Originally Posted by
badhat
also disagree that the 4s in CO is just for sprinters.
in the distinct different road events we have here, theres already a number of specialists, we have 2-3 really good crit guys (who are sprinters) 2-3 climbers (who dominate the hill climbs and the road races with longer climbs in them, and the road racer/all arounders, like me. granted the top 15 or so in most of the races have a lot of the same names, but they shuffle differently depending on the characteristics of the event. and its a challenge to figure out how to use a course to your strengths.
i smoked our cat 4 crit champ in an uphill RR finish last month, but i'll never take him on a straight away, our best climber cant TT... here anyway, 4 is a really large wide field with everything from bozos to formidable talents working thier way up. but most of the talents are eager to earn it with points. theyre not sandbagging, theyre having fun and racing against other strong people and one by one theyre moving up based on wins and points.
And this is why you upgrade. In the 3's, it's not just a handful of guys who are good. If you want to get good, you race with formidable racers, and as long as you can hang with the upper category peloton, you upgrade to be with them as soon as you are able. You don't know your potential until you are racing against the entire field.
Oh, and BAR is a joke for anyone except the Elite Men category. It just means you hung with your category longer than the better talent that's moved on up.
__________________
Cat 2 Track, Cat 3 Road.
"If you’re new enough [to racing] that you would ask such question, then i would hazard a guess that if you just made up a workout that sounded hard to do, and did it, you’d probably get faster." --
the tiniest sprinter