Racing for second claim club

AlanWillo

Hi

Just a quick question, as a newbie to road racing here. I have two clubs which I want to join, the first because they organise a lot of local time trials and I want to support this, the second because they have an active road racing team, which I am looking to race for. If I join the club with the road racing team as a second claim member would I be allowed, under BCF rules, to race for them?

Thanks!

Adam

SBezza

I think ONLY if your 1st claim club is not affiliated to BC. If your first claim club is affliaited, then you should be riding for the 1st claim club. Same applies the other way around for the CTT as well.

BeaconRuth

SBezza wrote:

I think ONLY if your 1st claim club is not affiliated to BC. If your first claim club is affliaited, then you should be riding for the 1st claim club. Same applies the other way around for the CTT as well.

Not sure that's quite correct Steve. AFAIK neither CTT nor BC care which club a rider calls its first or second claim club. There's no reason why a cyclist can't be a member of as many clubs as they like calling themselves whatever type of member they like - so long as the clubs don't mind (some would have rules about this others might not). But you can only ride CTT events for one club and you can only ride BC events for one club - but they could be different clubs. (AFAIK one change of club per season is allowed in the CTT, not sure of the exact rule for BC).

So, it's entirely possible to race in time trials for one club and in road races for another. Not sure what would happen if you decided to ride the British TT Champs which is a joint CTT/BC event though - that might be a problem!

Ruth

SBezza

You might be right Ruth, but I would read the rules for each organisation. I have been told that you can't ride for another club/team in different organisations if your club was affliated to both.

No doubt no-one would check, but I am not sure of the implications if you got caught.

DavidBelcher

From memory - corrections welcome though - it's OK to race for your 2nd-claim outfit in club-level time trials but not in 'open' events.

David

Tom Butcher

Can't see anything in the BC road and track regs about riding CTT events for different teams. I'd have thought for BC if you want to road race for team B then you need to tell BC they are your first claim club for road and track. I don't know anything about CTT rules so I couldn't tell you what they'll say if you put down a different club for them - I'd guess that they wouldn't care because they are a different organisation not under UCI rules. I seem to remember some riders riding TTs for different clubs than they road race for (well riding a hill climb actually) so my guess would be Ruth is correct but best check with the CTT.

As far as BC events go you can only be one club for all road and track events (7.9.1). But you can include more than one club/team on your licence where you want to ride first claim for different clubs in different disciplines (7.9.4) - which I take to mean cyclocross, BMX, Mountain Bike etc.

BeaconRuth

DavidBelcher wrote:

From memory - corrections welcome though - it's OK to race for your 2nd-claim outfit in club-level time trials but not in 'open' events.

I think you might be getting confused between what clubs' rules say about what their members can do with regards to riding their own club TTs and what the governing bodies recognise. A club may have any rule it likes about whether a certain rider is a '1st-claim' member or a '2nd-claim' member and that might affect whether, say, they pay the same entry fee to club events or whether they can win club trophies etc. Being 1st or 2nd claim might mean quite different things in different clubs - it's up to each club to decide its own rules. (e.g. I know a local club which had a major row over whether 2nd claim members could break club records.)

As far as either CTT or BC are concerned they just look at a rider and see which club they race for in their events. They don't care whether that rider does races in the other branch of the sport for a different club. How would they know anyway? The clubs might care but the governing bodies wouldn't.

Ruth

BeaconRuth

SBezza wrote:

You might be right Ruth, but I would read the rules for each organisation. I have been told that you can't ride for another club/team in different organisations if your club was affliated to both.

It's possible that a club might impose this rule - as I said it's up to each club to decide its own rules about membership and sometimes clubs get very protective/defensive. For example they might feel very aggrieved about a good rider deciding to disappear off to another club so that they can be in a better road race team - and yet still wanting (as some might see it) to 'have their cake and eat it' by staying in their old club for time trialling............it can be a complete mine field and many clubs have been ripped apart by issues of this sort. However, every club would not treat such a scenario in the same way. Another club might be very supportive of a rider like that getting a better experience of road racing.

Ruth

Johnpsanderson

For what it's worth - i think Ruth is dead right on this one. Applying for BC and CTT membership doesn't overlap in any way - so who you tell them is your 'first claim' club could be different in each case and the two organisations would be none the wiser. The issue is whether or not the two clubs you will be joining will be happy for you to be a 'first claim' member of both at the same time...

If it becomes an issue from a club point of view i'd suggest that you join the road race club first claim and the TT club second claim. That way you are getting onboard with the 'team' ethos with the road race club - which is obviously more important - but are still clearly demonstrating to the TT club that you are an active supporter of them.... (after all - second claim members aren't second class members....)

SBezza

BeaconRuth wrote:

SBezza wrote:

You might be right Ruth, but I would read the rules for each organisation. I have been told that you can't ride for another club/team in different organisations if your club was affliated to both.

It's possible that a club might impose this rule - as I said it's up to each club to decide its own rules about membership and sometimes clubs get very protective/defensive. For example they might feel very aggrieved about a good rider deciding to disappear off to another club so that they can be in a better road race team - and yet still wanting (as some might see it) to 'have their cake and eat it' by staying in their old club for time trialling............it can be a complete mine field and many clubs have been ripped apart by issues of this sort. However, every club would not treat such a scenario in the same way. Another club might be very supportive of a rider like that getting a better experience of road racing.

Ruth

Don't I know about this LOL, constant problem for us, though most want to stay 2nd Claim so they can go on the club runs

sub55

Ruth`s dead right.
Forget the concept of second claim , you can be first claim club one for RR`s ,and first claim for club two in TT`s .
In fact, you can keep going through audax, triathlons, swimming, etc.
As regards the British TT champs , you can effectively pick and choose because if you enter in your tt club name , you get free bronze membership for the day any way.
The only thing that does apply across the governing bodies is entering two events on the same day at the same time. Both organisations will jump on you.