bbbean 

I'm out. We disagree at such a basic level that it isn't worth continuing. Have a great day.

himespau 

When I was in high school, my best 100m dash time as a senior was 1 second slower than the world record at the time. My best time as a senior was 1.7 seconds faster than my best time as a freshman. That last 1 second to get to world record level would have been exponentially harder than the 1.7 seconds I shaved off from freshman to senior years. Similarly comparing the difference between men's and women's world records to the distance between McKinnon and her nearest competitor is not meaningful. Gains diminish at the pointy end.

Doge

Because it is often hard to fill a podium with gender / age classes.

Same thing I've posted many times - no gender or age classes will work best. Every time I see a big race cater to the money loosing classes the next year, that race takes a break. See ToC this year. I've posted my list before.

Race everyone in grades 1-10 whatever they are. Those that race to get the prize, won't race. I'd rather not have them anyway.
Also repeating - no where near as unfair as junior's having gear limits when racing adults, but we ignore that. Folks tend to care about fairness when it affects them.

Doge

I liked this one https://babylonbee.com/news/motorcyc...jZ1CqdCl19gAbk

markwesti

No sport is safe .

https://www.breitbart.com/sports/201...against-women/

one4smoke

Exactly.

The friggin' world has gone mad. Can't believe the crap that we're "asked" to accept.

Michael Novo

The discussion is quite simple. Were you born male but feel like a female? Great you ride with the men. Were you born female but feel male? Great you ride with the men.

Or just get rid of "men's and women's" and you race with your matching chromosome identifiers.

Don't like any of the options? Wonderful, ride with your local riding group that has no classes. Ya can't get everything you want in life.

KraneXL

No, he's right. They already have their own bathrooms. If there's only one then that ONE wins the contest. Besides, the handicapped have their own separate category.

Doge

My argument is more an economical one. The promoter needs to make money, or at least not lose money.

But as the cost of a road, and police and schedule and officials is close to the same for 3 rider fields as for 100 rider fields, unless those lower attended categories want to pay giant fees and have small prizes, it just does not work out for the promoter.

As a fan of the sport of cycling, I want to see larger fields like the pros have. There are more places to hide and more of the dynamics of the sport come into play. I think this is a reason fondos are so popular where hundreds, or thousands are "competing".
So having a separate category on anything is fine to me, if it meets a min field size where the promoter is making a profit. There were a number of examples in now canceled road races where the prize payout was a multiple of the entry fees. That does not consider the cost of the venue.

I wish the promoter was allowed to just host profitable races, and leave it to the racers and sponsors, fans to make sure enough show up, or that class is canceled.
As it is, public pressure and now CA law make it easier to just fold up - or do a fondo.

Carbonfiberboy 

None of this is simple. An estimated 170 LGBTI athletes have competed in the Olympics. Gender is often not obvious even without modifications. See:
https://www.thenation.com/article/pe...bti-olympians/

Here's a good story which I remember reading about real time, back when my sport was skiing with a little cycling in the summer. This is another "it's not always obvious" story, the woman who skied like a man:
https://www.skimag.com/uncategorized...hamp-was-a-man.

aclinjury

Womens cycling itself is a bit of a joke. If not for the transgender issue bringing it into the news, nobody would give a crap about womens cycling.

I'll start to take notice when trans starting to win marathon and Olympic weightlifting, which they're not. Perhaps the REAL issue with womens cycling is a total LACK of competition?

Doge

I don't call it a joke, but anything other than the open division has handicaps for the category. I sometimes smirk that some categories don't want to be compared to para. It is all some division/handicap for those that are not the best. Missing hormones, body parts, too young, too old all the same. Nobody much cares outside of the open class events.
I think that we put women in the Olympics and those missing limbs in Para Olympics and somehow think they are different is rather silly. Neither, all are not open class.
It is good to try hard, but you are among the best of any human - or you are not. And the Nots are not interesting to the public, although maybe to themselves.

There are many reasons folks are not the best, from birth, or mishaps, or choice.
But they are not the best.
I'm not a fan of those that don't know their limitations. Other than CA law, in general, the money shows what matters - for sports.

Rajflyboy

https://www.dailywire.com/news/trans...phobic-critics

Michael Novo

Let's break that number down of "170 LGBTI athletes have competed".

1. The vast majority of that 170 will be outside of the T and I categories...meaning that L, G and B would be most common.
2. Even if we leave 70 of the original 170 in the T or I categories, now we take an already insignificant number and make it even smaller. How many athletes have competed in total in the summer and winter games? 400,000? More? So the rules need to be changed for 70 out of 400,000? We're talking about ONE TENTH OF ONE PERCENT.
3. The skier case is an outlier. It's one thing if we're talking about a statistically significant percentage but the reality is that one long story does not make for norms.

Carbonfiberboy 

I think your numbers are probably even on the generous side. So what the heck are people complaining about? At my Sunday Worlds, anyone who can ride a bike reasonably fast and safely is welcome. I am shocked, shocked I tell you that there are so many haters on BF.

It is too bad that more strong women don't continue to train and win in that one particular age group. OTOH, this society makes it really difficult for them to do so. I hear few complaints about that here. Crickets. They sure as heck better not complain! No one likes a complainer. We cis men OTOH get kudos for complaining. From other cis men of course. We even complain that there's not enough female competition! It'd be hilarious if it all weren't all so sad.

What's the he-man complaint about women's soccer? Why it's that male soccer players are much, much better! So those women better not get the wrong-headed idea that they can make a living being crappy soccer players and get back into the kitchen! Here we have all these diatribes against one individual. It's absolutely as singular a case of the "woman who skied like a man." Statistically it's an insignificant problem, just as you say. As McKinnon says, Remember that Dr. McKinnon's world record was broken immediately after by a cis woman. Oh, what was her name? Insignificant of course, but it was Sarah Fader, the same woman who refused to race against Dr. McKinnon. I don't think we're going to see a large number of men taking the same road taken by Dr. McKinnon. Her twitter feed runs about 3000 hates per one kudo.

Michael Novo

I'm not sure I follow your response. We can establish some basic separations in an effort to level the playing field. That's usually done by age and sex. Freshmen boys in high school compete in their sport against other freshmen. Girls do the same. The split is by both age and sex. Why not just have seniors play with freshmen?

When I say that it's statistically insignificant, I'm saying that so few trans athletes are a part of it that there should be no exception for them. You can't use the logic of "oh there's so few trans athletes that when one wants to compete and dominate, go ahead and let them". There are so few that you may feel like a woman, but too bad so sad, you race with the men.

As for beating records, if the dudes record was beat by a biological woman that's fine. Many women would be faster than I am but that doesn't mean that just because I'm slower than female racers that now male racers should be allowed to compete with them. You've got a man who says he feels like a woman and now it's ok? I don't think so scooter.

Carbonfiberboy 

Quite so. And insults are always in order. Always good to know who's who.

one4smoke

People have gotten hilariously ridiculous with their outrageous line of thinking these days...

Michael Novo

No I mean I actually didn't follow the response. I think you meant that "there's so few trans folks, why not let them compete"? What I meant was that there are so few that there's no need to make any special rules or exceptions for them.

As for the last line, that's just a closing line from a comedian, Ron White..."I don't think so scooter." Not really meant as an insult.

Rajflyboy

Women in Lycra. No joke. Most of us are very happy with women’s cycling