Time-trial events

Here are the results of the one-lap time-trial "demonstration event"* from Preston (speeds are based on a lap being 1.58km): 

* In the sense that the Olympics have demonstration events to see if they're worth including for real.  Consensus among the organisators is that the experiment worked well enough to make it worth trying for real next year (as a second points event following a conventional race on the same day).  Some lessons learned from the experiment:

a) Streamliners need to be run separately, and with a slightly different procedure (it's not reasonable to ask their pilots to sit in the machines, quietly cooking in the sun whilst waiting to start).  Can someone tell us how long a warning hurtling types will need in order to be in their machines and on the start line: one minute? Two?

b) Riders should be set off according to their ranking by speed (this will be easier when it's a points event and we can be pretty sure that all signed-on riders will be competing).

c) With a full field of maybe 40 riders, we'll have to have more than one on the track at once. We need to think-through fully the drill for starting riders off, for riders coming over the finish line and for riders slowing down and leaving the track.  This may mean running the time-trial at Lancaster rather than Preston.

d) Someone suggested a rolling - rather than standing - start.  In summary, we think this is just too difficult to make work.  Yes, a standing start does make it a bit of a test of ability to accelerate, but is there something wrong with having one race a year that does?  It might be worth making the distance a longer; three laps at Lancaster would make it into the classic 4km distance (how many of us can beat Boardman's record ?)

e) To help keep riders apart on the track, we could start people off at flexible intervals rather than at one minute (so for riders who lap in about 2 minutes, we might start them off at intervals of 1'30" rather than a minute).

Any comments?

I think we were assuming that we would follow Thee Keeper Ov Thee Records' customary procedure for dealing with more than one points-scoring race on the same day, i.e. the whole day's racing would count as one "event", with the two races contributing to a single overall score for the event.  See this year's Newport results, for example.

I don't think a TT as short as a lap ought to get equal weighting with a 40-minute race (Dave, how difficult is it to do a 2/3 to 1/3 or a 3/4 to 1/4 split of points across races rather than the usual half-and-half?).  Something like 4km might justify equal weighting.

This way, the weekend would constitute two events, as currently.

Geoff - We've been dropping our worst 4 results since 2003!  8 from 12 seems about right to me - allows people to have a holiday (or to do maniac stuff like RAAM) and to have one or two off days/mechanicals but still requiring regular attendance for a good championship position. 

legs_larry wrote: Not to mention Paul London's suggestion of the Mystery Virus Card...

And don't forget the Joker (in the style of It's a Knockout) - mind this shouldn't be available to the likes of Chatto, Derrick Neil, Adrianne etc.

gNick wrote: Another alternative would be for the weekend to be made up as a 4 stage event with the total points for say 2 events divided between the stages. To build the incentive to stay on the points for each event  could be a fifth of the total (assuming 4 stages) and the remaining fifth on overall position.

I awoke last night from a dream (nightmare, more like) of riding in Le Tour and finally understanding, slow on the uptake as I am, what gNick was on about. 

I think it would be rather fun to list a "GC"  when we have a weekend event.  I wouldn't want unfairly to penalise people who can't make that weekend, or one day of it, so perhaps it would be best to count the weekend as two one-day events (maybe each with two races) in the traditional way for Championship purposes and have a GC (and green-jersey-stylee points?) competition just for fun and prestige.