What would one other 12 months of gravel be like with out a little controversy about taming the informal, free-range model of racing and making it extra typical? Earlier controversies for the usage of aero bars among the many execs have pale from most gravel debates today, now changed with issues over mass begins and drafting.
Life Time, which operates the Life Time Grand Prix collection within the US, wasn’t ready for the following spherical of sparring and has been assessing and adjusting tips for his or her off-road races, particular to elite fields.
The organisers of the wealthy collection with a $300,000 mixed money purse deliberate to have a dialogue this week with a handful of the invited elite ladies for suggestions.
“With the evolution of our sport, we’re seeing lots of modifications within the ladies’s race. Notably, I see race organisers and fellow gravel execs all questioning how we will get the purest ladies’s race with out the interference of the lads’s professional or newbie races,” 2021 Unbound 200 champion Lauren De Crescenzo instructed Cyclingnews.
“I used to be on a name with USA Biking final summer time, discussing separate begins and the timing of the begins on the US Professional Gravel Nationwide Championships in Gering, Nebraska. They enforced a no-drafting rule fairly nicely with moto referees, and I believe it is one thing price exploring in different prestigious gravel races.”
In 2023, Life Time imposed a brand new rule for his or her seven races, together with Unbound Gravel 200, that excluded the usage of bar extensions among the many rivals within the elite fields, particularly for security causes.
New for 2024 is the brand new rule to handle the frenzy and fall out from mass begins. At this 12 months’s Grand Prix occasions, there can be separate staging and send-offs for elite males and elite ladies in any respect seven occasions, both by a couple of minutes or as much as half-hour, which the latter is the case at Chequamegon MTB 40 in Wisconsin.
“My expertise racing on the UCI World Championships in Italy in 2022 was distinctive as the lads’s race was on Saturday and the ladies’s race was on Sunday. I don’t envision this being doable in any respect US gravel races given the logistical problem for promoters. Nonetheless, I believe there’s a means for us to maneuver in the direction of little to no interference from the lads’s race. Perhaps staggering the beginning by an hour or so, with the lads beginning first,” De Crescenzo added, and she or he mentioned was wanting ahead to being a part of a dialogue with Life Time.
Miguel Crawford, who based and nonetheless runs the Grasshopper Journey Sequence after 27 years, mentioned he discovered that the course itself may decide if a mass begin was protected. The Huffmaster Hopper had a separate begin for professional ladies following the professional males, with different age teams having set send-offs.
“Every Hopper is a little bit totally different relying on the course. If there’s a massive climb early on, we like to begin ‘en masse’. This fashion riders are separated by potential and we keep away from overlapping of fields,” he defined. Low Hole takes place this Saturday, and a climb early stretches out the riders from that mass begin.
All Belgian Waffle Rides have mixed begins, in addition to SBT GRVL. Leadville Path 100 MTB instituted begin corrals in 2022. Guidelines differ throughout the various occasions with UCI Gravel Sequence as nicely.
Final 12 months a double winner at Leadville Path 100 MTB and SBT GRVL, Sofia Gomez Villafañe (Specialised) mentioned race organisers wanted to be clear about expectations for separate begins, or not.
“What are they making an attempt to perform with a separate begin? Are they eager to have a ladies have the power to race one another for the primary ‘x-amount’ of time with out having any of that begin chaos, after which the teams begin to mingle and it’s truthful sport? Or are they seeking to have the ladies’s race not impacted in any respect by those that aren’t of their classes? Is that five-minute separation sufficient or not?”
One other challenge at hand is drafting, which apparently is the primary subject for a Life Time name with a number of of the highest ladies within the collection. It was not recognized if the dialogue would result in rule modifications this season, after which methods to implement these guidelines.
“We’ll see in the event that they take our ideas [and put them] into motion. It’s a two-way avenue,” the 2023 Life Time Grand Prix ladies’s winner instructed Cyclingnews. Like De Crescenzo, she deliberate to be within the dialogue with Life Time this week.
She mentioned guidelines would apply for ladies not drafting off the lads, but in addition males, professional or newbie, not drafting behind professional ladies, “no one to draft off anybody else that’s not in that class”.
“It’s a sticky level if you get into Unbound. It’s a stacked subject for positive. Can we actually ship the ladies to do 205 miles with none drafting from males? Final 12 months we had been instructed we had been going to have this ‘expertise’ in [Unbound]. And it was all puffed up. The professional ladies’s subject would have the power to have our personal race that wasn’t actually going to be impacted by the professional males or the amateurs. Then 90 minutes in, we’re again to the place we had been the 12 months earlier than. I used to be actually let down. I believe we [pro women] need to have the identical race expertise that the fellows get to have.”
Final 12 months it was at a severely muddy Unbound Gravel 200 the place Carolin Schiff made her successful transfer with 60 miles to go from a small pack of main professional ladies, which included Sofia Gomez Villafañe (Specialised) and Alexis Skarda (Santa Cruz). When Schiff took off, it wasn’t a solo assault, however she grabbed on the again wheel of Ivar Slik from the professional males’s subject and tacked onto the acceleration. And lots of the ladies within the chase rode to the end amongst teams of the lads.
Villafañe admitted that a lot of her outspoken feedback previously had ‘bitten me within the butt’, however wished to make use of “the platform that I’ve so as to assist the ladies progress and get the race that I believe we deserve, have the identical race expertise that they guys get to have.”
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