Great race today. As usual, DCMTB put on a great event. The course was sublime - just perfect curves and a balance of handling and effort/recovery stretches. Bumpy as hell - but that's beyond their control and the fault of recent very dry weather. Good fries, great beer from DogFishHead (60 Minute IPA and Raison d'Etre) and good fellowship.
Now a word about scoring cross races. I know the refs are getting battered every time a podium gets screwed up. I know that 125 rider fields don't make it easy on them. But I also know that it is the most disheartening thing in the world to get pulled early on the "80% Rule" or some version of that as it's understood locally. If you've wrapped lap three, have maybe three more to go, are suffering, and get pulled, and you're in back, it's not the end of the world. You can live with that... until you see 20 guys who were way behind you ride on by, and it takes the leader 5 minutes to come through, and he's way ahead of the first chase, and you calculate you would have gotten in one or two laps more, easy, before you got lapped.
At that point you think, "Fuck it. I'll just send a check for $20, and they will have gotten what they want from me." Then, as you're having a little pity party, you suddenly see a couple guys in points contention getting pulled for no apparent reason whatsoever. Then, when you think it can't get worse, another buddy who was near DFL rides past the Start/Finish, killing himself to keep with a bunch of top 10 guys, trying to avoid getting pulled - which he does successfully. At that point, you feel at a complete loss for words.
I sucked today and was probably running in 90th when I got yanked - I was about half a lower back twinge away from stepping off the bike at that point. But a lot of slower people weren't yanked, while several much faster people (including 3 or 4 in points contention) were. I have serious angst over this.
The guys in the big fields early in the day - the M 4, 3/4 and 3/4 35+ are the guys whose fees pay the bills. They're the reason everybody else has prize money, nice swag, and so on. And they get treated poorly, for some reason. As a promoter, I hate this. The top 5 guys in the race are wonderful, but the bread and butter guys, the Joe Lunchboxes, finish 10th - 125th. I'm sick of seeing them take it in the shorts, often at random. Podium guys might sneer but the podium guys aren't immune to the scoring problem either. I saw a guy lose a podium a few weeks ago and get graded to near DFL, while a friend who was actually darned near DFL due to a mechanical was awarded a top 15 finish. Shoot, I was probably in 70th or 80th at Hyattsville, got lapped, rode it in the last 800 yards slow to stay out of the way, and pulled myself on the last lap (because I'm not a total dick). Yet I had to go argue myself out of a 13th place finish. Whooooaaaa!
This is getting to be the norm, and pulling people seemingly arbitarily (particularly whacking people in points contention) to thin out the fields for ease of scoring makes it worse, not better.
So I'm done waiting for the learning curve to go up. I'm officially becoming an advocate for timing chips and video cameras, and no pulling. I know that isn't perfect and it would be at least $5-$7 per race extra per rider per race. But I don't see an alternative. As it is, we're encouraging people to walk away from the sport and go ride somewhere else on the weekends.
This will probably be interpreted as an attack on the refs and promoters. It's not. Somebody has to raise this issue, air it out, and get the issue addressed. Give it another year and the regular B race (M 3/4 will be as packed as the first two, and the M 1/2/3 35+ will be trending that way. It's only going to get worse unless we start working right now to make it better. Chips aren't perfect, but they'll help a lot. Shame we have to go that way because it's more costly at first (big capital costs) but we're going to have to pay more money if we want to hang on to the sport we know. Otherwise it becomes a dirt version of the basic industrial park crit. That would suck.
29 comments:
A necessary rant -thanks for raising the issue.
It truly bothers me when riders get pulled from our novice categories. It's a race for everyone, and the randomness of that pulling is particularly disturbing. Not to mention how difficult it is for officials to score the women's MABRA race, when all three fields are significantly mixed together by the end.
They had chip timing at Harbin Park - little disposable RFID tags that were velcroed to our helmets - a very cool system that I hadn't seen before but clearly a complicated, low clearance finish line to achieve this. I wonder how it really worked - it took them about 4 days to get times associated with the results.
