by Andrew G » Mon Oct 08, 2007 7:33 pm
[quote]Why oh why must the TT world insist on using such a dated method of measuring climbs, i mean get with the times please!
Adam,
It isn't actually old fashoined.
School time
: 1,760 yards = 1 mile and we measure distances in miles in Great Britain as we haven't converted to metric like mainland Europe.
Therefore quoting the hill climb distance in yards is perfectly correct. The odd distance is just because that's how long the hill is.
In the main TTs still use the standard distances/times of 10 miles, 25 miles, 50 miles, 100 miles, 12 hours, and 24 hours.
There are some exceptions to the rule which are:
Hill climbs - they're just how long that particular hill is.
Sporting Courses - these were introduced as a lot of the fast courses had become dangerous due to increased traffic flow, there were tragically some deaths on these fast courses from cars joining the road at spear-point junctions and not realising just how fast the tester was bombing down the road (they didn't expect a man on a bike to be doing 40mph).
The Sporting courses tend to be based around country lanes, which makes for a more interesting although testing course as they tend to include drags and hills. It was also hoped that this would focus riders on their finishing position rather than time so as to stop people chasing after the fast, and as a result normally more dangerous courses, as every course would be completely different and comparison of times less relevant. Jon H kicks some backside in these in the South East SPOCO (SPOrtingCOurses) series. The Rudy Project competition is the National series. Gethin Butler is having an easier season this year but he is king of the sporting events.
As they are country lanes they aren't always "standard" distances as they are routed to find a good course with a suitable start and finish point so you have 12 and 15 mile events for example.
Well worth a punt is the SCCU Sporting Weekend at the beginning of the year. This is a Sporting 10 on the Saturday (a sort of figure of 8 circuit), followed by a Sporting 25 (a 2 lap course on different roads to the 10) on the Sunday. SCCU points for ACC and a prizes for the fastest "no tri-bars", and handicap.
Place to Place - Run by the Road Records Association (RRA) and as it says, e.g. London to Bath and back. The most famous is obviously Land's End to John O'Groats. Gethin holds the current record for this set in 2001 and is 1 Day 20 hrs 4min 19 seconds!
Lesson over.
The Giant would make a good TT bike. I think quite a lot of people have converted their Giant TCRs to TT bikes when they get a new road bike as the sloping top tube helps make a good compact frame so you can keep the front end low and get a good aero position, assuming you can ride in it anyway.