Lots to unpack here
carlosflanders wrote:
Having separate Womens and Mens races is inherently sexist. Women don't have quite the same power and endurance as men, so the road races are shorter.
Do I really have to tell you that the amount of power one is able to put out has no correlation to one's endurance? Or how at a certain point in ultra endurance, women get on more equal ground to men because of their inherent ability to survive more pain than men? Are you really trying to go with the incredibly stupid argument that men and women should ride in the same race?
carlosflanders wrote:
The depth of field is much smaller (in the US, women have been consistently ~15% of registered racers and the proportion hasn't changed much).
The depth of the US field has NOTHING to do with the global talent field but thanks for adding in some US centrism here, it wouldn't be slowtwitch without it. Aside from that, someone earlier pointed out that the depth of talent is not quite the same level as the men's field, which is certainly more a societal/systemic issue than anything else but there are going to be men who just can't hang tomorrow, just as there are men who can't hang in the tour, even more so men who can't hang in the Olympic road race, so depth of talent has nothing to do with length of races.
carlosflanders wrote:
A 5 lap 4 hour race is entirely appropriate. Maybe 3 riders in today's race would be capable of racing 8 laps at any reasonable speed.
They all could ride that length if they wanted to. Maybe the placings would have been similar, maybe not, that's a different kind of race, we don't know. But the bigger question is: Are you saying that because they are women they are not capable of a longer race? Seriously? You must be a great human being
carlosflanders wrote:
Totally mystified by this.
Well, that's obvious.
808 > NYC > PDX > YVR
2024 Races: Taupo