In defense of the EAST

First and foremost, I would like to send HUGE congrats out to ALL of my teammates racing in Masters Nationals in Bend, Oregon! For the majority of you, it is your first time there, and the results are impressive. You should all be proud of yourselves! It is with certainty that I can say that all of us back here are incredibly proud of you!

I know that the fields at Master's Nationals are impressive! I was lucky to be there last year when it was in Louisville KY...in the EAST. Such an event attracts riders from accross the US, but significantly more riders from states closer to the venue. I am proud of my accomplishments last year, and refuse to believe that with the same preparation I wouldn't be equally as competitive out WEST.

In defense of bike racers in the EAST, I have looked closely and compared results from last year and this year for riders that have done both events. The results show consistency, with one or two exceptions. I looked at 15 riders, both male and female, spanning several, but not all age groups. For the riders I looked at in the TT (different courses completely): the TT results for most riders this year were for most part between 4 to 5 minutes longer. The placings for these riders was similar to last year, in other words, if they came 1st they were either 1st again, or one or two places up or down from there. If there was less than a 4 minute difference, they placed higher this year, and if there was more 5 minutes, they placed lower. Ruth Clemence, who had the overall fastest women's time in the TT this year races in the 50-54 age. She wasn't in Louisville last year, but she was the year before that(2009), and she had the fastest overall women's time that year, too! Comparing 2009 and 2011, she was within the 4-5 minute range. The results comparison were consistent between the men and the women.

I do not want to downgrade anyone's accomplishment from this year by pointing this out! My intention is to NOT downgrade accomplishments of those who raced last year and were unable to race this year. Yes, selfishly, that includes me. But on a bigger scale, I'm standing up for riders throughout the Southeast. This includes our friends and neighbours that suffer at SCTAC every Tuesday night.

Here's to the Southeast! I believe we can hold our own.