if the powers that be think that driving through an area at 30mph is no longer safe, it seems fair that riding a fast bike quickly through the same area, at maximum effort, probably not fully aware and probably not covering the brakes is also deemed unsafe.
How are we defining 'safe'?
Is there the same likelihood of an accident? Maybe.
Is it likely to lead to the same outcome? No.
the optics of racing through 20 mph zones...
I'm not going to agree or disagree with this.
However, we need to be very careful not to reinforce the idea that a bicycle is somehow equal to 2 tonnes of mechanically propelled metal.
When focusing on the 'optics' we often do exactly that.
They're not even nearly the same thing and should never be treated as such.
tj’s road positioning certainly isn’t the norm in my exp!
if the powers that be think that driving through an area at 30mph is no longer safe, it seems fair that riding a fast bike quickly through the same area, at maximum effort, probably not fully aware and probably not covering the brakes is also deemed unsafe. I don’t have any issues with this – there’s plenty of loops which wouldn’t cross a 20 limit, so can just run on one of those instead
It's harder than you would think to get a good TT course - like aren't there roads everywhere on this island? But many have been lost over the years (including the hands-down fastest ten course outside Hull) without being replaced. Part of the issue is a deeply engrained distaste for non-standard distances (ie if your weekly club TT was a flat 11.5 miles no one would ride it).
Would be interesting to see if this extended to Triathlon which could arguably have more impact due to numbers of participants. I guess there you’ve got the added issue of draft busters having to navigate the course and not being able to exceed the limits. Plus the added headache of having to keep bike routes near water which limits route options.
If it extended to triathlon they could surely just dismount and run with the bike through the 20mph bits!😂
Part of the issue is a deeply engrained distaste for non-standard distances (ie if your weekly club TT was a flat 11.5 miles no one would ride it).
indeed! I kind of get that though as half the fun of a tt is racing against your own best time. Everyone wants to have a fastest 10 or 25. No one ever asks what your best 11.5 mile time was!
one thing I didn’t realise is that the Ctt have very specific rules about where a course needs to start and end. So you can’t just pick a random ten miles of road then cycle back to the start when you’ve finished. The start and end point need to be within a certain distance of each other. Also, I don’t think right turns onto main roads are allowed, or maybe that’s just best practice and not an actual rule
Part of the issue is a deeply engrained distaste for non-standard distances (ie if your weekly club TT was a flat 11.5 miles no one would ride it).
Ours is 8.73miles or something. Get 15 on a poor night and 30 on a good night. Averages out in the low 20s. Pretty universal that everyone loves (hates?) the course. We run it as a 2 lap open event and get plenty of praise for a "fun" course from outsiders and it gets decent numbers. 70+ mid pandemic and yes less since but that's everywhere.
Main issue with our TT organising the last 2 years is we get maybe 15 entries with 3 days to closing of entries. Then talk of cancelling happens then without advertising the fact we are contemplating this we end up at 50ish.
I do not think any racing should occur on open roads – cycling, driving or running<br /><br />
TJ I have some sympathy for your position BUT I’m not convinced that the inconvenience to other road users argument stacks up. As a motorist I’ve never been affected by the local TT more than say happening to leave at the same time as the club run, some old duffer on a tandem, the local farmer moving some hay or one of the many local “gala day floats” moving around. But there is a closed road cycle event here and if you want to get people upset about being inconvenienced or even put in harms way - that’s where you go! I’ve spend plenty of time being delayed by closed road cycle routes, marathons/10ks etc. Ban TTs and you should probably expect more closed road events - and expect non competing cyclists to be blocked from using those highways too!
That said I’ve no issue with saying no TTs through 20mph zones. If it would be impossible to exceed 20mph on a bike anyway then it might be justifiable (but probably a shit route) with sufficient marshalling but i don’t think pedestrians should need to guess if the bike is riding normally or focussed on a time (although - does Strava mean 90% of riders are TT racing every time they go out?). Same is probably true for runners - how would you decide if I am racing or just training alongside someone else?
