[Closed] Should the men have pulled over?? 😉 😉

If she can make up a 10 minute gap she deserves the benefit of the draft. No pulling either race over please.

Neutralising seems a bit draconian. Or does it not mean the same in cycle racing as it does in spy films?

Multi-gender racing is obviously the answer.

10 minutes isn't much if the men are dawdling and the women pressing on. Should have warned the men before the start that any who got caught got pulled out!

Yeah should have pulled the men over. Get passed you're out.

Belgium deserves credit for trying to do women’s races properly. They are miles
Closer to getting it right compared to aso who are a disgrace but still not there yet.

The problem wasn't the riders, it was the support train (just from that quote). A bit complicated moving the support train up and taking the tail-end male riders out. In fact that process might have delayed things even more?

The problem wasn’t the riders, it was the support train (just from that quote).

Well as the Support Cars can't pass the riders I'd say it's still the riders that are the issue slowing things up, they know how many cars there were. Maybe a 15 min gap would have been fine there

That gap didn't just disappear - If it was 35km in then they had close to an hour to chivvy the men along without affecting the women's race.

Was there any chivvying? @mikewsmith I am not sure what you are proposing there, you can't have overlapping races so the tail enders would have to be pulled from the race surely? And how is it relevent that they knew how many cars there were (and indeed, who are "they")?

Was there any chivvying? @mikewsmith I am not sure what you are proposing there,

I light heated fun poking at the blokes who were going slowly.

And how is it relevent that they knew how many cars there were (and indeed, who are “they”)?

It's relevant as an organiser as you (they) would have issued each one with accreditation and know how long the snake of cars would be behind the field - that would or should have been part of the calculation as to how big a gap there should be between the 2 races.

The problem will be Belgium races aren’t a-b they a complicated loops, laps, repeated bits, famous climbs ascended a number of times. Add in women racing shorter distances so they smash it from the off. They were probably worse conflicts up ahead. I’d hope this was a technical call to help both races further on but it’s happened the other way round in other races and the solution was still to neutralise the women’s race.

So the problem wasn't slow riders, but too small a gap?

So the problem wasn’t slow riders, but too small a gap?

Mix of factors.

You can see the route [url= https://www.cyclingstage.com/omloop-het-nieuwsblad-2019/route-ohn-2019/ ]HERE[/url] - it's a real mix of back-and-forth, double climbs and tight narrow roads so pulling over one entire race including the dozens of support vehicles and letting another race (with all it's dozens of support vehicles) through is a massive technical challenge.

Trying to run two races simultaneously on a near identical course is a tricky one - it happens a fair bit in regional level racing here in the UK where it can often be the only economical way to run a race on a particular circuit - you get two lots of entry fees but only need to book the village hall and marshals for one 4hr block (although you do need two full convoys of vehicles). I've seen riders get dropped from Race 1 and end up in Race 2 behind them and I've see Race 2 catching Race 1 and if there's any incident in Race 1 (like a big crash blocking the road) you end up having to neutralise or stop Race 2 behind so there's certainly an added element of risk management.

It's poor planning to have had the races so close but that may well have been exacerbated by TV timings and schedules. With Men's races being longer, they tend to have more time to let tactics develop and quite often, after an intense hour or so of racing, the break goes clear and the rest of the field sit up and relax for a few hours before pulling it all back together. In women's racing, that doesn't happen quite as often; the races are shorter and therefore more intesne throughout - they don't have time to mess about with letting a break go and then sitting there soft pedalling for hours.

If it was 35km in then they had close to an hour to chivvy the men along without affecting the women’s race

You can't have race officials telling the DS in the cars to pass on the message to all their riders to please get a hurry up because you'd simply get back an earful of abuse. It's not the riders' fault or problem, it's a organisational error.

I think that from a technical point of view, the situation, [b]as it unfolded at that time[/b], was dealt with in the only possible way. It's far from ideal and the ideal scenario would be to have something like an entire weekend of racing (women on one day, men on another) or to have a longer gap between races or to design the route in such a way that a loop could be "missed out" in order to bypass convoys.
Some closed circuits have little cut-throughs built in so you can have two separate groups racing on the same circuit at the same time and if one bunch is catching the other, you can route them round a cut through. If that was a possibility on the OHN route then it could work with smoe suitable pre-race planning.

You might like to look at what happened at this year’s and last year’s Tour of Cambridgeshire. It’s the same thing. Multiple races on the same closed road that have to be accommodated in a fixed time period. The ladies race was pretty much annulled last year and the fastest riders were in the sportive. I “won” my age class by riding in the sportive that started 12 minutes down on my age group road race (entered the wrong one!). Caught them and was thus fastest time overall.

Races get stopped all the time. I’ve stopped for horses, traffic and accidents. After a chat, The time gets given back and you carry on. The outrageometer is struggling to move the needle here.

Of course they ****ing should. Out of the way, sunshines...

Seen this shared on social media like it's some kind of sexist outrage, when it looks much more like just a bit of a cock-up to me.

Don't the women's races usually go before when crowds are thinner? So having their race after the men is arguably "progress"?