How would you divide A,B and C races if you had a wrestling style weigh in, where every participant did an FTP test the day before the race season.
The premise is that there is always discussion on “sand baggers” and self selecting categories for racing. I have looked at Nate’s bell curve to help inform my opinion, but I am ultimately curious of what people think would be one of two self sorting for categories; wkg and alternately pure ftp as a way to sort out the categories.
Not sure how every system works but at least locally you can only self select into the lowest category of racing.
Upgrades from there are based on race results. So while you do have strong people in lower categories (especially when strong athletes from another sport join) they are quickly upgraded to a level that is appropriate.
I don’t see a benefit to using ftp for determining categories, it’s one part of a much larger set of variables that go into determining your race results.
Our system is purely self selecting your category, for CX and MTB specifically.
We also have some range of ftp, that I imagine spans 100 watts range, which no matter any other factor that I could imagine, would never negate that level of difference, but that’s just my take on it.
Race results are the best predictor of race results.
Plenty of quality crit and road racers have low FTP but high skills. The reverse is also painfully obvious, where someone has all the fitness but no idea how to use it.
For road racing, if you want a reductive fitness metric to predict performance then use the compound score (5min power ^2 / weight). It’s been shown to be a better predictor than FTP per kg for one day road races. It would be interesting to see that type of data for a large audience like TR has (with race results or category overlaid)
At certain break points power is necessary to play the game, but if you don’t know how to play the power won’t save you. Likewise at extreme power advantages skill becomes significantly less necessary
As an extreme example, in my local race scene a competitive pro card triathlete converted to road racing several years ago. Because of his power advantage his skills were completely irrelevant until he reached cat 2 - and then his lack of skills completely hamstrung him and he couldn’t get any results
As a cat 5 it was 0% skills:100% power, for him
However, for a highly skilled racer in cat 5 (say someone who raced in college but hasn’t really touched a bike in decades) it could be relatively easy to sit in and rely entirely on skills while having no significant fitness - maybe for them it’s 90% skills:10% power
All this to say, it’s a different ratio for everyone and in every category it will change. I don’t think there’s a universal balance/rule you can apply
I would also worry a bit about how much of a barrier to entry you would be creating if the races required a power meter to compete.
Cycling is already an expensive sport, and while lots of us racers probably already have a power meter those getting into the sport often do not.
Now one would be requiring quite a steep investment on top of bike/kit/entry fees etc. Not to mention differing accuracies in power meters, testing etc.
I get your perspective. But I definitely think there is no way someone at 4wkg should be in a self selecting C race category no matter how little skill they have.
It would be difficult to find a novice with 4 w/kg. I am thinking of XCO….If for some odd combination of reasons, a very strong rider didn’t know better and entered as a beginner in a local mountain bike race (previous D1 distance runner, got the itch to race a bike?), it will be clear after that one race that they need to cat up next weekend. They would want to actually compete with someone and not finish 15 min ahead of second place.
USAC has rules about when you can or are required to cat up, but at the smaller local races no one cares. Just race against folks that you will be competitive with.
The wrestling weight class angle is interesting. The cycling categories divide racers on how fast they are in relation to the other racers (categories and age), not weight. If you are winning all the time, just cat up.
I started racing in my 30s and have never tested below 4 w/kg. I’d have quit the sport if I’d been thrown into a higher category based on my fitness. Just because a person meets an arbitrary fitness fitness threshold is no guarantee of success
I was around 4w/kg at my first XC race and finished decent, but certainly didn’t win. This was Cat3, the lowest category for MTB in my area. And I had years of experience racing road/crits at that point, so not even a true beginner to racing.
And for crit racing, I’ve seen plenty of folks with big engines get spit out of the back of Cat4/5 crits when they first start. If you don’t know how to ride in a pack and understand crit dynamics, a tight crit course will have a beginner going constantly anaerobic until they blow up. I’ll pick on the triathletes here when they jump into mass start racing, they often have big engines, but no pack skills and struggle with anything that isn’t steady-state effort.
And a lot of it is course dependent. If on a course where long climbs are the differentiator, a beginner with 4w/kg is probably going to do well.
Good point. Just because 4w/kg would be great for me at 50+, it might be pretty common for youngsters. In my local XCO sport class races this summer i was mid pack overall and top 3 50+ at just over 3w/kg. The junior devo team sport racers were much stronger.
I do think it’s interesting how combat sports are weight class driven, and cycling doesn’t care. Folks self select the kinds of races they like and are good at. (Like I’m not entering any hill climb races.) Then we cat up based on results.
I’ve never raced anything road, nor XCO. Just Marathon MTB. Peaked at around 4.4 this year at 48 y/o.
Did a couple of much more singletrack oriented races this year and while skills are decent, it shows when you’re up against people who are really good. Same with the bigger and faster descents
With all of the long gravel and Marathon events, I’m betting there are a bunch of people who have high thresholds but not a lot of skill once you put them on real technical terrain, technical courses (road or MTB) or in a pack.