Hanslip mourns the MNTT

[SimonD]

In his latest blog, Michael Hanslip discusses the demise of the regular ITT in Canberra.
http://www.michaelhanslip.com/page6/files/d2ae3b9411abda71de8b32c7b0a03949-60.htm

It would be an interesting exercise to look at the history of race calendar structure (and courses) compared to attendance. For example Michael mentions over 60 people at a CCC monthly 40km ITT and good numbers at weekly shorter ones.

What else was going on at this stage? Have riders simply switched focus and interest to criteriums? Was it because the course was flat and smooth? Because it was regular and well run? Part of a series?

[SSSimon]

Yep they were the good old days alright when I actually got pretty good at ITTs - the 40k Parkes way course could be really fast if you had just a slight breeze blowing from the west. I think a lot of people could do good times there and compare their times to other flat 40k courses around.
I concluded after my dismal effort at the Masters Nationals that Canberra is not going to produce any more great Time Trialers until we get more ITTs into the calendar. At least we have one a month now - isn't enough to get to be a good TT'er, but at least it's more than before.

[pm0203]

This also hilights when not enough volunteers are present and more people are interested in participating rather than running the event.

The Vets were running into a big hole back in 2002 when the committee were doing all the race directing events, and "Hoping" people would stick their hands up to Direct a race. I implemented the Director roster in late 2003, and now with a database you can accurately target high usage rates by participants to determine who should be directing, and not just racing.

Rather than looking at a person and saying wow, isnt it great you are doing all the directing for a monday night TT, or wow isnt it great you are doing all the race directing for weekend, or wednesday night crit events. This should actually be looked on as a problem, because all the expertise has been narrowed down to one person, and there is zero culture of sharing the load.

Now the Vets have over 150 people that have Directed events, and the structure is in place to handle 85 events per year without all the load on a select few.

I think you would find that if the regular participants of the Monday night Time TRials were rostered on to Direct events, the MNTT would not have folded.

[SimonD]

I think you would find that if the regular participants of the Monday night Time TRials were rostered on to Direct events, the MNTT would not have folded.

In the case of the MNTT, I think it was more a lack of competitor interest than the inability to run it because of volunteers. It had a dedicated but very small following over the past few years. I don't think I did a single one last year, mainly because there was so much other racing on that I preferred to do - Wed, Thurs and just about every weekend.

[Simonsky]

The other thing about the MNTT was the course. Pretty tough, especially with all the other racing on. Oh for a flat TT course.

On that score I'm thinking about organising a 'training' TT out along Lake George, as soon as I can find a weekend where there isn't a race on.

[j_young_80]

Bilby's runs a 5k Hammer session on a fairly flat course Monday am's out at Belco which is good training - you'll usually get 3-4 5k loops done of a morning.

[Simonsky]

Yeh, I've always wanted to go to that. But I have the same problem with that as I did with the MNTT -- monday is traditionally my day off the bike (have gotta have a day off at least once a week!)

At least I got to sleep in if I did the MNTT!

[SueP]

Rather than lamenting its demise, why doesn't MH (or others) 'build it and they will come'?

Also on the flat course concept - it seems that the TT's these days at all levels are on more challenging courses.

[SimonD]

Rather than lamenting its demise, why doesn't MH (or others) 'build it and they will come'?


I don't know that they would (not that Doc Hipster has any spare time between working, coaching, fitting and mechanic-ing). It would be interesting to know crit numbers back in the glory days he refers to. I imagine they would be around 100? So that's why I suggested maybe it's simply a change in people's interest towards crit racing.

[SimonD]

Are there alternate flat course options any more with traffic? For a weekend morning, what about laps from the roundabout at Gordon to the Tharwa bridge??

[Simonsky]

Are there alternate flat course options any more with traffic? For a weekend morning, what about laps from the roundabout at Gordon to the Tharwa bridge??

Probably a tad too narrow on the shoulder down there. I know the AIS use the new GDE to train on for TT's. Could be good to try an informal one-way ride on that out of peak hour.

[Bean]

Are there alternate flat course options any more with traffic? For a weekend morning, what about laps from the roundabout at Gordon to the Tharwa bridge??

That may have been worthwhile when the road was closed on that section... no longer I suspect.