Luciano bailey wrote:

> Just the notion of eliminating juniors ,masters or woman's races is so
> far away from the real issue. Woman and juniors have fought hard to
> grow there memberships and numbers at races. These are areas we should
> be careful to foster, the diversity of OBRA is one of it's greatest
> attributes. We are fortunate that we have some of the largest woman's
> and juniors racing per capita ratios. So no offense to the masters
> let's leave the woman and juniors out of it. I don't know about anyone
> else , for me the proudest moments as an OBRA member have been
> watching young riders like Larsynn Staley, Carson Miller, even the
> young KIWIS who rise to a world competitive level. So here is
> something which we can all put our 07 efforts into. Pitch OBRA at your
> local High School, middle school etc. women get out there and
> encourage others about this great sport, the biggest lesson learned
> from all the masters debate is that we need more young folks and more
> women. Oregon is the perfect soil to grow the next crop of world class
> racers, it's masters will serve as the ultimate fertilizers ( not
> literally) the best one who has mastered an art can do is pass it on.
> Hand in hand with all other things bike in Oregon we will reign as the
> cycling throne of the US. So lets put the keyboards away get on the
> bike and suss it out on race day cheers.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* Harry Phinney
> *To:* obra@list.obra.org
> *Sent:* Sunday, December 31, 2006 7:42 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [OBRA Chat] Masters 35 Plus?
>
> The unspoken complaint I detect in this thread is that there are
> no Cat 2
> races. One either races Cat 3, or P/1/2 (or Masters/Women/Junior).
> While the
> P/1 portion of P/1/2 races may not be large in number, they
> disproportionately affect the speed and tactics of the races. While I
> suspect there are insufficient numbers of P/1 riders to hold
> standalone P/1
> races alongside standalone Cat 2 races, it seems that such Cat
> 2-only events
> might satisfy the competitive needs of many of the currently
> dissatisfied
> 35-39 year olds.
>
> A radical (and, I admit, not thoroughly thought-out) proposal:
> Do not run Master, Women, or perhaps even Junior races at most
> events, and
> instead run sufficient numbers of ability categories to
> accommodate the
> breadth of abilities represented. Perhaps this is P/1, 2, 3, 4, 5;
> perhaps
> this is P/1/2, 2, 2/3, 3, 3/4, 4, 5. The latter would likely restrict
> upgrade point opportunities. Perhaps at times there may have to be
> multiple
> fields for categories such as 3 and/or 4 due to the Masters,
> Women, and
> Juniors increasing the numbers in those fields.
>
> Harry Phinney
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> OBRA mailing list
> obra@list.obra.org
> http://list.obra.org/mailman/listinfo/obra
> Unsubscribe: obra-unsubscribe@list.obraorg
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>_______________________________________________
>OBRA mailing list
>obra@list.obra.org
>http://list.obra.org/mailman/listinfo/obra
>Unsubscribe: obra-unsubscribe@list.obra.org
>
>
Ya know... I could sworn that this issue was decided... last year!

Why on earth are we beating this already dead horse? With rare
exception, I cant think of
too many people who outright complained about the way a race was setup
or the categories
the promoters had chosen.

Time to put this to bed, okay?