Ooh! Now you've got me all curious -- who are you? Andi? Email me off-line if you don't want the world to know.

Not sure why they didn't categorize the races. I think the old-school promoters wanted to keep the spirit of self-selection alive. Since there are no mandatory upgrades at this point, I guess it doesn't really matter. The local promoters gave category guidelines (ie C = 4, B = 2-4, A = 1-3) but nothing more. Once they really start awarding points for upgrades and there are mandatories, I think it might make the sport a bit fairer, especially wrt the sandbaggers.

My sense is there will be stricter guidelines for masters nationals in future years (ie must be CAT3 to participate), so we'll see some folks upgrading out of CAT4 so they can go to natz). The proposal on the table right now for 2007 is that women must be CAT3 to go to natz unless they're 45+ -- same as the restrictions for road and crits.