There should be super heavy bikes that can lower you cat when you select them. Bikes that add 20, 40, 60kg.
As we move into the slow season, cat A races going to be even more dead. This would give riders the option to ride in B or C.
Also most races are just a time workout. If you want a longer workout, moving into cat D would add 20% longer ride time, which might work better for riders looking for a longer workout.
We can also do this in reverse with negative weight bikes allowing cat D to move up to C and B and A.
Handicaps like this would let friend from different weight class race together.
Update:
(Maybe a percentage to their true weight might work better)
i always have time for your ideas brother, but there’s more to a category than what’s written on your zp profile or your public fitness metrics or whatever. if you give an A rider some ballast and D cat numbers, the person behind the avatar is still, probably, an experienced and trained athlete
not to say that there aren’t experienced and trained athletes in D either, but stuff like repeatability and recovery don’t always show up in the numbers.
I agree, before CE I’d done a few races with a small group where everyone adjusted their weight so that for that race everyone had the same FTP in terms of w/kg. It produced pretty close results and most people felt like they were competing despite large differences in actual ability.