Do you think if there were more club interest and cycling culture around sporting TTs on hilly or simply nicer, less lethal-looking courses there would be greater participation? OK it's not what road racers want and it's not purist TT, I do see the appeal in simple sporting 10s and 25s on courses where a regular bike is competitive / suitable.
The focus on lowest absolute times, £££ for aero gear and riding busy roads makes it a fairly niche cycling culture though.
Do you think if there were more club interest and cycling culture around sporting TTs on hilly or simply nicer, less lethal-looking courses there would be greater participation?
If there was a reasonably priced and local to me "interesting" course, I might give it a go. Under no illusions that I would still be rubbish but a course that has an element of bike handling and pacing your efforts for hills etc. would be of interest.
Of course prioritising the "give it a go" people over the people who are committed and invested is a sure fire way to kill a sport long term.
I do see the appeal in simple sporting 10s and 25s on courses where a regular bike is competitive / suitable.
CTT (and many cycle clubs that organise TTs) have tried to widen the inclusion a bit by having "open" categories (ie for any road bike).
Ironically, this new rule comes after CTT began to get very reluctant about using the really fast (dual carriageway) courses for safety reasons. What might have been acceptable 20+ years ago with a lot less traffic is not really an option now and, as more roads, housing developments etc are built, the number of suitable courses get fewer and fewer.
Same thing in road racing to a certain extent. What was a great course for 20 years can be ruined as soon as a new shopping centre or housing development is built and there's simply no cycling culture in this country for anyone to understand why 60 people want to come and bomb around those roads for 2-3 hours on a Sunday morning.
^ maybe there's more have-a-go types and part of what's making TTing so niche is a committed, invested and slightly wacky image? I wouldn't suggest prioritising the sporting 10s etc, just make more of that side of it if sporting 10s may be a way into it for some / many. It's just a step on from strava segments isn't it? I expect some clubs already do it well.
part of what’s making TTing so niche is a committed, invested and slightly wacky image?
They became A Thing back on the 50's/60's when bunch road racing was banned so to sort of get around that, TTs were put on using codes for courses and all a bit hush-hush. The idea being that you could smash out a 25 at 6am and everyone would be gone before the local police woke up.
So it stayed a very niche, very closed culture for decades. And the problem with that is it's very difficult to attract new participants, especially if there's a perceived barrier to entry such as all the aero kit.
I've only ever ridden two and I hated both of them with a passion. 😂
Most of our courses round here are on fairly quiet roads, and a few I’d describe as ‘sporting’. Certainly where I am we tend to avoid DC courses (although ironically the only one I ride feels about the safest course I ride due to it being reasonably quiet, 2 lanes and dead straight)
the issue is that 20 mph zones will impact the ‘fun courses’ rather than the unappealing drag strips hardened testers seem to like. We have all kinds of abilities giving our courses a go, on all kinds of bikes, as you say it’s really just a step up from chasing a Strava time. None of these folks would contemplate a DC course, understandably
DC courses are way safer than country roads ime (with 1 or 2 notable exceptions) - clear lines of sight, spacious, usually better surface, no one pulling out on you, no one taking their pet steam engine out for a spin at 7mph (a Cheshire thing), no elderly gentlemen riding in the middle of the road at a snail's pace - the list goes on.
That's different to the perception of safety. If you were curious about testing and saw a bunch of riders head down on the A590 as your reference point, then that doesn't look like an accessible sport. But reality is that no form of bike racing is more accessible than time-trialling - any bike, any day of the week, no argy bargy, low entry fees etc.
That’s different to the perception of safety. If you were curious about testing and saw a bunch of riders head down on the A590 as your reference point, then that doesn’t look like an accessible sport. But reality is that no form of bike racing is more accessible than time-trialling – any bike, any day of the week, no argy bargy, low entry fees etc.<br />
100 % agree with all of that. First time I rode a DC course I was pretty apprehensive, but in reality it felt like I had an entire lane to myself
and you are bang in about the accessibility of tt’s. If you want to win one you need to have all the kit and superb fitness (I have the former, not the latter), but for everyone else you are just riding against yourself so in reality the bike you have is irrelevant.I’ve seen folks rock up on ancient steel bikes, fixies and tandems to give them a go. It’s also imo far safer than racing in a bunch. There is no way that many of the folks that turn up to our tt’s would consider a bunch race, so it’ll be a real shame if this form of competition disappears
If you want to win one you need to have all the kit and superb fitness (I have the former, not the latter), but for everyone else you are just riding against yourself so in reality the bike you have is irrelevant.
