USCF categories

[Eden]

It's a bit complicated. Master's isn't a category it is a class (so you still are in a category, your age and your category may entitle you to race in a certain class if its offered- yes, very complicated) and I believe that local racing associations have some ability to set classes, but not categories.

Up here in Washington you'll find the regular cat's 1-4 and sometimes there will be Masters. For women that means Master A's or Master B's. A's are anyone over 35 who is a 1,2 or 3. B's are 35+ cat 4's or 50+ in any category.

Soooooo the short of it is if you race B's you do take the chance that there will be very experienced women who happen to be 50+(D's is any category 50+ for the men). With the men sometimes there are guys who are cat 1,2's who are old enough to race with the D's and there aren't usually enough of them so the fields are combined with the C's.... who are 35+ cat 4's.... the hubby says Master's races are often faster than 4's. I haven't done enough master's racing around here to really know... usually only the state championship races have women's masters categories and enough of them are on the same day as the senior ones that I've only done one or two, if any.

But that is around here - your local races may choose to do their Master's categories differently. If you really want to be with less experienced riders then 4's would probably be the way to go - but I won't even begin to guess which group would be easier.