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Mt. Tam Hillclimb and upgrade points
Thu, 09/22/2005 - 9:18am
I do not understand the reasoning behind not allowing upgrade points for the Mt.Tam Hillclimb. I can understand if this were a TT, but it's a mass start event that certainly has plenty of team dynamics in play, If anyone watched the different categories race this season then they were treated to a tactical war, and not an uphill TT. The Pro1/2s went at a crawl that saw one guy only 10 seconds off the front and a group of 5 others battling at the 6th Sister. In the women's Pro1/2s, one Touchstone rider was off the front by half a minute while a Webcor rider dragged along two other Touchstone riders who refused to pass her until near the finishline because they were playing the team game and not racing for time.
The Cat3 times were slower for similar reasons. The Cat4s had one rider way off the front, but a smaller group were bunched up and certainly racing tactically.
Further, several members of my team specifically skipped this race because there were no upgrade points being awarded and I know many other racers from other teams who did the same thing. Why punish the race? If the fields are big enough, then there seems to be no good reason why a mass start event that lasts as long as a criterium should be discounted in the upgrade equation just because it happens to be timed and it happens to go uphill for half the race.
I know a certain Roaring Mouse rider who got third in the 4s, for example, who thought he was going to be Cating up to 3 over the off-season but now has to wait until early next season. It's a pointless setback IMO.
For races to qualify for upgrade points there are Min field sizes and Min distances. For more information see http://www.ncnca.org/upgrade Note that I will normally accept a race that is within 3/4s of the Min distance as listed i the table on the upgrade page. For most groups Mt. Tam is less than 1/2 the Min distance for a road race though.
gstein wrote:(after a quick check with others): I think the reason why the MTHC doesn't give upgrade points has to do with the distance. The race is only 12.5m. So, it would count for 5-4, actually. But that's all. It's just a different kind of race.
If that's the rule then I guess it makes sense. I didn't realize that there was a distance barrier in place.
(after a quick check with others): I think the reason why the MTHC doesn't give upgrade points has to do with the distance. The race is only 12.5m. So, it would count for 5-4, actually. But that's all. It's just a different kind of race.