Many years ago, I was at an evening 10 (supporting a mate, not racing!) - just a basic club level thing, £3 entry fee type of affair - and a guy turned up on a fully blinged out Tour level TT bike.
He got about 20m off the start line when both his 19mm tubular tyres exploded with loud bangs, maybe the result of punctures on the shitty road surface, maybe just having super narrow tyres at 150psi wasn't a great idea, who knows.
He went mad, ranting and raving that they were top of the range tyres and how dare the organisers use such a shit course. Everyone else (mostly folk just there on their normal road bikes, some with clip-on TT bars, a few fixies etc) looked on bemused at his antics.
On my TT tricycle, I'm definitely racing myself. On my TT bike, I'm racing the field. Time trialling is accessible as you can want. Ride anything in a local club race. They messed up the road bike category, sadly, but will likely come around. A bigger development is the use of statistical methods to score results using data (SpinData). This means that points can be allocated based on ANY race rather than just a time for a standard 10 (I hate 10's, too short, too much pfaff, too expensive in travel, and I'm too slow!). That would allow for points for sporting courses and any other course to incorporated in to a ranking.
Personally, I'm upset at suggestions to remove the 12h from the British Best All Rounder (BBAR) because long distance TT'ing is really struggling due to organisation, volunteers, road works, apathy. And it's by far my best discipline. As a rule I like my race time to be some multiple of my travel time and not vice versa 😀
The results need to move away from the fasted time for a fixed distance to fastest speed for the course and not worry about the distance. Also the need to have the start and finish so close to each other needs to be removed.
I LOVED time trialling. Contrary to @TiRed 10s were my favorite, fast and furious with a little bit of sick.
I stopped a few years ago, 2017. I was doing very well, often winning club events, and coming in top few positions on the local opens.
I had a minimal budget though, all my gear was a bit sh!t, older generation TT bike, disc wheel cover things that clipped on etc etc. And I felt, maybe wrongly, I couldn't get any further up against the guys on the £000k bikes and deep pockets - the aero arms race!!
But, overall it was/is fantastic fun. Hard to beat the feeling on a summers eve and being on the TT bike, legs feeling agreeable and absolutley flying along. I am actually looking for a TT bike again, I've been considering getting back into it.
I don't think TTing is going anywhere, it's niche but well loved.
the aero arms race!!
indeed it is. I’m putting out ten percent less power now than in 2019 when I was on an old Planet X stealth with rock hard tubs, yet I’m going way faster. Im now on a bike that’s probably as good as anything on the world tour and it’s undoubtedly faster, but having a ceramic speed jockey cage and fancy aero bars save a few watts only. The things that make the most difference is your position on the bike and the power you can put out in that position. I see so many folks turn up on fancy pants machines and are still not particularly fast as their positions are visibly terrible
for some people, part of the appeal is the tech element, and ability to eek out every last second from your own personal abilities . For others however, they are happy to just do better than they did last week. That’s the beauty of tt’ing imo.
ultimatly however, my kit might move me up a few places in the regional races, but I’m still not troubling the podium. I’ll win a few club races, but the position in those isn’t important, it’s all about the time
but having a ceramic speed jockey cage
Placebo effect 😉 . Tech is all part of the game. Why train when you can buy speed? Same thing in all sports where technology plays a role. My stepfather shoots at a high level. Tech kit upgrades are all the rage there too. Not to mention the testing of the batches of bullets for competition use. That sport also has an issue with median competitor age. And an organisation like the CTT running it.
I'm still after the trike 12h record before Adam Duggleby puts it on the shelf for good. Maybe next year I'll treat myself to a session in a wind tunnel. In the meantime it's field testing (hence "Tester" is not derogatory), to hone position and helmet. Then buy the fastest skin suit, and pump the tyres hardish (21c on three Hed3's).
