Megathread: Discussion on Vets and Juniors in the A3 category

foxer3640

Rode the a3 race at the Des Hanlon today. Over 200 riders in the group. Most of the placings taken by the juniors once again. A3 fields are becoming huge with people coming up from a4 all the time and very few a3s getting points for the upgrade. The size of the a3 field today says it all cycling Ireland need to have a look at changing the system and giving the a3s the points they deserve. It will never make a blind bit of difference to me as a very average a3 but must be very frustrating for anyone looking to make the step up to a2 with the same juniors eating up the points week in week out. Just my 2 cents on the matter over and out.

longshank

Beasty wrote: »

As a matter of interest, which province(s) do you regularly race in?

I get the impression that within Leinster in particular the fields are generally larger making it more difficult to get promotion and probably resulting in a better overall quality of A4 rider (although I do know of a lot of riders who have elected to upgrade probably as a result of the relative difficulty of picking up points). Equally I've seen plenty of comments on here suggesting A4 to A3 is not a big step with perhaps distance being one of the main differences

Munster - where the best Jnrs come from!!

Amprodude

foxer3640 wrote: »

Rode the a3 race at the Des Hanlon today. Over 200 riders in the group. Most of the placings taken by the juniors once again. A3 fields are becoming huge with people coming up from a4 all the time and very few a3s getting points for the upgrade. The size of the a3 field today says it all cycling Ireland need to have a look at changing the system and giving the a3s the points they deserve. It will never make a blind bit of difference to me as a very average a3 but must be very frustrating for anyone looking to make the step up to a2 with the same juniors eating up the points week in week out. Just my 2 cents on the matter over and out.

How many A4's were there?

Beasty

Maybe if more than one club in a province could put on races on the same day (certainly this time of year when fields seem very large), particularly in Leinster, the fields would be a bit smaller, the juniors would be more widely spread and points may be a bit more readily available.

That may also help in Ulster where limits on field sizes mean some racers probably have to head into other provinces when they can't manage to get into races locally. Yes it means promoters may not take as much in entry fees, but if fields are getting too large we need to find a way to alleviate it. The other problem I guess is it means more Commissaires will be needed

wirelessdude01

Interestingly I have seen a few facebook posts from some of the top juniors saying that they would like to be allowed to be upgraded. If you look at it if the NRPT have two or more riders in a race in Ireland they must essentially pick a guy before the race and say he is going to win, mechanicals and crashes obviously throwing a spanner in that. Has to be boring for them as well. From what I have seen the juniors just mark each other to death each week. Maybe if the juniors only got half points instead of the normal amount of points and once they they then had the points they got upgraded or else they were only allowed to enter a certain amount of A1/2 races or certain starred races. Another possibility would be that only 2nd year juniors are allowed upgrade if you want to use the oft used reason/excuse of 'minding' them. Either way something has to be done as it is failing some/most of our juniors when it comes to racing at the higher junior levels and also creates a log jam at A3 with regards to getting senior riders progressed up through the ranks.

Beasty

You're completely missing the point. Of course they would like to get upgraded, but the powers that be (ie the coaches and others in charge of youth development) consider that inappropriate. They will permit youth riders to race at higher levels, but only when they consider it appropriate - not simply because they have hit some arbitrary level within the rankings

wirelessdude01

Beasty wrote: »

You're completely missing the point. Of course they would like to get upgraded, but the powers that be (ie the coaches and others in charge of youth development) consider that inappropriate. They will permit youth riders to race at higher levels, but only when they consider it appropriate - not simply because they have hit some arbitrary level within the rankings

Well maybe they need to look at the situation, once the riders are starting to make their feelings known then the situation is becoming serious. From what I can see their progress is being hindered and now the riders are beginning to say that themselves.

Chips Lovell

The last time this issue was raised at the Cycling Ireland AGM was three years ago.

Martin O'Loughlin, who's the National Youth Coach, made a pretty convincing case for letting Juniors only ride A1/A2 races on a limited and controlled basis, i.e. when given permission by Cycling Ireland in order to prepare for big events. Dr Conor McGrane, Cycling Ireland's Medical Officer, was in complete agreement with the policy and, if I recall correctly, spoke about the negative impact over-racing can have on underage riders.

duffyshuffle

If enough A3s were able to get promoted to A2, and A2 had its own races every week, then would some juniors not be able to race with then when it is not an A1/A2 combined race.

Juniors being too strong for A3 and A3 not being able to get promoted due to not having their own points for their category are different issues. I think the big issue is not having a proper 'division 2', there's too much of a jump from A3 to racing with A1s, and a proper A2 could allow more top juniors the chance to race in races a bit harder without being thrown in with the top A1s

lennymc

every A3 rider has the option of upgrading to A2 when taking out their licence at the start of the year.

ROK ON

Strikes me that this is simply a variant of the RoTR in races thread. Cycling in Ireland has problems of success. Too many people trying to use the same limited amount of road space in a sport where the probability of success for most is low. If the sport is to retain its members (ie and not become a passing fad) then it needs to cater for those members.

