Hi all Masters racers.
I compete the Masters race, when I can, and was wondering if the starting positions could be changed.
The younger riders (30 & 40 age groups) always start AHEAD of the older riders in the starting pen. This means if one is an older rider, like myself, and wish to ride at a quicker pace, one needs to ride at 400+ Watts for 10 minutes to catch the younger riders as soon as the race starts.
The last race I did I just couldn’t catch the 30 and 40 age group and was forced to ride on my own for the majority of the race. If the young guys start at 55km/hr, I need to ride at 60km/hr to catch them!
How about we change the starting line-up, with the older riders first, so when the younger age group ride past we could hop on their wheels the best we can.
Any thoughts?
2 Likes
The (few) times I ended up in a race like this I just started with the faster group. It would have been an iTT if I had started in D. As it was I took (if I recall) 3rd or 4th in the B’s 
The bigger complaint really was that was accidental, I didn’t notice that it was masters age categories until we were 5 minutes into the race.
So this ends up being a request for ZwiftPower to implement (and of course organizers to use) different icon sets for races that have different categories. Instead of the yellow “A”, a yellow “40-49” or similiar.
The younger riders don’t always start ahead (at least not compared to me in C = 50-59), pen arrangement varies by course. Agree it’s not ideal but OTOH you aren’t really racing those other guys so it doesn’t matter that much. But it does mean that (situation depending) only the fastest few starters get to hitch a ride with the fast group at the front of the race. I just consider it a quirk of the system.