1. 80% rule is bullshit and not mandatory. The promoters need to communicate to the officals to not pull riders period.
2. chip timing doesn't work for cross. Exactly what Becky pointed out.
3. Charm City brings in 2 sets of crews due to the number of riders the race gets. We had some scoring issues outside of the top 50 last week at granogue too... We had an experienced crew but not enough people.. that's critical.. we'll learn from our errors this year.
4. For the number of riders, I don't think the officiating crew was big enough today...
5. Longer laps keep people from getting lapped; we had shorter laps last week and today was a short lap...
6. based on what I saw today, the crew had never been to a cross race in their lives. What I heard in the pit and how our race was started (everyone ready! whistle) WTF was nothing in line with any rules I know...
how that happens to the biggest race in the Mabra series I can't understand...
7. DC MTB did an amazing job great event, lots of fun...
jim your race is coming up, be vocal with your crew. look to make a long lap.. based on numbers consider extra officals...
respect
fatmarc
Sorry to hear that Jim. That sucks. I had that happen at BCA about 5 years ago in the B race and I was po'd, so I know the feeling (and that was in a field of maybe 40). It looked to be a bigger problem in the 3/4 Masters. I didn't notice the same problem in the Cat 4 race while I was watching Jake. did they have officials still scoring the Cat 4s while the 3/4 masters were racing, leaving fewer to track racers?
@ Becky - thanks for your comment. I was unaware that a similar problem was hitting the mixed Cat women's field but now I think about it, can see how that's very plausible.
@ Marc - Yep on 1,4,5,7; 2 - I think there's probably some workable system, just a matter of finding it; 3 - that's a lotta coin for refs, I don't mind but the fee will definitely go up next year; 6 - not sure about the experience level, some of them are regulars and usually pretty good at cross. Not enough? Thanks tons for the thoughts. I advocate from a particular viewpoint but I know the issues are not settled and there are no easy fixes.
@Scott - I'm not real bummed for myself; as noted, I was one really hard bump from having to pull the plug with a stabbing pain in the back. I'm worried about Tacchino since we'll have 2-3 very large fields. Not sure why it happened but I think it starts with the basic outlook on the sport. I was speaking with Brancheau about this and there's a misunderstanding because the apre race scene is casual and with the exception of the now routine jostling and elbows, the racing itself is gentlemanly. But it's sooo damn hard, and I think that some people don't get that you can have brutal racing and also a good social scene at events, so maybe cross is viewed by some as road's buffoonish younger brother. It's not, it's road's more fun college buddy who also got higher grades in math. Not sure what the fix is. Have heard some good ideas and I'm mulling them over.
I agree with Marc that the officials were clueless. I'll add that they were also ill-tempered, which is a bad combination. Two anecdotes. First, in the grid before the start of the elite race they told a guy, and not very nicely, that he had to remove his water bottle cage and that he couldn't carry water during the race. It took a chorus of riders to settle the officials down. Second, during races, when officials should presumably be focused on the race, the officials would yell across the course at spectators riding in on city bikes and street clothes that they must wear a helmet or get fined. ("Hey you in the blue shirt. Yeah, you!! Put your helmet on or I'll fine you.). My mother could have told you these people aren't racers and that USAC has no authority over them. Do you think those folks will ever visit a cross race again after getting publicly dressed down in front of a few hundred people? If the officials had concentrated more on the race than what was going on outside of it, the scoring issues that Jim discusses here could have been avoided at least somewhat.
I'm not sure how the chips would work, either--a system could be made specifically for cross and other lapping events with some type of LED that would blink when you get lapped, etc, but from experience with triathlon, chip recognition would force riders through a narrow channel each lap that could become a choke point.
As the race progesses this would thin out, though. As for pulling people, I think especially in the lower CAT classes, people should just have the option to pull themselves or just plug on for the experience until the top XX finish.
All of this coming from a new 'crosser and non-promoter, so it may be taken with a grain of salt.
