TT rankings based on times

OverTheHillAt21

I can't find any rankings of TT performances in the UK, is this because different courses aren't considered worth comparing or some other reason? I would still be interested to see such a ranking. In running we have two sites powerof10.info and runbritainrankings.com and the latter ranks road times which would face the same objections as road TTs (each course slightly different etc).

alihisgreat

Since you can't even compare two courses on the same day.. let alone two different courses, what's the point in rankings by time?

BeaconRuth

ALIHISGREAT wrote:

Since you can't even compare two courses on the same day.. let alone two different courses, what's the point in rankings by time?

What he said.

There's no point in making any comparisons other than between rides done on the same course at (more or less) the same time of day. Even a change in the wind conditions or air temperature can make significant differences to times achieved, let alone course topography, road surface and traffic conditions.

Why the time trialling fraternity is hung up on personal best times has always been a mystery to me - it makes no sense at all.

We have this in the Midlands District which, I believe, is the best simple way of ranking time triallists by performance. It rewards those who perform well against the competition on any course, in any weather conditions: http://rankings.midlanddc.org.uk/

Ruth

celbianchi

Agree with Ruth re the hang ups with PB chasing.

There are rankings - they are called national championships where finishing position relative to others on the same course on the same day are what counts.

OverTheHillAt21

Thanks for the replies. In a sense I was trying to head off a debate about the merits of it by my original comments and I will take it from your replies that the answer is no such ranking is maintained - although of course there do appear to be recognised UK records so the idea isn't that bad. The only TTs I ever did were drag strip ones on the A1 and both were hit by what I thought were unhelpful headwinds, in the case of the 25 so bad that I jacked it in after that! I would still be interesting in such a list and although wind is less of a factor in road running there are rankings maintained in the marathon - they used to be world bests but got upgraded to official world record status probably due to the money involved, despite all the differences in course and effects of wind etc. OK they disallow point to point courses where you can literally be blown along the whole way (eg a recent very fast Boston marathon) but against that many of these courses are very hilly (especially Boston ironically) whereas some are like TT dragstrips, Berlin and Rotterdam spring to mind. It is quite hard to find a totally flat road race and you just go with the flow and generally people know what the races in their part of the country are like and you just take that into account when comparing yourself with your rivals. Cross-country, forget it, we don't compare times or announce records although in the US where they run mostly flat parkland courses they focus more on records even across different courses. So apart from the degree of impact of a strong headwind there isn't a great deal of difference in my view between a TT ranking list and a road running one. And of course people want to post fast headline times and speeds Ruth, that seems extremely natural to me! I think you can do that AND compete on the day on a hilly course and just pit yourself against the field on the day (or the local course record). The problem is if I do say my nearest TT which is the Tour of the Campsies 25, no-one down in London will have the faintest idea what my performance equates to; if I go across the city to the almost dead flat TT there I could post a time everyone can relate to. I wouldn't call that a hang-up.

maryka

There are rankings in the sense that there's a list of the top 100 (?) times for various distances of all-time (TT forum maybe has it? can't remember) but there's no list of all times from the best to worst riders.

sub55

BBAR
http://www.rttc.org.uk/Competition/BBAR/Mens3Distance/tabid/382/Default.aspx

okgo

Bbar represents a tiny section or the TT world though. I have no interest in doing a 100 or even a 50 really. And plenty of others are the same. And of course not every event is a bbar qualifying event...

sub55

okgo wrote:

Bbar represents a tiny section or the TT world though. I have no interest in doing a 100 or even a 50 really. And plenty of others are the same. And of course not every event is a bbar qualifying event...

Although i agree with you , the BBAR is the nearest thing you`ll find to a national ranking system.
The only events you`ll find of a suitable distance that aren't marked as B , will also have SC .

okgo

Yeh true.

The all time fastest list on the TT forum is an OK reference. Though many could make it on there if they rode certain courses.

sub55

if interested,
The all time fastest list http://www.timetriallingforum.co.uk/index.php?showforum=95

not to sure that many could get on there though

OverTheHillAt21

Thanks for those list links guys.

SBezza

You also see the fastest times done in the current year for all the standard distances, again it doesn't mean a great deal in the grand scheme of things, as at the fastest races where conditions were the best, not all of the fastest riders will have ridden, but it gives you an idea.

http://www.cyclingtimetrials.org.uk/Com ... fault.aspx