The cross season has just started and this stupidness is already happening.  By this stupidness, I mean the scoring of the races.  I was going to try again, to go through the proper channels, ie, contact the USAC, to try to understand why they continually don’t know how to score a cyclocross.  The main problem, in my opinion, is that they don’t know how to apply the bullshit 80% rule.  I’ve already written a rant about this rule.  It is so frustrating for elite and professional riders, but no one seems to address it for the masters and other categories, where it always seems to applied really unfairly.

If you don’t know the 80% rule for cross, here it is –

From the USA Cyling Rulebook-
5G. Finish
5G1. Before the start of a race, it should be announced whether lapped riders will be pulled or remain in the race. If riders are to be pulled, the following applies:
(a) Riders who have been lapped shall continue the lap to a designated location before the finish line and withdraw, under the control of the officials.
(b) The Chief Referee may, after consulting with the organizer, impose the 80% rule. Under this rule, riders whose time gap to the race leader is at least 80% of the race leader’s time for the first lap will be pulled by the officials unless it is the final lap. The number of 80% is merely an approximation based on a typical course; the intent is that all riders should be pulled before they are lapped.
(c) Riders who have been pulled because of lapping or the 80% rule will be listed in the results based on their position when pulled and the number of laps remaining. The results will list the number of laps remaining after the lap on which they were pulled.

Let me go back to January.  I was at Nationals in Asheville and saw that they were pulling riders when they weren’t even close to 80% off the pace.  I sent emails to the officials and then directly to USAC.  No response from the officials and finally a response from Derek Bouchard-Hall. Derek seems concerned about the situation, but said that he was being assured that the rule was being enforced correctly.  That was completely wrong.

But I didn’t post anything on it, thinking that they would work it out, but they didn’t really.

Flash forward to Jinglecross.  They are a ton of masters.  They kept altering the start times to try to get a even amount of riders on the course at the same time, which was good.  I can’t really say that they were doing it exactly right.

They were starting the different age groups so closely together it turned into one giant 200 rider mass of guys walking in the mud a minute into the race.  But I’m assuming their idea was more riders get to finish if you don’t leave big gaps between the groups at the start.  But the leaders of the fields that started after the first group never had an opportunity to race at the start because of catching the back of the group in front of them so quickly.

Anyway, the scoring was horrible at best.  Tons of guys pulled.  Randomly it seems.  Let’s look at the results from the Masters 50-55.

Lots of scoring errors here.  We’ll start at the back, the riders that were put two laps back.  Jeff Unruh is my friend and happens to be the first rider pulled at two laps at 37 place.  He shouldn’t have been pulled that lap.  or at all really.  If you add his two laps times together, he was at 24:30.  The leader was at 20:17.  So Jeff was 4:13 behind the leader. Closer to 25% off the leader’s time.   If the times stayed consistent Jeff might have been a little over 8 minutes back after 4 laps.  So, no chance of getting lapped, he should have been able to complete the event.

But that isn’t even the worst of it.  Look at the guys in front of Jeff.  When you add their times together, Jeff was ahead of all the riders that were in 28th place.  But they pulled Jeff and then let 8 more riders do another lap.

And that isn’t even the worst of that.  You can’t get pulled with one lap to go.  So all the guys that were 17th to 36th were pulled wrongly.  The reason for this is part b of the 80 rule.

Part (b) states- the intent is that all riders should be pulled before they are lapped.

You can’t get lapped if the leader has finished the race.

I do understand there were other categories racing on the course at the same time.  But you can’t really pull a rider because a rider from another category, that started way ahead of you, might be lapping you.

I could post the results from the 55 + Nationals in Asheville, and it is even worse.  It is here.  One group on the course and they were pulling riders that were less than 5 minutes down on a 9 minute lap.  And there are 26 riders that were pulled with 1 to go.   26 guys that couldn’t get in the leader’s way because he is already finished.  So they pulled them at 50% and then just kept pulling them.

Here’s the deal.  These guys come to race a complete race.  The guys getting pulled most likely never expect to win, but want to compete.  Having guys ride 20 minutes and then get yanked out of the race doesn’t sit well with them.Understandably.  Especially when they are walking behind riders from other categories 1 minute into their event.

This 80% rule is so big races, like World Cups and World Championships, aren’t decided by a lapped rider getting in the way of the race leaders.

But somehow, the officials or USAC is using it as a mechanism to try to keep the races on schedule.  At Nationals, they didn’t schedule enough time for each race, so the decided to just start pulling riders so the races finished quicker.   Those guys deserve their entry back.

If USAC is trying to make its members content, then this isn’t the way to do it.  They are lucky that many of the guys that are getting pulled don’t understand that they are being cheated.  Either way, riders won’t come back to events where they get to race 20 minutes out of 45.  They aren’t having fun and don’t get to race a complete race.

