I think I see where you're coming from, but I think most of the issues will sort themselves out over time.thirdcrank wrote: ↑3 Oct 2021, 11:17am I do wonder if organising a women's version of Paris - Roubaix is the best way to promote élite women's road racing. The men's race is a survival-of-the-fittest event for a certain type of big, heavy, one day specialist with loads of experience of pavé. And there are enough men who believe they have those qualities to attract a large entry. Reducing the distance for the women doesn't reduce the size of the cobbles or the depth of the mud on a wet day like yesterday. This isn't intended to denigrate female riders but to say that the extreme conditions of this race - and on a dry day it's cobbles + clouds of dust - affect smaller, lighter riders disproportionately. I don't know how many riders started yesterday, but the field didn't look big, so I suspect the number of riders injured in nasty falls was disproportionately high.
There has to be a "first time" for everything, and of course there will be teething problems; in this case the downsides were more than compensated for by the positives
(The broken bones were very sad, but we've seen much worse injuries on "normal" road races in recent years.)