Race Grading review - CI road Commission

morana

There will be a proposal document from the RC possibly today about grading, upgrades, downgrades. Dont hold back when it comes

I will post a link here

Caroline_ie

... some kind of women grading system would be good.

velo.2010

Caroline_ie wrote: »

... some kind of women grading system would be good.

Jim Davidson on Boards?:pac:

RobFowl

velo.2010 wrote: »

Jim Davidson on Boards?:pac:

That shouldn't be funny....


(but it is)

Plastik

Any update on this Morana?

morana

Plastik wrote: »

Any update on this Morana?

I have the document but I dont want to to release until it goes on the main site.. It think it will be after the RC agm on the 19th in case of changes. I have contributed a lot to this document that is if they include my thoughts, based on discussions here.

One thing I can confirm is upgrading of all A4's who have had a licence for 2 seasons, thats from Geoff's twitter.

Remember this is up for debate as part of the review we said we would do after 3 season s of the category iirc.

High Nellie

morana wrote: »

I have the document but I dont want to to release until it goes on the main site.. It think it will be after the RC agm on the 19th in case of changes. I have contributed a lot to this document that is if they include my thoughts, based on discussions here.

One thing I can confirm is upgrading of all A4's who have had a licence for 2 seasons, thats from Geoff's twitter.

Remember this is up for debate as part of the review we said we would do after 3 season s of the category iirc.

Sounds interesting. But could there be an exemption for riders over 60 please.

Caroline_ie

morana wrote: »

I
One thing I can confirm is upgrading of all A4's who have had a licence for 2 seasons, thats from Geoff's twitter.

Remember this is up for debate as part of the review we said we would do after 3 season s of the category iirc.

I would agree only if I wasn't a woman holding an A4 licence. I would die a thousand deaths if I was upgraded to A3.

Beasty

High Nellie wrote: »

Sounds interesting. But could there be an exemption for riders over 60 please.

Lower, lower ....

Wouldn't this have the potential to make A3 a massive category though?

lennymc

is that upgrading appealable? ie - if an a4 rider is upgraded, can that rider appeal it and remain in a4?

High Nellie

Caroline_ie wrote: »

I would agree only if I wasn't a woman holding an A4 licence. I would die a thousand deaths if I was upgraded to A3.

is that the general idea - get up to standard over two years or get out?

spyderski

AAAAARRRRRGHHHHH !!!!!!!!!!!

Canyonaero

Morana - Roughly how many automatic upgrades are we looking at? Sounds interesting however as A3 i'd be worried the cat may become overcrowded.

A4 does need a shakeup in my view but I'm not sure if upgrades across the board is the solution. 2 years holding a licence doesnts equal to 2 years riding experience. You may have someone for example who has ridden one A4 race in 2011 and one A4 in 2012. In which case he / she would be vastly inexperienced to ride an A3 race?

Caroline_ie

Most women with an open license race the women's only races.

The women races are devoid of categories, so you will have the National champ racing with a new racer, although we all have to choose a grade initially when we first apply for an open license. Half the women racing (usually the better ones) have A2 or A3 licences

I have had an A4 license for the past three years. I usually race a few A4 races at the start of the year to kind of 'break the ice' and sometimes to fill in the weekends when no women's races are on. I choose A4 because I am not trying to train for Rás na mBan and the lower A4 distance suit me fine.

Most of the women with open licenses, don't race the "men's" races.

I am not a talented racer, just pack fill, even though I love racing. I don't see how automatically upgrading me because I am an 'experienced' A4 would help me. I would just get dropped sooner and lose interest.

EDIT ; by "me" I speak generally ... I am not the only one in that position.

GlennaMaddy

Canyonaero wrote: »

... as A3 i'd be worried the cat may become overcrowded.

Early season races are already overcrowded at A3 IMO

Aodho

morana wrote: »

upgrading of all A4's who have had a licence for 2 seasons

Morana are you saying this is definitely happening for 2013 season or is up for debate (at agm) to happen??

