Many events are part physical fitness, and part physical _fit_ness.
like early on, even a bad, non-climber could win a mtb hill climb 20 yrs ago by showing up in a skinsuit, w a flatbar cx bike, 700x32s, no cages, and speedplay road pedals. 😌
but as the advantages of technique get parsed out and passed down, the routes, the gear, the morphology, the “gear” lol become narrower.
then fans get bored, and rules get standardized, and the list of possible record breakers gets really really short, and you have...the hour record, part deux.
― retail rage is for suckers (Hunt3r), Friday, 31 July 2020 14:14 (four years ago) link