Our Inter Club Time Trial Competition consists five events – 10M, 15M, 25M, 30M and a Hill Climb. Five Clubs (CCA, BRCC, HNCC, IRC and SNCC) take part and each hosts one event. The Scoring System used in recent years did not properly recognise the performance of Women competitors. This was putting some off from riding and causing disappointment amongst those who did.
The fastest Woman will in general be slower than the fastest Man but should have the opportunity to bring home the same number of points to their Club as the fastest Man. To address this issue a new System has been agreed by the five Clubs. It will be used for the 2018 Competition and then reviewed when the Competition has concluded. Broadly speaking, a Woman’s (or Man’s) relative performance against her (or his) peers is what really counts. Women and Men are treated equally, but according to the volume of each riding. In detail:
- Rider are put into a Category – Men or Women (Trans-gender to be dealt with according to CTT Regulation 10 – Gender Categories).
- Each Category must have at least 3 riders, or else it is merged with another Category.
- For each Category the fastest rider’s points equals the number of riders in the Category having the most number of riders.
- The slowest rider’s points in each Category is one.
- The other riders are awarded points equally spread out between the fastest and slowest rider in the Category, with fractions rounded up to the nearest whole number.
- The number of riders for each Club whose points will count towards the competition shall be that of the Club with the lowest number of finishers, but this number shall be no lower than 8.
- The top scorers from across the Categories are included.
It is hoped that this new fairer System will encourage more Women to compete in an excellent season-long Competition with heritage going back very many years. It will ensure that Womens’ efforts are just as valuable to the Club as the Mens’. The System shall be reviewed at the end of the season. It could be easily extended in future years to include other Categories (e.g. Juveniles, Super-Veterans) should the need arise.
Nick Hickman (HNCC TT Sec), 5 February 2018