Beasty

I suspect that A3 would become so large a group that pre-registration would have to be introduced for some races to limit those taking part. It may be that this comes about anyway in due course, but it would be very frustrating if riders end up registering for events then don't turn up (perhaps because of injury, or they have not recovered from a race the previous day, or because they double-booked just to leave their options open), lleaving others with no racing available

Also, if no "upper age" exemption is introduced, this would in effect do away with the current Masters category, as virtually everyone racing over the age of 50 would have held a licence for 2 years or more.

fago

How many A4s will be automatically upgraded if this is the case?

Will the number of A3 increase by 50% or more? If so this would seem like too many.

Why not upgrade:
- all A4s with any points.
- provide A4s for opportunity for upgrade where they can point at supporting evidence from club results etc to show progress/ability.

Beasty

Canyonaero wrote: »

A4 does need a shakeup in my view but I'm not sure if upgrades across the board is the solution. 2 years holding a licence doesnts equal to 2 years riding experience. You may have someone for example who has ridden one A4 race in 2011 and one A4 in 2012. In which case he / she would be vastly inexperienced to ride an A3 race?

You could hold a licence for 2 years without doing any racing

seamus

If the aim here is prevent "bunching" in A4 due to the increase in popularity of cycling, wouldn't it make more sense to create an "introductory" A5 rank with the proposed automatic upgrade process?

Thus experienced riders can stay and race at the A4 category rather than being forced to mix it up with the stronger riders in A3?

You could limit the A5 distances to 50km, thus making it a category for purely gaining experience in racing. It would also remove the alleged problem of newbies causing chaos in A4 bunches.

Lumen

There's no point in discussing a proposal that hasn't been published yet. The devil is always in the detail.

Plastik

Looking forward to seeing the full proposals.

Kinda sickened that I didn't go with a full competition licence for my first year racing or that the points earned on it count for shag all. Gick !

Beasty

seamus wrote: »

If the aim here is prevent "bunching" in A4 due to the increase in popularity of cycling, wouldn't it make more sense to create an "introductory" A5 rank with the proposed automatic upgrade process?

Thus experienced riders can stay and race at the A4 category rather than being forced to mix it up with the stronger riders in A3?

I suspect race organisers would struggle to accomodate a new category. Circuits are often not long enough to have 5 different groups with adequate handicaps, or indeed A1-A3, A4, A5 and possibly ladies races on simulteneously. It could result in having to run races consecutively which means perhaps morning and afternoon races for some events

buffalo

fago wrote: »

How many A4s will be automatically upgraded if this is the case?

Will the number of A3 increase by 50% or more? If so this would seem like too many.

Why not upgrade:
- all A4s with any points.
- provide A4s for opportunity for upgrade where they can point at supporting evidence from club results etc to show progress/ability.

I like this. At the moment all A4 points carry over into a new season (A3/A2 get their points cut in half). Perhaps each A4's points could be increased by 50% at the end of the year, and those who hit the magic 10 get upgraded. So if someone gets 7 points over a season or two, at the end of a season they get bumped up to 10.5 points, and therefore upgraded.

ROK ON

I had an A4 license a few years back and did a very small amount of races.
My tuppence worth:
I thought it was a development category so to speak - I was a bit intimidated when I arrived at my first race to see a few cyclists that I knew were very experienced. They should not be in the category at all.

From that point of view I think that the move to get a lot of people out of A4 is a reasonable one. It may however be more effective to automatically upgrade after a certain amount of races - say 10 or 12.

The sport needs an introductory category, but it should be just that - not a place to hang around for years.

I will take out an A4 license again next year - if I am still there after two ears it's probably time to lack it in tbh.

Beasty

Lumen wrote: »

There's no point in discussing a proposal that hasn't been published yet. The devil is always in the detail.

