December 14, 2007 (Vancouver, BC) – On Tuesday evening Cycling BC sent out a notice that there would be significant changes to the format of women’s road racing for the 2008 season. By early Wednesday the province’s women racers were in an uproar. It seemed that no group of women was happy with the new arrangements, except perhaps some of the Cat 3 women who would now have their own start, but they too will eventually upgrade — and then it will be their problem as well. Most women seemed to feel that if these changes are implemented their sport would become not only less legitimate, but a whole lot less attractive.
To summarize the situation, Cycling BC was proposing that there be three start groups for women, with the Cat 4 women being lumped in with the Cat 5 men, the Cat 3 women racing on their own and the Cat 1-2 women racing with Cat 3 and 4 men. To say that this policy shift seems short-sighted is something of an understatement.
On numbers alone the shift seems ludicrous. If one were to take the fields at the SFU BC Cup this past season and apply the new format (with some estimation to account for the creation of a masters category) there would have been only 15 women on the start line in the Cat 3 women’s race, while over 120 riders would have contested the mixed 3-4 men and 1-2 women’s race.
Moving on, the new format does not seem to provide any real gains logistically while it does seem to devalue women’s racing in British Columbia. In BC, women’s racing seemed to be gaining momentum last year, with more women, more teams and racing that was both more aggressive and more tactical than ever before. All of this progress stands to be lost if this new system is implemented.
Cycling BC’s claim that “women need a better quality pack racing experience to help maximize their chances of developing” doesn’t hold weight in a province that has seen its women succeed nationally and internationally while its numbers have continued to grow. Last year saw large fields at provincials for both the Cat 4 women and the 1/2/3 women. The Cat 4 women’s field in particular has grown rapidly since its humble beginnings a few seasons ago, and the elite fields at BC Superweek gets deeper and deeper every year, attracting riders from California and New Zealand.
The development pipeline for women in BC seems to be working well with the current structure. Last year saw BC riders sweep the podium in the road race at Nationals, with Gina Grain taking the top step ahead of Marni Hambleton and Moriah MacGregor. Both Hambleton and Leah Guloien finished in the top 20 on GC at Nature Valley (one of the deepest fields for women in North America). Alison Testeroete won the sprint jersey at the Tour de Toona and Jenny Trew finished on the podium at the Tour of Sommerville behind a current World Champion. The veteran Leah Goldstein showed why she is the best in BC at Mt. Hood (where youngster Laura Brown also chalked up two top 5 stage finishes). BC’s youngsters also shone, winning the Western Canada Games Road Race.
The bottom line is that if women racers have reached a level where they need a higher level of racing than BC can offer, then they are ready to race on a larger stage. And BC’s women are indeed stepping up to that larger stage with three BC riders riding for Webcor next year, Hambleton and Goldstein signing for HealthNet’s sister team Value-Act Capital, and Trew, Guloien and MacGregor all riding full time in the US for the 2008 season.
Having addressed why 1-2 women don’t seem to need to be mixed in with 90 cat 3-4 men to develop BC’s look at the other end of the spectrum – the Cat 4 women and the Cat 5 men. If Cycling BC’s goal was to have a novice category that is separate from more experienced categories,” then they missed the boat. This C category would have men and women racing at par (as if both 1-2 men and women were mixed together), with beginning men and women lumped together in a race that would quite likely be faster than the Cat 3 women. A new racer’s first race is nervous enough even without accounting for two thirds of the category being larger and faster than you are. This does not appear to be the most welcoming environment for neophytes. And all of this ignored the fact the men probably aren’t overjoyed with having 3 and 4 women riders merged with them or having a second race introduced within their race.
Luckily for BC they have a trial model for this new format that they can look at – the Spring Series – in which only a fraction of the province’s female racers participate. One only has to contrast the number of women who compete in the March series with the near 50 women who toed the line at Harris-Roubaix to realize that mixed racing is not an attractive prospect for many women. One woman who started racing last season talked about what a sharp contrast the spring series was to the rest of the season, and just how discouraging she found her Spring Series experience with the C’s.
Cycling BC has already received a large number of emails from a wide variety and levels of female riders (I’m personally aware of nine riders who wrote in, some new to the sport, some ex-pros and some current National Team members, spanning over 15 years in ages). Some, like that new racer, find it intimidating and discouraging. Others felt that it will make the BC Cup meaningless for women — after all, where is the prestige in winning a race unless you cross the line first? Others have pointed to the difficulties in attracting sponsors to women’s racing and how this will make it harder still. Yet another pointed to the how much better the racing in BC was than in her former province, which has had such a graded system. Several women have said that they just won’t take out licences this year if they are going to be mixed in with the men.
Following the bombardment of early morning emails, Cycling BC sent out a response yesterday evening in which it noted that the response from members: “indicated that the issue may need further consideration by Cycling BC and the Race Organizers. Consequentially, Cycling BC will consult with the Race Organizers in the next few days regarding the initial decision and then conduct a web survey of all our licensed female riders to guage all rider and coach opinions.”
It seems that a change that so greatly affects Cycling BC’s membership would have been better addressed at the AGM rather than the Race Organizer’s meeting. Moreover I hope that Cycling BC makes an increased effort to communicate with its membership over this issue – there are far better ways to interact with ones money paying members than a web survey. Perhaps an open forum for women riders would be more appropriate (when BC Coach, Richard Wooles, hosted such a forum last year in the process of his getting to understand BC such a system was proposed by someone in attendance for the popular Tuesday Night Criteriums. The idea was almost universally rejected by the vast majority of the women riders).
Hopefully Cycling BC will listen to the voices of its female membership and not mandate changes that are unwarranted and not desired by its members.
As we wait to see what will happen to women’s racing in BC, perhaps my favourite response has been that of one Cat 2 woman, who sent in her 2008 membership forms with a note and a post-dated cheque. The note said to cash the cheque if the categories stay the way they were. If not, don’t bother, she’ll do something else this summer.