I think we need to find ways of encouraging MORE women to compete, and reducing categories is the last thing you want to do to acheive that. I'm a 38 (my god how did that happen!) woman, and I'm more inclined to enter events which have a 30-39 category where I'm more likely to have a chance than against the younger ladies.
Anyway, you can always compare yourself against the other women in other categories in the results, and generally at the enduro series everyone starts and races together to you know how you're going relative to the other women while you're out there, which is the important thing. It's not like everyone rides around with their category marked on their jerseys.
I entered about half the series this year and wanted to do a few more, but life (trying to get a house ready for sale....) got in the way. My suggestion for next year is for a change in the rules about proportion of male:female laps allowed for a place/earning series points - we always do as close to half each as possible, and I find it annoying to get beaten by a team with a slower female who only does 1/3 of the laps, it's not really a level playing field. I also acknowledge that it's not a race for sheepstations, and we need to encourage more women, so there does need to be some flexibility to enable people to have a go at a race and do a lap or two to see how much fun it is.
All the races I did enter were very well run, there's some great tracks out there in Victoria, we'll definitely be back next year! :love:
