We’re changing the Race Day Schedule to give the Youth Boys their own race, and give the Women and Youth Girls their own race. We found the time by reducing earlier practice times, reducing call-up times to 5 minutes and extending the day by 15 minutes. There is a change in start procedure for the Youth Boys and also the Women and Youth Girls races, known as “Physical Distance, One Whistle”.
Schedule Detailed
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 09:00 | Sign-on opens |
| 09:00–09:50 | Open course practice (50 mins) |
| 09:50 | Call up U12s Boys & Girls |
| 09:55–10:10 | U12s Race (15 mins max) — on a shortened course; rest of course available for practice |
| 10:10–10:30 | Open course practice (20 mins) |
| 10:30 | Call up U16 & U14 Boys |
| 10:35–11:05 | U16 & U14 Boys Race (30 mins max) — grids physically distanced by a few metres, both start on one whistle (“Physical Distance, One Whistle”) |
| 11:05–11:30 | Open course practice (25 mins) |
| 11:30 | Call up Women, U16 Girls, U14 Girls |
| 11:35–12:20 | Women’s Race (close to 45 mins) |
| 11:35–12:05 | U16 & U14 Girls Race (30 mins max) — Women, U16 and U14 grids physically distanced by a few metres, all three start on one whistle |
| 12:20 | Underage Fun Races (U6, U8 and U10) on a separate course — U6: 2 mins; U8: 5 mins, or 10 mins max; U10: 10 mins |
| 12:20–12:55 | Open course practice (35 mins) |
| 12:55 | Call up A-Race |
| 13:00–13:50 | A-Race (close to 50 mins) |
| 13:50–14:10 | Open course practice (20 mins) |
| 14:10 | Call up B-Race |
| 14:15–15:00 | B-Race (close to 45 mins) |
Decision Explained
Currently, in the race slot that contains the Women and four Youth groups, we have two problems:
- The front of the U16 Boys race catches the back of the Women’s race before either race has a chance to string out, if the time gap is too short. And even if the time gap is longer, the catch could be made on a section where there are limited optimal lines and space to overtake.
- The U14 Girls already start at least 90 seconds behind the U16 Boys, whose winning time dictates when the Youth races end — which can sometimes lead to them actually (excluding the in-lap/time sitting on the grid) racing for 22 of the scheduled 30 minutes, which is unfair.
The current schedule has three big benefits:
- There is only one race where the commissaires need to identify and finish riders on a shorter race.
- It allows riders to seamlessly transfer between the National CX Series (2023’s round 3 onwards), Ulster and Leinster races.
- It allows volunteers at least two hours of daylight to clean up, 3pm to 5pm.
So any schedule change must reduce the identified problems and retain as much of the benefits as possible — there’ll always be a trade-off. We had a meeting on Wednesday, the 11th of October, to discuss three proposals for schedule changes:
- Retain existing start order. Enforce a minimum head start of 2 minutes for the Women over the U16 Boys, extended further if there’s a pinch point/bottleneck in the late-mid point of the course, so the Women’s race can clear it prior to the U16s. This retains the problems and benefits, and allows the back of the Women’s field to string out — but depending on the course, a front pack of U16 Boys or the mid-pack Women could still be impeded by each other where there’s only one line through a section.
- Change the start order to place the Women behind the U14 Boys, and merge the U16 and U14 Girls. This just moves the point of contention to the back of the U14 race, some of whom could still be 11 years old with birthdays late in the year. It also extends the time behind the U16 Boys leader to include the U16 Girls. On the surface it’s a decent option; in practice, worse than option 1.
- Add a Women’s Race, reduce the practice times either side of the new Women’s Race time slot, combine the Youth Boys into one whistle blow and the Youth Girls into one whistle blow, and extend the day by 15 minutes. The most radical of the solutions, but it solves both problems and retains two of the three benefits.
We chose option 3, to separate the Youth Boys from the Women and Youth Girls. As seen above, initially we’re combining both sets of U16s and U14s into one start whistle blow — they’ll be gridded with a number of metres between their grids.
As part of the “Physical Distance, One Whistle” start procedure (everyone starting on the same whistle), our stated aim is to allow one of the good things about CX to happen: everyone has someone near them to race against. If you’re a rider similar in level to another rider in another age group, you’ll now be able to race them, rather than being separated by at least 30 seconds.
Depending on feedback, we might change the start to separate the Women’s grid from the Youth Girls by a second whistle. You can provide feedback to one of the race organisers, or to the Leinster League Facebook or Instagram page.
This schedule is not portable to the Ulster races, nor the National CX Series from round 3 onwards. But the Leinster League and Ulster Cyclo-Cross Series have very similar dates, so there might not be too much crossover this year — we had to make a compromise somewhere.
Call-up times were reduced from 10 minutes to 5 minutes. In the Leinster League we’re not gridding a lot of riders — a maximum of 24 — and we’re not checking everyone’s tyres, so we reckoned we didn’t need the full 10 minutes. Also, the day is extended by 15 minutes, so volunteers still have plenty of daylight to clean up in.
New Schedule Tips
As some of the early practice has been reduced, riders should focus on riding, and re-riding, course features they find challenging. There’s no issue walking or riding backwards in practice to session a feature — just do it safely.
All riders should consider signing on during the race preceding their own. Riders in earlier races will need quicker access, since riders with limited practice time shouldn’t spend it waiting in a sign-on queue behind riders who aren’t under the same time pressure to get to grips with the course. This also has the side benefit that if multiple riders — such as a family — are operating out of the same car or backpack, their timing chips and shoulder numbers won’t get mixed up.