“Can’t wait for speed limits at the next F1 race in Vegas”: Cyclists and motorists baffled by new “April Fools” 20mph time trial rules; Terrible anti-cycling barriers; Breaking (Away) Bad: Oscar Onley’s training/ painting gear + more on the live blog

D.Railleur wrote:

The best solution would be for time trialling to be banned on public roads. 

OMG why.  Thats a terrible idea.  Why should something that brings people pleasure and is not illegal be banned just coz certain parts of the organisation are running scared of the Daily Heil?

What is the pleasurable part of a TT that you couldn't recreate on a normal bike ride? Is it the riding part or the social, post event cake and banter part? Eating cake and comparing the size of your jockey wheels is the fun part for me but any good club will have loads of club rides at which you can do just that. If it's the competition element you enjoy, set your lap length on your garmin to 16.093km..then you can do a 10TT anywhere you like. As it's so often said, you're only racing against yourself anyway.

Off the road TT's? Interesting concept.......

I can't wait to see a gravel TT in the Surrey Hills, replete with disc wheels, pointy headgear and onesies.  Wait 'til the DM reading dog walking community hears about this  

Clearly I'm being somewhat facetious, and if I was genuinely worried about road based TTs I'd enter the off road races that you refer to.  Personally though I'm not down with drivists and shouty culture war warriors driving legitimate road users off the roads.  I won't let the b*stards win.

D.Railleur wrote:

DB Max run some great TT events at Castle Combe and Thruxton race circuits - traffic free, safe and with proper electronic timing.

Glancing at their website, a mere £25 for an 11.78 mile TT round Thruxton, so for a good TT rider about a pound a minute. Not everyone's got that level of disposable income.

D.Railleur wrote:

They bang on about wanting more women to race at the same time as defending a rule that allows a maximum of 25% spaces in their events for women.

That's a gross misrepresentation, they mandate that a minimum of 25% of spaces on any given mixed-race-entry TT must be reserved for women, there is no rule that says you can't have more women than that, just that you must save a quarter of places for female entrants.

The practical reality of the 25% rule will always ensure that in an oversubscribed race the male/female ratio will be 75/25. When I pointed that out to the CTT Board, they told me that equality for women wasn't a high priority, they had much bigger fish to fry - like mandating front lights in broad daylight and stopping riders from putting a drinks bottle down their skinsuit. The CTT board are comical at best.

The last CTT event I entered was £30 for 10 miles so more expensive than DB Max.

D.Railleur wrote:

The practical reality of the 25% rule will always ensure that in an oversubscribed race the male/female ratio will be 75/25.

Why? if the women are entering at the same time as men, there is no reason why it can't end up as 50/50

wycombewheeler wrote:

D.Railleur wrote:

The practical reality of the 25% rule will always ensure that in an oversubscribed race the male/female ratio will be 75/25.

Why? if the women are entering at the same time as men, there is no reason why it can't end up as 50/50

Because entry is based on LTS not when you enter. Women are on average slower than men. The reason the 25% rule was introduced in the first place was to ensure that some women actually get in the popular (oversubscribed) races under the LTS system of entry. Positive discrimination for women...a good thing you would think? Yes, when it was introduced it was, but if CTT's ambition for more women racing was actually a true ambition and not just something say they want, they would demonstrate that desire by setting the women's spaces to 50%. Refusing to change the 25% rule because other things like front lights and water bottles are more important has put off not just me but many women from having anything at all to do with CTT. When a CTT  Board member tells you that your concerns about woman's racing are not important enough for him or CTT to do anything about, then you too might question why you're involved in the sport at all. Happy go report I'm now 2 years free of all CTT events (open and club) and loving my TTing more than ever.

Lucky you, there's nothing off road near me and looking at the CTT website there's not much in the rest of the UK either.  I could be wrong but I think a lot of TTers would prefer to be off road (I think that whats behind the rise in poularity of gravel bikes) but its not practical to restrict/ kill a good healthy activity to placate Daily Wail readers!

D.Railleur wrote:

The days of these, let's face it, mainly older men, thrashing around through villages or worse, making a nuisance of themselves on dual carriageways is over or at least, it should be. 

Are you talking about SUV drivers again?

Backladder wrote:

D.Railleur wrote:

The days of these, let's face it, mainly older men, thrashing around through villages or worse, making a nuisance of themselves on dual carriageways is over or at least, it should be. 

Are you talking about SUV drivers again?

no they are normally yomping on the green lanes and byways, {hope this doesn't result in a court case from a previously unknown clothing manufacturer.)

Huh! The car market has gotten so warped, I forgot that actually capable off-road vehicles fell under the SUV category.
Not a million miles away from the advertising dominance of e-gravel bikes being off-road eclipsing the fact that MTBs still exist

D Raileuer either hasn't got a clue or is stirring. Ignore.

mattsccm wrote:

D Raileuer either hasn't got a clue or is stirring. Ignore.

On the contrary, my clue store is fully stocked. I just have a different opinion to you is all. With 30 years of time trialling under my belt as rider and organiser, I'm well placed to have an opinion on time trialling, particularly women's timetrialling, and the misogyny hard wired into the rules. You and anyone else are free to ignore me of course. That would be the man thing to do, and many do, which is why I stopped organising and riding CTT time trial events.

I actually do get where you are coming from. I got in cycling via triathlon and joined a local cycling club and started doing TTs and to be fair I enjoyed them . They were relatively low cost and for the most part pretty safe as it was pre smart phones etc. Then one day I was driving to me my now wife and came across one on the A14 in Suffolk and as someone looking from the outside thought it looked incredibly dangerous. At the time I quit and ended up rowing for several years. However I still loved the bike but to get my fix of competition I went back to triathlon. The thing is with tri's and I often discussed this with other cyclists that even though generally they are more expensive they are always better run ( hence the cost) normally more inclusive . I did a few years back step into the world of TTs again for a couple of events and I felt I had gone back in time. Same village halls, same riders and the same cake I cannot see myself doing it again. 

There was a TT competitor sadly killed in Kent 4 or 5 years ago (can't remember exactly) during an event on the A2070 which is definitely not a dual carriageway. So you don't have to go back decades. 

To be fair he was hit by an oncoming driver overtaking a lorry so would probably have still happened had the cyclist been out for a leisure ride instead of competing.

Edit -- actually happened in 2017