I don’t think TTing is going anywhere, it’s niche but well loved.
On the one hand numbers are down massively - 45% I read over just the past few years. So the CTT would be completely remiss if it wasn't trying to tackle this as an urgent matter.
OTOH, surely it's still the most popular form of bike racing in the UK by numbers? Just massive numbers of events to choose from compared to other disciplines. There's like one monthly XC MTB series in the NW of England. TTing will always have unique advantages for race organisation.
I think the days of any road club laying on a ten and having 10+ riders show up, just on basic principle, are probably at an end. Some clubs near me are doing fantastic for numbers but they have plenty of testers and make a real effort with advertising, results etc. If you're not making that effort then participation will die off, as you can't rely on that big road club culture just to carry things any more.
TT is becoming niche - and unlike other road riding you need a special, expensive, bike to be at the sharp end of any racing. If the road bike category allows massive advantage on the right kit. We have a road bike category in the NE, it was a thing before it was done by CTT. It worked reasonably well. I had a good go in 2019 (won the category that year). I've never bothered to get in to TT properly largely down to cost and the fact the bike isn't much use outside of competition.<br /><br />I don't know if anyone answered the Q but you can bunch race on 20mph roads. I think because the roads are closed. In RR and TT even a 40mph limit can be broken easily in the right circumstance. I know when I've been told as a convoy driver that the speed limits still apply and you need to get a gap on the main bunch if the speed limit drops as they can catch you very quickly.<br /><br />I actually think TT has the most chance of surviving long term. It doesn't require anywhere near the effort of other events to organise and likely won't be banned or shunned by police and councils. There will be a place for the club 10 and 25 on a weeknight. I still do the odd one to see if I've got "it" (I haven't 🙁 ). There are plenty like me who would to a point, just ride to compete against themselves. <br /><br />Again this may depend on where you live. In the NE we have options. In Surrey things may be a little different in terms of road choice and traffic. <br /><br /><br />
Hope not! I’m a time trialler!
There’s as many of us on roadies as well as aero bikes now and it’s torture at the time but feel so good after…. Ours is actually a 60mph limit that is a bit scary tbh as it’s the road to the motorway so sounds like ours will remain.
if I’m honest I’d be fine as my average speed is usually 19.5mph so I’d be under the limit 😂
Have the antis seen a TT? There's no more disruption to other road users than any of us riding a bike. I guess these anti types don't like motorist being slowed down by cyclists in general.
It's not easy setting up a TT, even a club one. Apart from RA work you can now longer have new turn in the road courses so you need a roundabout with its attendant dangers or a circuit course.. CTT and Bc wonder why TTs are struggling. Sod all to do with fancy bikes .
And I felt, maybe wrongly, I couldn’t get any further up against the guys on the £000k bikes and deep pockets – the aero arms race!!
When it started getting properly silly i just moved to only doing sporting courses, so i have loads of good results in non-standard distances or mildly lumpy (and properly lumpy) courses, just ridden on my road bike with (maybe) a set of silly light wheels and taking a bottle cage (or two) off.
Only problem comes if you try and get into something popular, top 3 in a 22 mile sporting course with 1000ft of climbing isn't as highly respected as scraping into the top 20 in a fast 25...
The suggestion that starts and ends should be far apart is daft. Just how do you get back to your car? Ride. Just what you want when you are tasting blood. You would need a starter and a finisher plus the pusher. The clubs I know rely on people riding out for a chat to do it all. Out and back's are the least hassle and most fun and the evening 10 is the easiest way into virtually any sport . My Tt bike, an ancient Cervelo cost 280 quid. i occasionally ride the trike, the pre WW2 fixed, my new in 83 Raleigh and the Chinerello Dogshite.Doubt there's a grands worth in the lot. AT 60 I'M still trying to beat my mates.
TTs will die if normal folk don't come out on whatever bike they've got, and try and beat their time from last week.
And if they don't sort a rota for marshalls, starters and timekeepers.