But in this case "the devil" decided to leak just enough to allow us to speculate about the detail - presumably wanting to try and "flush-out" any concerns we may have

Lumen

Beasty wrote: »

But in this case "the devil" decided to leak just enough to allow us to speculate about the detail - presumably wanting to try and "flush-out" any concerns we may have

I would never presume to know the mind of Morana. Thar be dragons.

velo.2010

My own thoughts are the focus should on the A3 category given its ever increasing numbers.

My proposal would be to demote A3 riders who haven't progressed in that category after 2 years. This could be based on reaching a certain amount of points in that time. After all, they've shown some ability at A4 to get upgraded in the first place so it would be expected that they would continue to progress in ability. Its no big deal if someone is put back in A4 as they can upgrade again if they score the necessary points.

Regarding A4. If the above happened you would begin to see more experienced bunch riders in that category lending their experience to newer riders. To cope with the ever increasing number of newcomers in A4, you could have an early season handicap to new A4 riders over those who've raced a season or more in that category. Perhaps a maximum of 3 of these handicap races per rider. You could call them A5 category.

There is the issue too of guys who've scored virtually no points in open races but end up in the A2 category. Is that fair?

Beasty

Based on the 2012 rankings on the CI Website

A1 - 133 riders listed, 90+ with points
A2 - 169 riders listed, 110+ with points
A3 - 411 riders listed, 180+ with points
A4 - 308 riders listed, 170+ with points

I don't know if all riders that have raced hare listed though - I guess there could be more with no points in each category

What it does suggest is that A3 is already, by a significant margin, the largest group. Automatic promotion of A4 would presumably see well over 200 more riders falling into that category after another year.

slow

No beginner rider should be given a racing licence at any grade from under 12 to vet unless they have passed a safety course and shown that they have the skills necessary to race safely.

There was carnage on a weekly basis in March and April in 2010, 2011 and 2012. Falling off is part of bike racing. Just watch the Tour de France. But some of the stunts pulled in races (not just A4), and some of the unsafe bikes they turned up on made crashes inevitable.

Just like a driving licence, cycling licences should only be issued after a practical and theory test following a course in Corkagh Park.

slow

I'd also be in favour of commissaires having the right to withdraw a rider's licence until he has completed a safety course if that rider's behaviour is deemed dangerous. It's the same guys attacking up the right side of the road all the time.

In a race down south this year, the comm made a speech about stopping the race if riders did not stay inside the white line. Yet, one of the most high profile riders in the race attacked 3 times in the right hand gutter on a wide road with a large hard shoulder on each side of the road. This prompted 40 guys to follow him. Nothing was done about it. A week later, a similar move by a different rider led to a big crash.

I've been in the High Court as a witness to a racing accident. Not a nice place. More riders mean more accidents. But many are avoidable if the culture changes slightly. And safety training is a first step.

morana

let me come back on all of these later today. Remeber this is up for debate. I have the Document but wont released yet/. that is on the CEO's twitter feed.

Also, we the board have a motion that all club comp riders can ride their own clubs promotion without a 1 day.

Panic slowly

seamus

I haven't raced, so I don't know what controls already exist, but I'd always be concerned about the resource cost of introducing regulation.

Simple things like the ability to DQ a rider if their bike is clearly a POS are easy, but for less clear infractions like attacking across the white line, you can find yourself in a world of pain. From my time as an Admin on boards, and as can be seen from multiple queries on the legal forum, your ordinary person's ability to be anally retentive knows no bounds and their appetite to fight any accusation (even when they're clearly in the wrong) is unsatisfiable.

If you start DQ'ing riders mid-race, then just one or two muppets making a big song and dance for the sake of a couple of points could end up costing CI literally hundreds of thousands of euro in legal costs. I'm not even talking about A1 riders. You'll get some knobend doing his second ever race who takes personal offence to being DQed and decides to sue CI.

