Placings based on fastest times for the day…

There were riders who have shown great improvements from their previous times in the first BAR ITT. The handicap system that we are experimenting with this series helped find out who made the most improvements over their previous performances. Sharath MS came first under handicap system followed by Praval Ray was the rider second most improvement followed by Rajanikanth who made it to the podium both in terms of absolute performance and based on improvement. Great show guys.

Placings based on the most improvements from the previous race..

Looks like all the women riders except Hema Rajanikanth, were busy elsewhere this Sunday morning. Hema was the sole representative of fairer sex at the race today and finished a little faster than a couple of men riders too. Way to go Hema!

Other Important Stuff:
Thanks to Venkatachalam(DaLam) and Kiran Kumar(Tusker) from Cleated Warriors for manning the registrations and timing duties. They did a brilliant job in getting the race started on time(well, actually we were late again by 3mins and started at 7:03am) and we were able to get the timings out by 8:20am. 

A few glitches were there in terms of three riders missing the U-turn because we didn’t have anybody manning the U-turn like we did during our first ITT. While we want to minimize the number of volunteers required to conduct the race with, I guess marking the U-turn point or putting someone there will help.  We’ll take care of that next time.

Thanks again to Procycle for providing some post race HorsePower for the riders. Thanks to Vinay Yadav of Veloscope for covering the event. Look out for some superb race day photos to be uploaded soon on their page. 

Help Us Be Punctual:
There were a few riders who turned up late, nearly 30mins after everyone else left. We let them start because we didn’t want to disappoint them. But that only resulted in the volunteers having to wait much after everyone has left. We want to keep the races sustainable and that depends very much on volunteer time(I’m sure all of us have families who demand their share of weekend time). So, we might keep a cut-off time like 7:30am to start and 8:30am to finish or something like that.

Since we start the registration process(which is essentially bib distribution) at 6:30 am and kick-off the first rider at 7:00am, with 30sec gaps we can get 60 riders going by 7:30am and still possibly get the results out by 8:30am so that all can go home and enjoy the rest of the Sunday with family or go for a longer ride.

Harsha Nagaraj who completed Ironman Zurich last week was at the race and did a fast recovery ride and shared his IM experience after the race! Photo: Veloscope

Comment on Handicap System:
As you know we are experimenting with a handicap system for this series at BAR. You can check this post for how we are implementing it. Like any system it won’t be perfect. There will be who will be sandbagging in a race and do well later etc. But for now we leave it to the rider to decide if he is cheating the system or cheating himself. 

There are however riders who understand this and came to us asking us not to consider them for handicap system for the next race as they would get an unfair advantage in the next race as they spent extra time on the road having missed the U-turn or some other reason. We will be excluding them from the handicap system for the next race. That includes yours truly, as I wasn’t well and ended up not racing. So, I know that any improvement from time from this race in the next won’t be indicating any actual performance improvements but will only show the fact that I raced.

With performance data that we are collecting in this series, we hopefully can come up with categories based on performance. Another easy to implement option is to have age categories. We’ll keep on listening, learning and refining what we do at BAR. So, please keep the ideas coming. 

What Next?
Next weekend we get together at the same venue for a Team Time Trial. Minimum two riders and maximum three riders per team are allowed and the time of the second rider will be taken as the team time. So, find a partner and form a team if you don’t already have one. Show up, race and have fun!

Event details here: https://www.facebook.com/events/379829215473860/?ref=3

Start: Emerald Isle Resort
U-Turn: Right after Confindent Amoon Resort
Finish: Opp Emerald Isle Resort
Distance: ~33km

Registration start: 6:30 am
Race Start: 7:00 am