The only way the issues with the officials will be sorted is by you guys escalating this. One of you should be in contact TODAY with USAC to file a complaint. I'm not in your region but we all have a vested interest in USAC educating officials about cross racing.
Myerson and Bilodeau have done a good job interfacing with USAC re. cross officials in NE -- apparently someone needs to do the same in the MA region.
We've been fortunate enough here in the Ohio valley to have (for the most part) well educated officials that so far appear to be applying the 80% rule in a common-sense way (e.g. not enforcing in local/regional events but vigorously enforcing in UCI/USGP events).
Good luck with this -- I hope you guys see some improvement.
Thank you for the blog post. I think you are hitting on a very important issue in our sport. This is my first year competing in CX. I got pulled yesterday after 4 laps in the Cat 4 race and it sucked.
I am new to the sport, I put a lot of money and time into it, and I support all local races. I will continue to do so, however not everyone who is new to the sport will do the same if we continue down this path.
Getting pulled from a beginner race can be devestating to a new racer that is mostly just trying to fit in.
I've encouraged a female MTB racer to try CX, but after she watched racers in my catagory being pulled Sunday, she is not as excited about it.
There has to be a better way to support the riders who are new to the sport, or who are still developing their skills to be competitive.
They also cut the elite men's race short to "get back on schedule."
I was rebuked for my number pinning. Meanwhile the official was standing in the lane to deliver the message. When I switched sides there were spectators standing in the lane drinking beer.
DC officials seem to behave as if no one has ever dealt with the issues they've dealt with. Remember a few years ago when they wouldn't let you pre ride a course till *everyone* was off, despite New England having a way to deal with that?
Same thing when MAnBRA started getting 100+ rider fields. As if no one had ever dealt with fields that big.
Not sure why chips wouldn't work. Triathlons do it for literally thousands of participants in a race - just velcro it around your ankle and you're good to go. You could combine that with visual scoring of the top 20 if you wanted a failsafe for points.
I got yanked from the Master B race, which wasn't fun, but at least one expects a fast race. I felt really bad for the 4s - the get stuck with guys racing below their level who by extension set a really difficult threshold to meet to stay in the race. How are the 4s going to improve without time in the saddle laps under their wheels?
Here in Utah we had a failed experiment with timing chips in road races last year. They are no panacea. This year we've gone to finish line cameras, and it's worked very well. They use them at the industrial park crits midweek and have results up within 15 mins. They use them at the cross races as a backup to hand scoring (our fields are generally 50 or fewer, so hand scoring typically works). I'm not aware of any scoring errors that were not resolved quickly.
I think the real answer lies in promotion--get another race series going that competes directly with the MABRA. Thin the fields out by giving people someplace else to race. The promoters won't like it (less revenue), but adding some competition will force them to do better and make for a better experience for the racers.
SBJ - the problem we have is that we have a top good regional series (MAC) which is bucks-up and UCI sanctioned for the most part. It's the regional elite series and because there are UCI points available it draws national pros and some internationals. We also have a lot of grass roots races that are nice, but which vary considerably in the quality of field and quality of course. The MABRA series is aimed at fitting into the mid-tier. The races are aimed at being competitive in all classes, drawing racers regionally *from within the region* and providing really good competition close to home. Developmentally it has to fit between MAC and grassroots. If it was a true grassroots series, it wouldn't be a problem to encourage other grassroots races. Two races with 200 entrants each would be fine, the Cat 3 & 4 racers would be taken care of, there'd be no elite class to speak of and prizes would be minimal. The technical and training experience wouldn't always be topnotch, but it would eliminate the size problems. On the other hand if you're trying to help people make the jump to regional elite races, you need big fields because if you want to be elite, you have to deal with traffic. You can impose tighter technical standards because you can't have marginal races where every inch of the track will be used for the first lap and where rider development is a goal. Finally, you can't support a mid- or higher range event on a shoestring, you actually need some cash flow to do it. There may be some exceptions but most promoters don't many much, if any money from our local cross races. I promote my club's race and our goal is to break even or do just slightly better (a couple hundred bucks tops) from the race. So it's not about revenue = profit but revenue = enables us to put on a decent race in a nice venue.
