2015 MTB League - Round 6

Almost at the half way point in this years league. Race kicks off at 7:15.

This weeks course is a dinger, tough start, a very fast middle section to finish with a tough climb under duress and probably in front of a camera or three.

The Route:

• Starting at the Mother in Law an uphill test from the off.
• Turning right back down the fire road towards the Wooden Gate.
• Across the gate and left up the Stinger.
• Head down the Muddy River, over the stile and down to the fire road where you turn right.
• Up the fire road to The Stile and up to G-String Corner.
• Straight across down Pot Luck and continue onwards around The Castles.
• Towards the end of The Castles drop down to the Sycamore Tree.
• Continue the way you are facing but climb out of the dip and enter Aidans Canyon, go through the canyon, across the wall and climb out to turn left and finish at the Top of The Rock.

A note on Race Handicaps

The handicap system is in place to give everyone a fair chance. Looking at the leaderboard, even 6 races in anyone could still win the overall league title. The handicap system is incredibly tricky to get right and it always improves as the season goes on right up until the last race.

It's quite simple, after the first two races we sort riders by their finish times and try to group them based on their average speed. We split the riders right down the middle with the slowest going into Race 2 and the fastest in Race 1. Then in each race we try to group people with other riders of similar ability within a minute or two. 

There are many variables involved in accurately calculating someones handicap such as; were they tired, on form, out of shape, fit, injured? Are they coming back from an injury? Were they riding a downhill bike in week one, but a XC bike in week two? Did they fall last week? Did someone fall in front of them? Did they stop to help someone else? Were they slower due to a technical?  Were they unsure of the route? Did they follow the route 100%? Do they prefer the mountain or Bellurgan, are they better ascending or descending?

Based on our calcuations of their results and our estimate of their overall ability we try to group them accordingly.

It's getting closer at the finish line, we've a large number of handicap changes to make this week, if you feel you are in the wrong group of should be moved up or down please let us know.