I'd be skeptical about the usefulness of a one-day training "licence" tbh. People will be asshats regardless, and even on a friendly club spin I'm continually incredulous at the behaviour of some very experienced riders half-wheeling in the middle of the bunch or overtaking across the white line on blind bends.
I don't think a licence can remove these people from the competition. However, perhaps a voluntary course for new licensees would be a good idea. A 40km neutralised race (say 32km/h) around Corkagh Park with marshalls and more experienced riders giving instruction in the group, and a free point or two for everyone who takes part. If nothing else it would help bring up the group riding standards to some form of minimum.

chakattack

The key detail missing is if the 2 year upgrade rule will be an option or mandatory. If it's optional it sounds fair.

I think a good parallel is the Junior category. Some are animals who are too strong for A3 and others are just starting out and A4 is just right or a shade above their level (as they develop into racers).

By forcing the Juniors into A3 early in the season this year, some got a very raw deal and were discouraged from racing. I believe this ruling was changed mid-season.

Everyone knows their own level, some feel strong enough for A3 but haven't been lucky enough to grab the points and for other's A4 is just right.

So long as the people upgrading have the choice and have actually raced a number of time during both seasons rather than just holding a license it sounds good.

morana

slow wrote: »

I'd also be in favour of commissaires having the right to withdraw a rider's licence until he has completed a safety course if that rider's behaviour is deemed dangerous. It's the same guys attacking up the right side of the road all the time.

In a race down south this year, the comm made a speech about stopping the race if riders did not stay inside the white line. Yet, one of the most high profile riders in the race attacked 3 times in the right hand gutter on a wide road with a large hard shoulder on each side of the road. This prompted 40 guys to follow him. Nothing was done about it. A week later, a similar move by a different rider led to a big crash.

I've been in the High Court as a witness to a racing accident. Not a nice place. More riders mean more accidents. But many are avoidable if the culture changes slightly. And safety training is a first step.

seamus wrote: »

I haven't raced, so I don't know what controls already exist, but I'd always be concerned about the resource cost of introducing regulation.

Simple things like the ability to DQ a rider if their bike is clearly a POS are easy, but for less clear infractions like attacking across the white line, you can find yourself in a world of pain. From my time as an Admin on boards, and as can be seen from multiple queries on the legal forum, your ordinary person's ability to be anally retentive knows no bounds and their appetite to fight any accusation (even when they're clearly in the wrong) is unsatisfiable.

If you start DQ'ing riders mid-race, then just one or two muppets making a big song and dance for the sake of a couple of points could end up costing CI literally hundreds of thousands of euro in legal costs. I'm not even talking about A1 riders. You'll get some knobend doing his second ever race who takes personal offence to being DQed and decides to sue CI.

I'd be skeptical about the usefulness of a one-day training "licence" tbh. People will be asshats regardless, and even on a friendly club spin I'm continually incredulous at the behaviour of some very experienced riders half-wheeling in the middle of the bunch or overtaking across the white line on blind bends.
I don't think a licence can remove these people from the competition. However, perhaps a voluntary course for new licensees would be a good idea. A 40km neutralised race (say 32km/h) around Corkagh Park with marshalls and more experienced riders giving instruction in the group, and a free point or two for everyone who takes part. If nothing else it would help bring up the group riding standards to some form of minimum.

I appreciate what you guys are saying but here can we just discuss the merits of reducing the A4 bunch and A3 bunch sizes when this Road commission document is public. there has been a number crunching exercise done already but it would not be proper for me to release it here before the RC agm on the 19th.

As always I appreciate your input.

The board meetings updates are on CI and you can see we (are discussing) will be implementing a pre-entry in due course which will restrict the size of fields. I agree with the safety aspect but really that should be done at club league level. If I am being honest it would be very difficult for us to implement something that was policed correctly etc. with the current resources in the office.

Lumen

seamus wrote: »

If you start DQ'ing riders mid-race, then just one or two muppets making a big song and dance for the sake of a couple of points could end up costing CI literally hundreds of thousands of euro in legal costs. I'm not even talking about A1 riders. You'll get some knobend doing his second ever race who takes personal offence to being DQed and decides to sue CI

Sue for what? Reputational damage? :pac:

Chips Lovell

morana wrote: »

...here can we just discuss the merits of reducing the A4 bunch and A3 bunch sizes when this Road commission document is public.

