together. About 20 Masters A, 30 Master B and 16 Master C riders.

This lead to the expected, with most of the Master C riders getting dropped. I don't have the final results yet, but it appears that 3 or 4 survived to the finish. Then a couple of straglers (including me). Over half either gave up or where pulled when they where lapped.

The pace today was a killer. The first three lap times where 15:57, 15:06 and 15:36. The C group in Spring Series was averaging about 18 minutes (that was a colder day too though, 15C, today was close 28C.) Last year in the Atomic RR we did a couple of laps at 16+...

With this setup (racing all Masters together) there is a significant advantage to the lighter hill climbers. They can get up the climbs and then get dragged around the course by the younger guys. If we started just the Masters C's together, they might be able to get up the climbs faster, but its unlikely they could stay away as they endurance riders would track them down on the flat parts.

Effectively they end up as a breakaway (WRT to the rest of the Master C's) that are taking advantage of another category. Normally of course that would not be allowed. But here it is allowed.

IMHO this goes against the purpose of the race which is to find the best BC RR rider in each age category. They even banned radios to (presumably) eliminate team tactics. But then then effectively allow some riders to draft off another category to stay away from their peer group.