Race quantity

Hi

Just to add my tuppenny worth. I've not been attending much this year 'cause the return on travelling time investment does seem rather low. Given the finite number of weekends, organising to attend an audax event where I will spend all day on the bike seems to be a better activity than the same amount of organising for a 40 minute race, even when the company is so much more congenial (and you don't have to spend all day justifying your existence).

On the other hand, I'm probably just getting old and being acutely aware of not driving...

Hello,

Some people have expressed that multiple races on the same day might be too tiring. I think it could be fun to have some really short races, like 200m standing start 'drag races', (maybe in two or 4 riders at a time).   Short distances might level the playing field a bit between different styles of bike. I'm sure people could find half a minutes' worth of energy in their legs. The points wouldn't even need to count towards the main racing calendar, could be considered a separate discipline. What do people think?

AlanGoodman wrote: I think if they don't then most people will just go home as they do now... Unless maybe you run them BEFORE the points races

That's maybe not such a bad idea: short events could take the place of the informal warm-up, at least for the first race.

Although points for short events might encourage attendance, I can see big arguments developing if those points contribute to the race championship. The current debate about the allocation of points for races is already complex enough: imagine if we had to equalise things for drag races, sprints, hill-climbs, etc as well, particularly if each event was different. If we do start having points for other events then there has to be a separate championship/league table.

I personally think this is getting too complex, and isn't worth it to encourage longer attendance. Alan's idea of having the fun events first, building to a climax of the main event, may well be all that's needed, and is the format adopted by many other sports events.

AndrewS

The current arrangement is to be at the track ready to race at 11.00 (in theory at least!).
A simple addition of 'registration will close by 11.00 except by prior arrangement with the organisers' (to cover people held up by trains etc.) should sort it out.
Pre-registration is an idea, though given there is a different organiser for each event that could get complicated. We would still need a signing on process to deal with those who are actually at the event, so any pre-race registration would only consist of getting rider details onto the master list and the issue of a race number.