If the problem is numbers, then tinkering around the edges by introducing a fifth cat or new upgrading/downgrading rules, is only going to go so far. What you need is more races. And that means more clubs upping their game. Which means more people in the sport being prepared to give a bit more back.

wav1

morana wrote: »

let me come back on all of these later today. Remeber this is up for debate. I have the Document but wont released yet/. that is on the CEO's twitter feed.

Also, we the board have a motion that all club comp riders can ride their own clubs promotion without a 1 day.

Panic slowly

I have seen the motions and debate issues to be discussed at Cycling Ireland AGM.There are no motions re change of categories,just a discussion re same.If there is no motion surely there cant be a change.When the Junior category was re introduced at last years AGM it needed a motion and a positive vote from the delegates after debate.The same surely has to apply here.Also pre entry for races on any given weekend could be fun.I would hate for us to get to the stage where we have to cap fields and not knowing whether you have a race to go to or not.

slow

Will the RC get more than 10 attendees? One way of having your say is to turn up. And you could have 10% of the vote if the numbers are at their usual low level.

wav1

There is another very important consideration here also.If upgrade from A4 to A3 and from A3 to A2 [which would in essence be A1 as there are very few A2 only events] was to be compulsary I feel we would lose more riders than we would gain.Quite simply ther are A4s who will never be anything else other than A4s and the same applies to the A3s.So if that type of rider were to be hit with a compulsary upgrade where do they go.Limbo?

morana

wav1 wrote: »

I have seen the motions and debate issues to be discussed at Cycling Ireland AGM.There are no motions re change of categories,just a discussion re same.If there is no motion surely there cant be a change.When the Junior category was re introduced at last years AGM it needed a motion and a positive vote from the delegates after debate.The same surely has to apply here.Also pre entry for races on any given weekend could be fun.I would hate for us to get to the stage where we have to cap fields and not knowing whether you have a race to go to or not.

have you seen the actual document outlining the issues to be debated?

The motion i mentioned was one from the board re club competition holders participating in their own clubs races.

What will happen is the issue will be debated. the outcomes of the debate will be given to a working group to come back in 2 weeks with the recommendations to be implemented.

wav1

morana wrote: »

have you seen the actual document outlining the issues to be debated?

The motion i mentioned was one from the board re club competition holders participating in their own clubs races.

What will happen is the issue will be debated. the outcomes of the debate will be given to a working group to come back in 2 weeks with the recommendations to be implemented.

Morana if ever an issue needed proper debate and concensus this is it.If a working group get their hands on it and come back with stuff to be implemented,what happens then?Implemented without concensus.I would welcome your comments re the post I made earlier about what do we do with all the riders who are not strong enough to upgrade.Believe me I want to see the right direction taken here and am not arguing for the sake of it,but whatever the outcome of this will have an effect on a whole pile of riders.On the limiting the size of fields,whose decision will this be and has a figure been discussed.These are the kind of things that should be thrown out there and for people to comment on.I dont see any reason why you cant release the document as the R/C have no powers to do anything with it at their AGM.

morana

wav1 wrote: »

Morana if ever an issue needed proper debate and concensus this is it.If a working group get their hands on it and come back with stuff to be implemented,what happens then?Implemented without concensus.
I would welcome your comments re the post I made earlier about what do we do with all the riders who are not strong enough to upgrade.Believe me I want to see the right direction taken here and am not arguing for the sake of it,but whatever the outcome of this will have an effect on a whole pile of riders.
On the limiting the size of fields,whose decision will this be and has a figure been discussed.These are the kind of things that should be thrown out there and for people to comment on.I dont see any reason why you cant release the document as the R/C have no powers to do anything with it at their AGM.

