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Paul Lowing 
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Joined: 23 March 2005
Location: United Kingdom
Status: Offline
Points: 1264
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 Posted: 26 August 2008 at 8:54am |
I agree with Barney that the Sports class is a good introduction as it is encouraging to get reasonable results within that class.
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Paul Lowing
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Joined: 23 March 2005
Location: United Kingdom
Status: Offline
Points: 1264
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Posted: 26 August 2008 at 9:00am |
 NickM wrote:
I make that at least 10 classes, Paul... 
...hence my modest proposal simply to do away with machine-based classes, for one season at least. I bet no other scheme will be so refreshingly simple, nor provide everybody with a pot to aim for.
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Possibly not, but a streamliner will be the winner. Not everyone can source, build or transport one of these assuming that they want one in the first place.
I suspect that the non-streamliner contingent will be overwhelmingly against your proposal.
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NickM
BHPC Member
Joined: 18 August 2005
Location: United Kingdom
Status: Offline
Points: 1926
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Posted: 26 August 2008 at 9:10am |
A streamliner (not mine) will win the Open Championship, granted; given that fully faired bicycles represent the current state of the art in recumbent racing, that is surely only right and proper.
But there is no reason why a veteran lady riding an unfaired trike should not win the Handicap Championship - it depends on who tries hardest.
Edited by NickM - 26 August 2008 at 9:11am
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Paul Lowing
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Joined: 23 March 2005
Location: United Kingdom
Status: Offline
Points: 1264
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Posted: 26 August 2008 at 9:58am |
True again, but this will not be the main event... Also one has to devise a fair and consistent handicap system and with respect your system based on performance relative to one rider has a number of obvious pitfalls.
Are you also suggesting a veteran class?! 
Edited by Paul Lowing - 26 August 2008 at 9:58am
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NickM
BHPC Member
Joined: 18 August 2005
Location: United Kingdom
Status: Offline
Points: 1926
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Posted: 26 August 2008 at 10:09am |
It is based on performance relative to a standard, rather than to an individual; its working title was somewhat tongue in cheek. Anyway, I await the announcement of a comprehensively better system with bated breath.
And who is to say whether the majority of the racing membership will show more interest in the Open championship, or in one they have a chance of winning?
Edited by NickM - 26 August 2008 at 10:11am
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graydog
BHPC Member
Joined: 16 January 2006
Location: Wales
Status: Offline
Points: 1481
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Posted: 26 August 2008 at 11:16am |
IMHO the class system seems quite good with some oddities. However, I’m not sure it is the class system that stops riders turning up in the hope they may win. It has been seen, that the riders who have competed more regularly win the season.
Perhaps I am not a hardened BHPCer, but for me a 40 min points race, for 2 to 6 hours driving to get to an event, does not compute on many levels.
Perhaps instead of tweaking the class structure could we see more points races (I understand this would take more organising), such as:
100m 200m fly starts:-
Each track has a length which can be used for the flying 100 or 200, the limit will be on the wind-up.
1km:-
Typical standing start.
Season team points:-
Teams are nominated drawing from the class structures, team is 4(5) members with one floater. Team with the most points at the end of the year wins. Points are scored based on points gained on the riders’ based classes. Given that not all riders turn-up to all events picking the top winners does not always work.
10TT:- riders are encouraged to join a local DF club, and ride the club TT nights. A rider submits their best time per month. Rider at the end of the year with the lowest accumulative time of X rides wins.
regards
Graydog
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tosgh
BHPC Member
Joined: 20 July 2007
Location: worthing
Status: Offline
Points: 508
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Posted: 26 August 2008 at 12:23pm |
I had hoped to attend at least 4 races this year but it looks like it will only be 2 plus the Worlds. Anyway my point is that personally I have always seen my KC as a mobile testbed for attempts at improving the bikes performance, in terms of comfort and speed with the racing acting as a gauge of those improvements. I do not compare myself with anyone else that happens to be on the track at the same time because they may be older, younger, fitter, more/ less experienced or motivated than me. I am simply interested in my times, average speed and what I could do next time to the bike to improve performance. This is how I have always viewed the purpose of the club, its ultimate aim; to improve the breed (machine).
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weight is everything
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fards
Visitor (regular)
Joined: 06 October 2005
Status: Offline
Points: 2543
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Posted: 26 August 2008 at 2:00pm |
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I'm with Graydog on that one, I think it might be a good idea to have a longer and shorter points races, at each event this coming year.
1km seems to work well, easy to do and takes up fairly little time. Jons/Kits sprints system works very well also.
I'd also like the 2hr at castle combe to be a 3hr or maybe even longer to make it more of a special event, but expect that idea to be shouted down..
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Adrian Setter
BHPC Member
Joined: 04 March 2005
Status: Offline
Points: 1606
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Posted: 26 August 2008 at 2:16pm |
fards wrote:
I'm with Graydog on that one, I think it might be a good idea to have a longer and shorter points races, at each event this coming year. |
For the last couple of seasons, there's been an obstacle to doing this, in that the race software didn't support splitting the points for an event between two races. (In the days of manual points-mangling - and the hours and hours of time it took Dave Larrington to do it - we did occasionally have two races for POINTS on one day, with half points for each race.)
I spoke to KevinJ last week about the possibility of enhancing the software to enable it to do this, over the closed season, and it sounds as if it may be feasible (Kevin - please correct me if I've misremembered; it probably was after a few BEERS!).
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Challenge Hurricane - MicWic Delta (Front half) - Burrows Ratracer
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jes@gcre
BHPC Member
Joined: 22 March 2005
Location: United Kingdom
Status: Offline
Points: 556
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Posted: 26 August 2008 at 2:33pm |
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To help this discussion along, could someone post a list of the current classes please?
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Racing is life...
Anything which happens before or afterwards is just standing around waiting to race....
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New classes discussion before the AGM