Here my solution.  Just let the race happen.  Let’s go back to the old days when everyone finishes on the same lap.  Leave everyone in the race.  Especially at local races.  How are riders supposed to get better when they are riding less than 1/2 a race? If you good enough to win a cross race, then you should be okay with passing lapped riders.

Passing riders in cyclocross is part of the sport.  It is a part of other sports.  Look at Formula 1. Lapping cars is super important.  And it is way harder passing in that sport than cross.

Cyclocross season is upon us.  It is a participatory event here in the United States.  I think everyone understands that.  Just look at what happened to MTB racing.  When the riders got disgusted, they quit travelling to the National events.  The masses are the ones that pay for the sport.   Let’s not let that happen to cross.

When guys come to bike races they assume that the scoring, ie the results, are going to be reasonably quick and correct.  When they apply this bogus rule, the results are nearly make believe.This 80% rule has no place in any race that isn’t a UCI Elite race, Nationals or above.  Get rid of it for local events.  It is bad for the sport.  Just let them finish.

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve been switching between a bunch of bikes recently and they all feel sort of foreign.  I don’t think that is a good sign.

I’ve been riding two different MTB bikes, a rigid Eriksen and then a dual suspension.  They both feel like alright,  a little slow, depending on how low I ride the pressure, but alright.

Then the two cross bikes I rode most of last weekend.  The bikes aren’t exact.  One is Di2 and feels great.  The other is mechanical 10 speed, and it feels a little off.  The reach and seat heights are the same, but maybe the shift levers being different throws me off a little.  Whatever the reason, I need to get them feeling closer to each other.

Then my road bike.  After riding these other 4 bikes the last two weeks, I got on my road bike. The seat felt too low and the reach felt pretty long.  My road bike is my go-to bike and now it feels the most foreign.  I wonder why that is?

It doesn’t take that long to get used to a different bike.  A couple times, at big races, I’ve switched onto bikes that weren’t even close to mine and after not to long, they feel fine.

The first time was at the World Road Championships in Giavera del Montello, Italy.  I was in pretty good form and thought I was prepared.  I had just finished the Coor’s Classic, at altitude, flew to New Bedford, MA and won a big criterium there and then directly to Italy.

My bike was perfect.  I told the USAC mechanics to not touch a thing.  I woke up the morning of the Worlds and went to get my bike.  I realized immediately that everything had been touched.  I asked one of the mechanics and they told me that the Japanese Shimano guys had come in the evening and put all new parts on my bike.  I didn’t understand it at all.

Anyway, I was racing, maybe 50 miles into the race, climbing, when my chain snapped.  I didn’t fall, but stopped, of course.  The Campy car following the race had a whole rack of bikes on their roof, but the mechanic was in no hurry.  He was smoking and just looked at me, trying to figure out the right size.

Luckily for me, an US rider that had done the TTT, was standing a little bit up the road.  His name was Tony Palmer.  Tony had his bike and jumped over the barriers and road it down to me.  Tony was a tall guy, maybe 4 inches taller than me and his seat was much higher.  I got on the bike and started chasing.

Since I was climbing, I just stood.  But when I sat, it was a long stretch.  The seat was so high.  I thought I’d get to the pit and they would have my bike fixed, but when I got there, no bike.  I had caught back on and wasn’t feeling all that comfortable.

I rode another lap, which was maybe 10 miles, and finally my bike.  I switched bikes and instantly thought, “Why did they lower my seat?”  The seat height on my bike felt so low, like it wasn’t even my bike.  I think I got dropped that lap, maybe the next.  If I had to do it all over again, I would have just stayed on Tony’s bike.

Nearly the same thing happened a few years later at the Pro Road Championships in Philly.  I was racing MTB full-time and just flew out there for the one day.  I had a aluminum Prism frame.  I don’t even know where I got that bike now.

About 30 miles into the race, my bike started feeling really weird.  I glanced down and the downtube was cracked all the way around where the shifters were.  I was riding STI levers by then, so the shifter bosses just held the cable routing.

Anyway, I realized it was super dangerous and dropped back into the caravan to get a new bike.  Mavic was the support then and they only had a 52 cm frame that had my pedals.  They did have a MTB seatpost, with quick release, so I could get the seat up.

I caught back on and it felt like I was riding a kids bike.  The reach was so short I’d hit my knees on the bars every time I stood.  Plus, I was having a hard time remembering where to shift.  I first tried the brake levers, then reached for a plug shifter, and finally the downtube shifters.

Eventually I got the shifting down, but I kept hitting my knees into the bars for the next hour or so.

I thought I’d ride maybe another 30 miles or so on the small frame, but I rode the whole 156 miles.  I was in the field at the end and finished somewhere in the top 20, which was okay money back then.

After the race, the bike felt just like it was mine.  So it took maybe 4 hours of racing to get comfortable on a really small frame.

I’m thinking about just riding my cross bike the rest of the fall.  The position is shorter and it feels right now.  I don’t really have any more road racing on the horizon.   It is better for gravel, obviously, plus it just feels better for now.