We have created ability categories with intention to group people into more comparable blobs, and to make experience more joyfull also for less able riders, not only for the strongest riders who usually win races. But for third week in a row we can observe, that people are simply ignoring recomendations and enter lower category than their real ability is. Of course, once the race goes on, they forget how strong they are and simply ruin the race of legitimate riders. What realy is interesting, is that lower we go, more sandbagging we can see. As highly able people would fear A category, they enter B. And legit B riders rather enter race in C category. While nothing is wrong by enetering lower Cat if someone wants to just cruise around in easy pace and doesn’t interfere with those up front, it is majorly wrong to enter lower Cat and spoil the race by interfering with dynamics of those less able who legitimately fight for win.

Thus, we have decided to start DQing from results those who obviously sandbagg Runda. For all who has bin DQ’d in Leuven City, please, you are more than welcome in higher group next week.

In following 3 graphs there are all results displayed with Peak20min performance recorded during Runda in Leuven. As it’s cleary visualy visible, the highest sandbagging phenomena can be observed in lowest C group. Six riders were DQ’d from results. Their ability is not just close to the border line (thus being discutable), but rather deep inside B cat. They are actually legitimate B riders, who would perform well among B’s in first place. Even more interesting is how those two riders with 98 and 102kg placed (two points at the far lower-right corner). They finished Runda at 5th and 7th place respectively. That’s some good news for all who might feel disadvantaged and frustrated because of their weight problems. They can enjoy nice race too! And on the other side, the lightest C rider with 67kg and with highest (legit) relative power in blue region (highest left side blue area point), has finished 10th 23seconds behind that 102kg rider. What does this tell us? It tells that relatively flat (altho punchy) Leuven course was more favorable for heavy riders than light ones. It will be interesting to see how these two will compare on a bit more hilly or climbing course, but overall, these are some nice signals our curved ability model is working!

Runda in B category was much better because there was only one obvious case of sandbagging. Two more cases were right on the border,. And interesting, one case was 0.001wkg below the limit and other was 0.001wkg above the limit.

Runda in A cat had only 9 starters and only 8 fnisher, where the first group finished five man strong working together deep into last lap. Altho they were considerably smaller group, they still managed to average more than 40kmh average, which reflects strong group riding for at least 3/4 of the course. Interesting, rider who finished 3rd at the end, managed to keep his Peak20min power below red line in green area. And he contributed well to the pace in first part of Runda!