Ygduf

they should just split it at race-age 16. <=15 you race juniors, 16+ you race whatever category with full gearing. I mean, if you're allowed to drive yourself to the race...

topflightpro

Agreed.


By the way, maybe you haven't seen injuries in juniors cycling because the gear restrictions are working?

Ygduf

They should do out-of-season rollouts to be sure Jrs. are not training on big-boy wheels.

OK, I care enough to lump this in as a stupid prohibition that is unlikely worth any time or hassle it consumes or creates.

Doge

I'm sure you know I am aware of that list.
The primary issues is not enforcing it equally within a race AND that it does not reflect the top level of the sport (where folks work off that list).
Make it grade/category based, not age (or gender or race or religion...) - all Pros get to use the same stuff, all Cat 1s get to use the same stuff, all Cat 2s....and in a given race - everyone gets to use the same stuff.

Doge

They still allow hills. And also not seeing injuries in women with big gears either. And while it may be that society has cause men to train differently than women, in sports - women have many more knee/tendon injuries. I expect we don't see injuries because gears don't cause them. As I posted what is the stated cause is position and too much time, neither regulated.

gsteinb

You're just making stuff up.

Age is just a valid distinction as any other as any in the litany of ways you'd like to massage the rules so they work better for your kid.

AND I was addressing the nonsensical backpedal you did on the distinction between real and not real racing. Pros have limits on equipment, as well as a variety of the other things you listed. Your kid has one more because he's a junior. Soon he'll be older and won't. Hincappie managed to win all kinds of open races on junior gears.

mike868y

what about combined category races?

gsteinb

easy answer then. juniors can only race junior races.

Doge

Same race same equipment.
In the USA it USED to be this way about 15 years ago. Juniors had junior gears when they raced juniors and when they raced adults - they got to use the same gears. Junior gears were also graduated (doe <16 52X16, <19 52X14) only about a decade ago.
They still are in Belgium, but you have races of 100plus riders in each category. In the USA there may be 5 to 10 to none and the ability varies a whole bunch. So juniors race up. 13/14 year olds can race 17-18s and now they are on the same equipment. But when those same 13/14s turn older they need to race adults to find competition. I would prefer they ride like they would ride any race, not have to devise new ways to ride descents of 40+mph. The technique is spin 150 for 5 sec then coast into mid pack, then drop off then repeat. Maybe still good for TTs, but not so much for packs. The other technique is to tuck, get to the front and get pushed. Same for coming out of a corner into a high speed sprint. They could be - 3 cogs lower than you are now. I'd think avoiding "junior wobble" is of interest to everyone.

Doge

That is the answer in areas where there are lots of juniors. As far as I know Euro juniors cannot race up. 15-16 can't do 17-18. That would be fair and consistent. It would just completely kill USA grown chances to be internationally competitive.

Doge

Little to do with him (and teammate) winning open races. His focus this year is on junior races anyway. I think it is a bad idea and I think it hurts more than helps. Rim material and profile is selected by country based on age. Gears are too.
But we have this thing:
"Section220522(a)(8) of the Ted Stevens Olympic and AmateurSports Act, which require that USA Cycling must provide anequal opportunity to amateur athletes... withoutdiscrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, age..."

Which we could say minors don't count - except for sports - they do.

gsteinb

And of course my response wasn't serious.

You must realize that not a lot of guys care about this in a predominantly older guys forum? And, this is important, we don't really have policy making power.

Like fudgy I genuinely just don't care. Personally I don't care because enough guys have come up and won on the levels you're talking about on junior gears. And, as has been pointed out, even if they can't it's really not that big of deal. They're there for experience and then they move on.

Doge

I don't care all that much either. Or...I will care as much in 2 years as I do now. I posted briefly about it over a year ago.
But with talking of PEDs, fairness and cheating I thought it was interesting that the sport has something as significant to performance (in some races) as PEDs, is not at all equal (fair).
I accept it. But it does affect my seriousness about PEDs and cheating and fairness, while I don't condone any of them.

I would think all the older guys racers should enjoy racing even if competitors cheat. They are there for the experience.

Ygduf

it's also incredibly dubious to keep pointing to Costa losing 1st by 30 seconds over 10 hours of racing as if that is representative of anything...

I won a RR where I was in a break for like 90 minutes and finished 7 seconds ahead of the pack. Probably some Jr's dad is like "he lost by 7 seconds over 3.5 hours because of gearing..."

globecanvas

I don't have any insight about the training or injury avoiding advantages of junior gears. But I do hate junior wobble.

10:18 into this @carpediemracing video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zfje-74LEc&t=10m18s

canuckbelle

Yeah, junior wobble scares the crap outta me. I think a junior caused a big pile-up in an August race. One broke a hip, 4-5 others went down. We were in a tight bunch when an acceleration happened. I stayed seated because we were bunched up...one junior was all over the place.

Is it just a lack of awareness of their position in relation to others? They seem to throw the bike around whenever they accelerate, irrespective of whether they're in the middle of a tight bunch.

Wylde06

You care about it so little you made a thread about it.

gsteinb

heavens.

Doge

My exuberance is in forum posting on topics that may cause some thought by some people, and I learn stuff from responses. All you have to do is watch a thread on Riding Clean or cheating go off and see that it is of interest to many - although no one posting really uses illegal PEDs.

Ygduf

not that I know about at least!

aaronmcd

Junior wobble - on the track no one is racing anything taller than 52x14 and yet somehow it's (usually) only the juniors that have the wobble. Maybe they really do need to learn to spin more than an adult at the same level. Or maybe that's a good reason to let them use "adult" gearing for everyone else's safety!

Psimet2001 

Meh.

I've watched Skylar Schneider kick lots of butts for lots of years on junior gears in the women's elite fields. It's got a lot more to do with a lot of other factors than the gearing.

I remember one particular after race argument...errr....discussion among a lot of racers/pros about how she wasn't pulling through in the break. "My dad told me not to."

Dave comes up and basically says, "Ladies. She's 13. You want her to pull through on Junior gears and do something stupid (because after all she's still a 13 year old kid) that will put the rest of your season at risk."

She still should have pulled through IMHO.

...but with that in mind i have seen her racing in groups running interference and taking wheels for the likes of LVG and Meredith Miller and of course her sister Sam so...

Like I said before though - I only care because it totally f's with the amount of stuff I have to haul to races.

hack

In our neck of the woods, too few racing juniors do any of the group rides (aka hammer/race rides) and often do their team practice rides with each other. I think there is some quick learning that takes place on the group rides and that type of wobble/exaggerated bike movement gets you enough negative feedback that you change accordingly. They don't get that feedback when just riding in their team rides.

I also think with most juniors either not driving or having only been driving for a short period of time they've not developed the spatial awareness that many (*not all...) adults have.

Doge

Less of a difference (vs men) in top speed, but the same gears.

shovelhd

True, but she consistently kicks ass. Top tens in Women's pro fields at age 17.