Simes,<br /><br />I'm a south african that raced in the UK for 17 months recently. 3rd and 4th cat is just as hard as 2nd cat and almost as hard as 1st cat.<br /><br />The reason being that time triallists don't earn road racing points so you end up with a 54 minute 25 mile time trial expert racing against 3rd and 4th catters. One sided battle. Dishing out prize money is only going to make things worse - if an ex pro who hasn't raced for a few months or a top notch time triallist doesn't have a race on the weekend he'll go and smash some 3rd and 4 th catters for the prize money.<br /><br />I found the level of racing and racing times on the same circuit almost identical in 2nd, 3rd and 4th cat. It doesn't encourage beginners much because they enter a 4th cat race and get dropped in the first mile. More distinction should be made between the cats.