Thorny problems. You can't move one piece of the puzzle without affecting the others.
lapped riders get in the way of those of us that are actually racing. It's not a fun-run, no one has a "right" to finish.
Don't want to get pulled? Get faster. Letting everyone finish is a lot like that nanny-statism in football you complained about...
Anon 11:48 - would you support the 80% rule applied after the first lap - so that everybody not within 80% of the leader's time gets yanked? (Mandatory application of the optional rule). I just want to know what rule you're in favor of. The rule I saw applied yesterday wasn't clear because most of the griping came from non-lapped riders who got pulled and a few riders in points contention. Meanwhile, large groups of actual lapped riders stayed in the race.
And "real racers" don't have a right to not have lapped riders on the course - to pull or not is a discretionary decision. Anyway, your "get faster" advice doesn't really work if Cat 4s don't get real time in saddle under race conditions.
One of the things I liked about cross, and I suspect a lot of people liked, was that it didn't have a "to hell with the newbies" vibe. Overall, I don't think it's good for the sport to lose that. If it does that, I think it will end up just as insular as the US road racing is relative to sports that are more accessible (for example, triathlons or mtb'ing).
Anon 11:48, that's a pretty shitty attitude you got there. But I guess it's easy to be a big man posting anonymously behind your keyboard. At the very least, the Cat 4's (all the Cat 4's) have the right to finish their race. They paid their money, period. Any "real" racers should be able to easily navigate around another racer. If they can't, then maybe they aren't that good to begin with. Cat 4 should be for beginner's and as such we should help them or the sport (and humanity) is doomed. We don't eat our young, simple as that. In fact, I don't believe in pulling people from any race. You paid your entry fee and the course should be yours until the the conclusion of the race. Save the attitude and road rage for the beltway, we don't need it when we are trying to have fun.
@todd- I disagree. Riders can get pulled. They should be scored.
Lapped riders getting pulled is a part of cross. I've been lapped, I've been pulled. That's cross.
This isn't mtb or tri...
everyone finished when the leaders finish.
The tight schedule demands that a 40 minute race not be an hour race so one person can finish. IF you're new to cross that's really part of the game.New guys struggle with that, but cross is it's own culture.
What everyone does have a right to be scored. Additionally the use of the 80% rule is OPTIONAL, and promoters need to tell there crews to not apply it. Also, longer laps mean fewer lapped riders, less posts like this...
As Jim pointed out the other issue is random people were being pulled last weekend. Some that were on the lead lap I guess?
That's an overwhelmed or inexperienced officals crew.
anyway, nice post jim...
respect
fm
This post and discussion leads me to ask what may be a dumb question, but I really don't know the answer to it. What is the relationship between a promoter and the officials at the race? Does the promoter pick the officials they want at their race? Or are the officials just assigned by someone and the promoter has no say? If the promoter has some input into who works the race, it seems like "the customer is always right" mantra should go a long way toward resolving these issues if promoters are vocal about what they want. Or should some more cyclocross racers become officials? Would that help?
Marc, thanks for insight. You have far more experience than I'll ever have and you have some valid points. I apologize if my comments were a bit naive, I still have a lot to learn. I simply didn't appreciate the "tone" of the anonymous posters comments.
I guess my main concern is for the people racing Cat4 and the "random" pulling of people Jim mentioned. It makes no sense to me and could really spoil a person's impression of the sport. If I got pulled (randomly) from a 40 minute race, after driving an hour+, I doubt I would be back for more.
The fast guys know what is expected and that is part of the game. I think the rookie's should catch a little slack.
Out here in the Seattle CX series we use RFID tags that stick to the helmet in almost all the categories (they seem to add the timing chips to a new category each week).
I'm pretty sure the officials are using a combination of timing chip and plain-old noting the numbers as racers come across the line.Whatever the exact method, it's working. They've got accurate results up 10-15 minutes after each race ends throughout the day. Might be worth an email to Dave Wamsley, the SCX timing and results guy for some ideas for next season.
