gbrown
Geoff on Bkool
- Location
- South Somerset
Just a quick question for clarification as I'm second off just 2.5 mins after Gail, who I presume will be disappearing up the road at 7pm on the dot after a 10 minute warm up session. So am I right in thinking I need to follow your instructions in video, and select the ride in the Live section between 19:00 and 19:02 ready to hit the 'No' button when 2.5 mins are showing on the Underway time bar. If I did the warm up and sat on the start line for 2.5 minutes before pedalling, I'm sure that would throw my time out for the run.
Yep, I'm aiming to start the warmup at 6:50 and let it run the full 10 minutes so race proper starts as close to 7pm as I can get. If I'm a little late getting it going, or have any problems, I will aim to cut the warmup short and still aim for 7pm.
However, start times should be taken from the time underway counter when you are waiting to enter.
Hopefully Gail will join me in the warm up and set off when the race starts.
Early starters could sit on the line for a few minutes but you can't pedal and you may get cold. You might be better to sit watching the time underway counter and keep pedaling to stay warmed up.
Should I start a book on this. At the moment I think Bertie Bassett should be about 18/1 now he's running on slick hooves, and the rest of the field should be 25/1.
I suppose in an ideal world, if the handicaps are correct with a field of 40 starters, we should all be about 30/1 - as the bookie has got to make some profit.
I wouldn't expect the first go to be perfect, as the handicaps are not based on personal bests or take drafting, etc. into account, and it is likely that some riders will up their game much more than others. For this first race we have applied handicaps a little less than 100% of the time differences (80%-90%) to allow for this, and the fact that it is easier to improve a long time than a short one. Last Winter we found the real fast boys could not go that much faster, but some of the early starters improved by several minutes. The plan is to close things up not on the line, but over the final few miles to make for a really exciting last few minutes.
I see this first go as a learning experience and hopefully a bit of fun.
Once the session has finished we will use the times to get a more accurate handicap and should be able to tune the process to get ever closer racing. Assuming that it proves popular and we have more of this format.
Good luck to everyone. I will try and have the session running for last minute practices late afternoon, but will stop it in plenty of time before 6:50pm so as to avoid any confusion.
Cheers,
Geoff