Lets just wait and see what it contains. i can address these now but the RC might make further changes at their meeting. We had a long discussion here about extending the season onto the good weather of September so I proposed that that material be included as well as a number of ideas were people have pm'd me.

wav1

morana wrote: »

Lets just wait and see what it contains. i can address these now but the RC might make further changes at their meeting. We had a long discussion here about extending the season onto the good weather of September so I proposed that that material be included as well as a number of ideas were people have pm'd me.

OK on that one for now.I think the season is going to go in to September next year if proposed events go ahead.I know this is off tread but shocked today to see the demise of the Tour of Ulster.A race with a long history going way back.Probably a sign of the times really but very sad none the less.I have put around a notion today to attempt to replace it.Might come about if all falls in to place.

High Nellie

slow wrote: »

No beginner rider should be given a racing licence at any grade from under 12 to vet unless they have passed a safety course and shown that they have the skills necessary to race safely.

There was carnage on a weekly basis in March and April in 2010, 2011 and 2012. Falling off is part of bike racing. Just watch the Tour de France. But some of the stunts pulled in races (not just A4), and some of the unsafe bikes they turned up on made crashes inevitable.

Just like a driving licence, cycling licences should only be issued after a practical and theory test following a course in Corkagh Park.

"shown that they have the skills necessary to race safely" - the only way to judge that is in racing conditions!

C3PO

High Nellie wrote: »

Sounds interesting. But could there be an exemption for riders over 60 please.

Surely you mean 50! :rolleyes:

michael196

Beasty wrote: »

I suspect race organisers would struggle to accomodate a new category. Circuits are often not long enough to have 5 different groups with adequate handicaps, or indeed A1-A3, A4, A5 and possibly ladies races on simulteneously. It could result in having to run races consecutively which means perhaps morning and afternoon races for some events

will certainly cause a rethink on categories offerred at races. Race organisers already try to accommodate A1-A4 plus juniors and Underage ladies and vets. .

For an expanded a3 field and diminished a4, organisers will need to review early season races to see what the dynamics are, how to pair the a1-a4 (a5) categories to make sensible racing, i.e. would you now pair the a4 and a3 groups in a race and couple the a1-a2's ?

or couple a1-a2 then a3 separate then a4 separate. 3 separate race distances ?

hhhmmmmm.........or organisers could cherry pick the largest groups or just run a sportive for the least headache.


bit of a trend recently with cancelling races due to inadequate marshalling , an objective solution is to to create an efficient race structure, that accommodates most riders, around a circuit of varying length in the minimum number of race (starts).

this should be an objective of a proposed structure. i.e. minimise the amount of races required in an event to accommodate the maximum amount of riders.

I dont have a solution, but as to Beastys point, organisers will operate within their own local constraints ( of circuit distance, difficulty, terrain, features ( hill finish etc ), facilities, safety, marshalls , traffic, villages, road preparation, risks, gardai, road stops etc ) and will design the race offering to match the above. hence an efficient race structure, offering something to most riders, will work best on the ground.

I guess that means maximising your groups and minimising your separate race starts.

Just food for thought at the moment ....increased race complexity does not diminish the clubs desire to run a race......

RobFowl

Woo Hoo this means I'm upgraded (still crap mind but upgraded and crap)

Morrisseeee

RobFowl wrote: »

Woo Hoo this means I'm urgreaded

Sure does, well done, congrats................whatever urgreaded means

I agree with most posters here, that the automatic upgrading is a bit of a loose cannon, there are so many different cases that each one would have to looked at individually, an impossibility, so applying one rule to rule them all is obviously very difficult.

If some kind of rule is implemented then it will have to thoroughly thought through (tongue twister )

RobFowl

Morrisseeee wrote: »

Sure does, well done, congrats................whatever urgreaded means

Lumen

Morrisseeee wrote: »

I agree with most posters here, that the automatic upgrading is a bit of a loose cannon

I don't see the big deal, this just puts us back where we were before A4 existed, but now A4 is a purely introductory cat like it was always intended to be.

There is the issue of whether this will make for more or less crashy goodness in A4, but that's irrelevant for people who will be dumped into A3.