For what its worth, officials don't pull lapped riders out here, either (and we've got mostly comparable fields of 80+ riders per category with two or three categories often racing at the same time). Everyone just finishes on the same lap as the leader.
The issue, it seems, is growth. I don't know that we need to 'fix' mabra. Seems like it works fine - if fields are reasonable. Yet the inclusion of more athletes to the sport is good for all of us. Perhaps we need another series - if good, fun cross courses are maxed out around 100+ riders. Some other issues that might be relavent:
1. with the field sizes, starting position seems to be critical. steevo pointed out that crossvegas had a long, wide prologue to address this.
2. podium or top-10 in a field of 125 is more impressive, to me, than in a smaller field
3. as a relative newcomer, i keep expecting to hear 'we liked it better in the old days when fields were smaller'. Instead, I've encountered nothing but a welcoming, inclusive vibe. this is worth preserving.
mike
FMC4 - thanks. I'll speak to the promoters about reaching out. Glad to hear from you about your experiences.
Mike - thanks for that. If we can improve scoring one of the things I would suggest is that we also track kill ratio and maybe assign series points (less than for wins but still significant points) for riders with the top kill ratio. This would award Starting Prologue Ninjas who make up 75 places with a great starting sprint, as well as guys who start DFL and work their way up steadily (like Schiecken has done pretty famously a few times).
Thin the herd.
Have guys who hang out in the 4 races and are consistently getting top 20% to move up. Same with the 3/4. If you get good results move up.
I got pulled starting my last lap and I was not lapped nor in danger of being lapped. As I crossed the finish line finishing 5 laps the official irritatingly screamed you're done. It was 2 plus minutes before the winner followed me across that line. That is absolutely ridiculous. There is no way anything negative happens letting me finish. I have never been lapped either, but the humilation factor alone, totally rankled me.
Mr. Anonymous racer, have fun racing in 10 person fields of "racers", because if the officials continue down this path people will definitely pull back from the cross racing scene. There was justifiably tons of anger at their unnecessary actions.
Anon 6:53. There's been talk about that. What slows the upgrade process is that there aren't many dominant racers who get forced upgrades out of 4 and 3/4, but there are a lot of good strong racers who are top 25 every race, week in and week out. I think what we may ultimately need is another field, or maybe we break the Masters elites into a 1/2 and 2/3 field. And what's up with the shrinking 3/4 field.
Dave - sorry that happened to you. That occurrence and some similar problems has prompted a lot of soul searching among the promoters and I think among the ref management - though I don't have complete transparency on them.
I got pulled from the DCCX C4 race @ 30 mins in, but wasn't too upset it because not 10 seconds later the leaders came by (plus I was ready to hurl anyway). I believe I ended up -2 laps when all was said and done, mostly because the leaders were so damn fast (and should be racing B's, but that is another rant for another time).
However, in response to the anon poster from 11:48, the C race is a beginner race (even if you the racer are not)...I don't think anyone should get pulled from the C's and everyone should finish on the leader's lap and then get scored accordingly. Someone leading in a beginner level race should expect to encounter lapped traffic and not have unrealistic demands for a clear field*. If the elite women (who are racing for $$ and series points) can deal with traffic from lapping 3/4 women on the same course then a C men's race leader doesn't have jack to complain about.
*not to mention having to pass lapped traffic can only improve your skills right? That is what the C race should really be about.
Thank you all for the feedback.
John "Clueless" Krawczyk.
(An official at DCCX)
Sounds like a bunch of people here need to take the time to become officials, give up their weekends when they could be riding/racing/spending time with family, and see what it is like to have to baby sit the racers.
You don't want to be pulled? Learn how to race your bike and don't get lapped.
You want more officials? Where do you think they come from? Magic Official land?
Don't want to wear your helmet at the race? I could care less if you break your head, but for some strange reason the promoters don't want the liability. How hard is it to wear your f...ing helmet?
Instead of complaining about officials why don't you become one and be a part of the solution?
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