Those paying attention to their email would have already seen the overall results…… but behind every great result….. are a few more graphs (!!) and in the data, a few pearls of wisdom that may help you with next year….
So, we are going to start from the start…. how did we run the handicap this year?
Perfection for a handicapper is close race. In theory, if the handicapper has done his (or her) job well, all the runners in the race will approach the finish line all together….
We have a building set of data for the Dendy Riders. And taking the old add adage, previous performance is a pretty good guide of future performance….
1 we start with each riders last years climb time up the Skenes Creek climb (almost 10k) as a starting point (2013 time)
2. and then we make small adjustments, based on new, recent information. for example: we weighed all riders and for most, we were able to compare with last year
3. we also recorded the strava recorded km for the last 4 weeks ands if these were especially high (or low) we made a small adjustment
4. for a bit of fun, if you were riding on a beautiful new bike or had upgraded, then we docked you
5. and if in previous years, you had shown "variability" in performance (e.g. Liam smoked up the hill last year) - we docked you..
5. and finally, the handicapper's discretion "danger factor" was applied. and some people asked for special compensation (e.g. Marc White wanted extra time, given he is a smoker…. needless to say, this request fell on deaf ears…)
6. so, all this produced a handicap…..
now, for riders we don't have a lot of info on - it is just hard. Like the smoky on the race track, this year, those riders were Mark B, Chris P and Ben F.
And then there is the Calcutta.
You buy a rider, and if they win or place in the handicap, then you take the $$$.
As you can see below, most riders were purchased for $100+
And, 25% of the pot goes to charity (The AGF), so for a good cause.
there was a lot of interest in Chris P and Leathers (they went for $200 and $175)
How about the changes in actual climb time from last year?
Big improvers are on the left of the slide below….
Improving by even a couple of minutes is massive…. and Greg, Kings, Tim C, Giles, and Tim N and Marc W did a great job in improving their time from last year.
And then what about absolute times up the climb?
Well, Kings took this out with a great ride, and the only DR to dip below 28 min for the climb….
It was Ben F, Tim N and Adrian G who were the handicap winners up the climb in 2014.
And who won the $$$?
Well, the Amy Gillet Foundation were a big winner, with $950 going to them
And Liam bought the first and third placed riders - so he really took the rest of the pot….
(no wonder he is organising the collection)
so, if you made it this far, a few observations for next year and a few reminders for the handicapper.
- good punters know this, but the best value is in the "roughies". It is hard to handicap the higher variability riders and they can probably improve by 1min more easily that the faster riders
- but these riders are also just as likely to blow out their times as well…. so, beware.
Handicapper notes:
- I made too much of the Strava km. It is interesting to know the km. But, given I had no history of riders, was maybe a bit of a stretch to penalise people who did high km until we learn more
- Weight changes are worth checking and are an indication of current form. Notables were Kings (down) and Tim C (down)
- For faster riders - maybe need to think about smaller increments of time penalties. e.g. 1 min is massive for some of them….
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