I am in violent agreement on all points but #3. I was schooled in each event by C cat wimmin. On the other hand maybe #3 is a good idea…
Seriously, the other points would have made the Haute Route so much better. ESPECIALLY #2.
I truthfully believe the girls can compete just fine in their respective category with men and having separate women events for each cat would leave them in very small events. Putting them in the E pen made no sense. It’s a race, not a sewing circle (did I just say that?). It’s not like they’re having to deal directly with a bunch smelly guys and the girls I know, prefer to be in a larger group even if it is smelly guys.
Oh yeah, in Stage One and Two of my C group events, a girl WON with over 400 slathering males minutes behind. And it was a different girl each time. I think in Stage Three, 2 of the top 3 were women. Within category, women have no problem being right there in the mix of these events.
I’m down with the others, but I don’t agree with this one. Due to people’s lives it’s not always possible to ride all three events on consecutive days. Many people work on a Friday and might only be able to do a long ride at the weekend. I think it’s a step too far to exclude them from the series entirely.
The real Haute Route events aren’t on closed roads AFAIK, so in real life people can ride along with the group for any of the rides I expect.
Only unlock a special jersey for doing all three rides perhaps, but people who just want to ride along with the big group should be able to IMO. (You get the standard kit just for doing one of the workouts IIRC, so forcing people to do all three rides to get it won’t really fly.)
Right, I get where you’re coming from now. Yeah that makes sense.
Although, that said in terms of GC you won’t win or be anywhere near the top by only doing 1 or 2 out of three races. So it’d work out just fine in terms of the overall.
I’m not sure how the GC works (placings, or time) but if you only did one or two of the events isn’t it possible you would end up near the top, because your overall time would be so much less?
That is true @Nigel_Tufnel and @Daren you can’t win the GC if you don’t ride all three.
But the fun of a event is not after the fact when you look at the results, the fun is knowing all people in the race are suffering like you do and then beating them.
Chasing someone up the alpe on day 3 that has not ridden the past 2 days and then you blow up and the guy 10sec behind you beat you to the top. If the fresh rider was not there you would have been able to beat the guy behind.