How often does it occur that the first place A rider would not podium in B?
ALL the time.
At similar effort, route time is all about bike upgrades, drafting and the size of the lead group.
The “similar effort” also may not happen. The power numbers don’t explain how the race played out, where people pushed, whether they made determined efforts to break away or allowed the group to reform, whether they towed the group a lot or made other foolish power wasting decisions, etc. The numbers can’t tell the whole story of what happened.
Points race. Time isn’t relevant
If there’s drafting, then larger packs move faster, whether a or b.
@Matt_Wheeler Think about what he said. Think before you type.
What was I missing?
The A’s clearly chilled out, then hit the hills. A’s did the KOM 20s faster than B’s. B’s were more consistent and finished the overall course faster.
Doesn’t need to be a points race for this to happen, but it’s probably more common in one.
It looks like the A’s cruise at somewhat more relaxed pace than the B’s with the B’s mostly having larger packs so higher speed but the A’s hit the bumps harder, but that doesnt make up for the cruising speed.
My objective in posting this particular race result was to highlight the deficiency in the A-D labels. I wish they would do away with these labels given the lack of consistency in the results.
As someone on the edge of A/B, this one was particularly frustrating. True, it was a points situation, and there’s something to that, but that dynamic would apply to all groups, and if A is supposedly “better” than B, then the results would reflect that. When the ENTIRE podium of A is slower than the ENTIRE podium of B, then there’s something else going on.
I’ve spent a lot of time in the peloton of both A and B cats. I don’t think peloton size matters after about 5 or 6 riders because very few people actually pull. Mostly, people just sit in. In real life, it’s much harder to hide and avoid pulling.
I agree that A riders tend to “cruise” more, punch the hills harder, and sprint finish harder. B riders seem a bit more erratic or twitchy as a group throughout the race.
This is all ultimately fine with me given I’m a climber. It’s unfortunate that the number of extended climb races vs flat(ter) races is maybe 6:1 (or worse), so I have to deal with these dynamics if I’m going to race more than once a week or two, especially in my time zone (AK).
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Maybe we need some pack dynamics tweaks to slow groups down if they do that in order to Make Racing More Exciting™. /s
Pack sizes affect group speed even when the group size is far greater than 6 riders.
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But the finishing time is irrelevant in a points race. You’d be better off looking at A versus B power output or timing for each of the points segments in this race.
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You Guy need to look up in Words , “Often” and “Occur” in a Dictionary @Warren_Shiau @Matt_Wheeler
I don’t think you needed to add “in a points race”.
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