Sea Otter Classic is a famous mountain bike race that takes place in Monterey, CA every spring. 10,000+ people race in total, and 70,000+ attend the festival. Unfortunately, in the cross country and gravel racing categories, Sea Otter's high standards are not upheld for female racers.

As was the case last year, every single women's category (excluding pros) is starting behind every single mens category. This is massively disruptive for female athletes' races because we are forced to deal with passing hundreds of men throughout the entire course, most of which is single track.  It ruins the racing experience, and shifts the challenge of the race from a physical challenge to simply navigating other racers. There is absolutely no reason why capable young women should be starting behind 70 year old men. 

Additionally, some data processing using last year's results revealed some powerful figures.

• On average, a female racer aged 17-29 had to pass 78 men throughout the course, with the leaders passing up to 218 men. This doesn’t count the DNF’s, repeated passes, or passing within women's categories for these riders.
• If the start times had been swapped by gender, the average male racer aged 15-29 would’ve passed on average 19 women throughout the course (a 75% decrease from what women faced), with the leaders passing up to appx 43 women. This would be incredibly effective, especially considering womens times can be assumed to be slowed by passing. If timing is the crux of the issue, why are women still being put second?

Four potential solutions that could resolve this issue are:

1. Sort riders by ability (Cat 1, 2, 3, etc...) in addition to gender and age
2. Sort existing categories by median times per category from Sea Otter 2022
3. Start mens and womens categories at much a larger interval (1+ hour) from each other to drastically reduce passing issues
4. Switch start times according to gender. 

The Sea Otter race organizers state that, "the biggest challenge is the limited time and venue constraints". All solutions other than #3 are feasible to execute without increasing the time needed.

We urge the Sea Otter Team to create a more equal system of categories and start times that give athletes of any gender the opportunity for a fair race.