The slow demise of (amateur) Testing

SteveR_100Milers

Well doen Ruth. Some of your Beacon clubmates also did some good times this morning on the R25/3H (the supposed fast one) in howling winds......what a horrible morning.

Jeff Jones

Well done Ruth, excellent ride! PB?

Up until about a day to go, the nationals were looking like being a washout. Impressed that all the races went off in reasonable conditions.

More on topic: there were 30 riders under 20 minutes, lots of quick juniors and women, almost a few national records - is time trialling in such a bad state?

Naz

http://www.kingstonwheelers.co.uk/news.shtml

A pic of Michael Hutchinson on his way to a 33.1mph victory at the National 10 yesterday. A full field of over 200 riders plus many spectators, I don't think TTing is in that bad a shape either

BeaconRuth

Thanks Andrew, Steve, Jeff - much appreciated.

Jeff Jones wrote:

Well done Ruth, excellent ride! PB?

Yeah, it was a PB but it's not hard to go fast on a course like that. TBH the only thing to my mind that counts is your placing. I would've liked to be a couple of placings higher. I've seen 4th or 5th in that event three times now!

Up until about a day to go, the nationals were looking like being a washout. Impressed that all the races went off in reasonable conditions.

Yes, the organisers handled the event supremely well. A small feature I appreciated greatly was having mile markers at every mile so you were never in any doubt how far you had left, but everything about the whole event worked like clockwork.

More on topic: there were 30 riders under 20 minutes, lots of quick juniors and women, almost a few national records - is time trialling in such a bad state?

It's one thing to have a very successful, fast and well-run national championship, but there are some very small fields in the non-fast, non-championship events. Some events are very heavily oversubscribed, far more others are in danger of being lost for good........... is that a sport in good health?

Ruth

SteveR_100Milers

I don't think that one full field means the sport is OK. As Ruth sais, there are events being cancelled because of insufficient numbers, some events with as few as 16 entries. That and the ratio of vets to seniors and juniors is increasing, which means there are no riders coming through to replace the older ones leaving the sport.

Jeff Jones

BeaconRuth wrote:

Yeah, it was a PB but it's not hard to go fast on a course like that. TBH the only thing to my mind that counts is your placing. I would've liked to be a couple of placings higher. I've seen 4th or 5th in that event three times now!

Take your point. A PB is probably a small consolation when you're that close.

More on topic: there were 30 riders under 20 minutes, lots of quick juniors and women, almost a few national records - is time trialling in such a bad state?

It's one thing to have a very successful, fast and well-run national championship, but there are some very small fields in the non-fast, non-championship events. Some events are very heavily oversubscribed, far more others are in danger of being lost for good........... is that a sport in good health?

I know I haven't been around long enough to judge (hence the question) but that is a worry. I'm doing my (small) bit by racing and getting others to race the hilly events, which are rarely oversubscribed. I've found these to be pretty safe but challenging at the same time, and you can ride them in all weather conditions, unlike DC courses. There are definitely a number of riders in this part of the country that favour the hilly courses. Not many juniors/women though

I suppose part of it is the national championships, which are nearly all run over standard distances/times (aside from the hillclimb and the British Cycling-run TT champs). If you're good enough, you'll aim at that champion's jersey. Or you'll aim to ride in the nationals in order to compete against the best and see where you stand. That means racing similar types of events, which must contribute in part to them being the popular ones. Plus there's the fact that you ride much faster on a DC than on a hilly course. Going fast is part of the fun.

I think I'm contradicting myself. Er, just ride both and give more weight to sporting courses

bonger

OffTheBackAdam wrote:

It's just plain boring!
Add that to the idea of getting up at some god-foresaken hour, to ride up and down a chunk of duel carriageway and you get an idea of why younger riders aren't interested.
The cost of the bike, I'd suggest, doesn't factor in greatly, how much for a good road bike, how many have a Mountain Bike too? What's wrong with second-hand bikes?
If someone's dead set on time trialling, they'll do it.
The TT is a hang over from the early days of cycling, when the RTTC had these fears about cycle racing being banned.
Even going back 35 years, when I started cycling, a lot of "Testers" were pretty geriatric, but your options were TT or Road, Cyclo-cross for winter and, if you were lucky to be near a track (Mansfield lad myself, so Harvey Haddon wasn't far away and sometimes we hit the big time and got a carful to go to Saffron Lane!).
No glamour of televised racing, bar the odd Classic offering on ITV.
Along came MTBs and that scooped off a lot of younger riders, BMX ditto?
Also, your road races had fields of just 40, maybe 60 for the likes of the Lincoln Grand Prix. Last week, there were what, 150+ entrants there?
Who'd not rather race 88 miles around Lincoln, start at 11 am, get cheered up a cobbled climb that immitates a Belgian 'Berg, rather than grind along a length of dual carriageway, with a start time of 7.05am?
I time trialled, when I couldn't get a start at a Road Race, or it was the Club 25, Club 10 etc.
The entry factor might be a reason too, the old RTTC "Let's not get seen" mentality still holds, by the sound of it. Buy the Handbook (Revenue for the RTTC), find the old course codes, A25/4, O2, etc that are near you. Are we still having to get changed in the back of the car, parked on the verges outside that big old house in Blyth?
Elitist? Cobblers!
Time Trialling is an anachronism, past it's sell-by date long ago.

Well said, your decision not to do them is more than justified based on that fantastic critique.

andrewgturnbull

bonger wrote:

Well said, your decision not to do them is more than justified based on that fantastic critique.

Hi there.

Are you just across here fishing for compliments too ;-)

Well done on your 6th place too!

What did you think of the course/traffic/weather?

Cheers, Andy

Jeff Jones

andrewgturnbull wrote:

bonger wrote:

Well said, your decision not to do them is more than justified based on that fantastic critique.

Are you just across here fishing for compliments too ;-)

Well done on your 6th place too!

Indeed - very good ride!

Coming back to your earlier point, Andrew, I think you're on the money about marketing being important. TTing and triathlon are similar in a lot of ways, save for the field sizes.

The big startlist in the Beacon RC mountain TT (this isn't the only example) shows how important getting the word out is.