Sprinkles
Here is the Deal.
There are many different types of Cycling
-Road
-Mountain <-- us
-cyclocross
-track
I love to ride and have tried them all, but here is the senerio. I race expert and have done some road racing and the like. When I started to race on the road I was much stronger than the Cat 4-5 men. I won my first race on a solo break in a 4-5 field. I needed to get used to road racing before I could upgrade though. I can't just walk in to a Cat 2-3 race just since I'm an expert MTBer. I needed to figure things out and learn to ride in the pack. The same goes for track racing. I'm a Cat 5, but I'm sure if I went over to trexlertown and practiced I would mop up the lower classes, but they certainly can't throw me into the Cat 2-3 races having never raced on the track just because i'm an expert MTBer. thus everyones delema, is why someone that is a Cat 2 or 3 on the road or expert MTBer is racing C's or B's for the matter. For some it is their first race or first few races. I won the Masters race at Sussex, but at the bigger races I'm just outside the top ten. The fact is that the sussex race is a small race where locals give cross a try or some get a chance to win. If you think that just because you are a sport/expert racer that you should be able to win C's then you are mistaken. Cross has become very popular over the last three years, and the competition is grown as well. I used to place top 5 in the MAC races in B but now I'm stronger and I place lower down the results. (oh well that's racing) I'll have to train harder if I want better results.
Anyway back at sussex CX...
The c race was slower than the B race by about 20 seconds a lap, and the A race well you can guess when there are actual professionals in the field. (alot faster) Which means that the classes fell timewise where they should have. Just my thoughts.
-RF