Big classics (cat 5+, only cat 6) only for D1-5 teams, parallel race for D6, possibly D5-6 sounds nice. My reasoning is you have to qualify for it. Others used to say that they preferred not having newbies 'destroying' the races. I have 0 respect that view. Others again was to avoid having "farm teams", possibly multis, parked in D6 built for one specific race (more often than not Roubaix) then joining play a big role. Legitimate concern, for a while we had one Roubaix specialist like that, forgot his name.
The problem is: Numbers, don't think we have enough active managers for it, so forget it for the moment.
The Donkey offers some numbers, nobody doubted it I'm sure.
Strade Bianche: 4 editions, 65 teams (15 to 18), 9 teams from D5, 2 teams from D6
Milano-Sanremo: 4 editions 73 teams, (14 to 22) 7 teams from D5, 3 teams from D6
That means different things:,
-only D6 races make little sense. Also I only found 10 D6 teams with at least 1 race in March (making that sortable would help btw) 4 of them 1 race, only 2 with 10+ races.
-22 D5 teams rode this month, only 7+9 of those rode the 2 weekend classics. Here if we offered a D5+6 alternative maybe some would take it. But on the other hand we have only 6 D5 teams with 20+ races, another 3 with 10+ races, so 9 teams with 10+ races in March.
-Restricting D6 from riding the monuments (and cat 5?) would only minimally decrease the chances of field splits.
Conclusion: While I'm very happy to see that the numbers indeed are higher again, we still don't have the numbers we would need to offer parallel races for D5-6, or even D6 only. Right now would make almost no sense,
The split risk:
Understand Gipfel's outright refusal to ride in a field 2 for a monument. I'm still livid that I ended up in a Giro dell'Emilia field 2 in 200...9? 8? Sold El burro Ruiz after leso cancelled the afternoon Vuelta, hoping he is picked up, so ended up in D2, not enough points in September so D3... all lesos fault. And then for Emilia all those annoying evening people came to the afternoon, whose Vuelta was cancelled, pushing poor little Robyklebt into field 2! Grr, good thing was a different forum, no fairplay threads against hte Donkey will be opened. But... 1) not everybody feels the same I guess. Some people wouldn't mind, it's still a monument, there's still good teams, in my field 2 I was chanceless then (would have had better chances in Field 1), and while it says field 2, it isn't even necessarily that different from other fields, not all field ones are equally strong either. Our afternoon Sanremo was strong... 8 D1 teams, 6 D2 teams, that means yes, at 23 some D2 teams (possibly including me) would have ended up in field 2. I would have been unhappy, but well, that's the way it is, swear a bit at people mostly those that normally never play in the afternoon, pay a fine, try to win in field 2. Maybe the field split should be changed? Split by division, so if Uomo Nero, who saved us from the split (he claims, maybe he just wanted to avoid Kebede
) hadn't saved us from it, because he would have ended up in Field 2, with a split by division, the then including him 15 D1+2 teams would have been in field 1, the other 8 field 2. Wouldn't have helped Gipfel.
So while in principle I would have been more pro 4 editions... I simply prefer bigger fields, see the risk, and also with a split the field gets smaller again... so yeah, maybe 5 is better. But Amstel, I think Amstel we cold go with 4. It's only cat 5, also cat 3 for the Donkey, he would actually prefer winning that in field 2 to field 1. Just to show how little respect he has for that wannabe classic. But don't worry, little risk of me winning that in either field 1 or 2...