Maybe more levels should be considered as one option, or CI should incentivise more events in same day in same province as Beasty suggested. I think that the later option could be considered when one of the big events (Hanlon, Elliot, Nenagh etc) is on. Just a thought.

lennymc

ROK ON wrote: »

I hinkmthatntjis

you what?

duffyshuffle

lennymc wrote: »

every A3 rider has the option of upgrading to A2 when taking out their licence at the start of the year.

I think A3 riders just want to be able to race for A3 points against A3 riders on their level. Not necessarily be able to get promoted straight away.

Currently self promotion from A3 to A2 means you go to A1/A2 for most races, not a standalone A2 category, which is a much bigger jump.

fondriest

lennymc wrote: »

every A3 rider has the option of upgrading to A2 when taking out their licence at the start of the year.

Allowing A3's self upgrade to A2 is just a lazy way for CI to try fix a problem ,this is at least the 3rd year in a row where this has been an issue . Surely it is possible to score the first 6 or 8 A3's over the line with their own set of points and allow them to upgrade naturally. I think a couple of years back it was said that it couldn't be done with the lack of finish line cameras but in fairness with technology around these days thats a load of bull, a smart phone would nearly do the job.
It's becoming a safety issue at this stage with a bunch of 200 racing over narrow lanes in carlow yesterday . I know the points thing isn't the only issue but its definitely not helping .

lennymc

fondriest wrote: »

I think a couple of years back it was said that it couldn't be done with the lack of finish line cameras but in fairness with technology around these days thats a load of bull, a smart phone would nearly do the job.

A couple of years ago I was spectating at a race where the camera failed, a number of smart phones were used to record the finish. The quality was quite poor when holding the phone across the line to capture who actually crossed the line in what order.

Allowing A3s to upgrade may be lazy, but it kind of nullifies (IMHO) the argument that A3s cant upgrade. i wonder how many people take the self upgrade option across all grades,

fondriest

lennymc wrote: »

A couple of years ago I was spectating at a race where the camera failed, a number of smart phones were used to record the finish. The quality was quite poor when holding the phone across the line to capture who actually crossed the line in what order.

Allowing A3s to upgrade may be lazy, but it kind of nullifies (IMHO) the argument that A3s cant upgrade. i wonder how many people take the self upgrade option across all grades,

Would be interesting to see how many took the self upgrade alright. Would also like to see how many A3's gained promotion naturally last year . Can't imagine there were too many.

I was only using the smart phone as an example , I've seen people do the finish line with an SLR camera and it was fine.

Cond0r

lennymc wrote: »

A couple of years ago I was spectating at a race where the camera failed, a number of smart phones were used to record the finish. The quality was quite poor when holding the phone across the line to capture who actually crossed the line in what order.

Allowing A3s to upgrade may be lazy, but it kind of nullifies (IMHO) the argument that A3s cant upgrade. i wonder how many people take the self upgrade option across all grades,

A couple of years ago smartphones were also very different from those today. Current generation iPhone 6 can record at 240fps.

As fondriest said, the self-upgrade thing is a cop out.

What's the point (haha), in having a points system which has upgrades defined at certain levels if it doesn't work? May as well just get rid of points altogether, and just let people self upgrade when they feel like it themselves. The way it is at the moment once you've got your licence for the year you're stuck at that level.

The system is quite clearly broken and needs to be fixed.

smurphy29

I was on here last week arguing against points for unplaced A3's, and on principle I still don't really agree with it. But after riding in a 200+ peloton in the Des Hanlon I do wonder if out of sheer practicality it may be necessary to reconsider. The bunch was simply too big for the roads and made for a very sketchy run before the hills inevitably caused a reducing of the field into smaller groups. The moto-marshalls were continually threatening to stop the race in the face of persistent riding ditch-to-ditch over a solid white line, but let's face it, they were never going to. [I should caveat all of this by saying that I crashed two weeks ago and as a result I'm a bit more nervous than I would normally be in the bunch, so maybe it was just me who was edgy.]

The A3 fields have consistently been the biggest this year and the bottleneck up to A2 will at some point reach a tipping point where the A3 groups become too large to be safe. We can all argue the principles of it until the cows come home, but focusing purely on safety and nothing else, unplaced A3 points would at least accelerate the promotion of the stronger A3s to the next grade and ease the pressure on the sizes of the bunches.

Cond0r

smurphy29 wrote: »

I was on here last week arguing against points for unplaced A3's, and on principle I still don't really agree with it. But after riding in a 200+ peloton in the Des Hanlon I do wonder if out of sheer practicality it may be necessary to reconsider. The bunch was simply too big for the roads and made for a very sketchy run before the hills inevitably caused a reducing of the field into smaller groups. The moto-marshalls were continually threatening to stop the race in the face of persistent riding ditch-to-ditch over a solid white line, but let's face it, they were never going to. [I should caveat all of this by saying that I crashed two weeks ago and as a result I'm a bit more nervous than I would normally be in the bunch, so maybe it was just me who was edgy.]

The A3 fields have consistently been the biggest this year and the bottleneck up to A2 will at some point reach a tipping point where the A3 groups become too large to be safe. We can all argue the principles of it until the cows come home, but focusing purely on safety and nothing else, unplaced A3 points would at least accelerate the promotion of the stronger A3s to the next grade and ease the pressure on the sizes of the bunches.

I wish I could thank this post more than once. Totally agree. Please repost this on the other thread about safety at races.