PPYCC Club Championships this Saturday!
It’s nearly time for the PPYCC Club Championships, one of the highlights of our club year. The club champs will take place during our normal scheduled Saturday session at Preston Park on 27th September. There’s no specific race entry fee, just the usual coached session fee and entry on the day. We always get great racing at this event.
For those new to the event, it is a circuit race on road bikes. The races are a set time, rather than a set number of laps, with riders informed when they are in the final few laps. This means slower riders wont be on the track longer than faster riders. Each each group gets two races, a short sprint race followed by a longer circuit race. To keep things interesting there will be a sprint lap for points approximately half way through the circuit race and there will be a combativity prize for each age category. The point system for deciding the overall winner in each age category is shown below.
Thanks to hard work from Sharon Spicer, we now have some new ‘blingy’ PPYCC medals in bronze, silver and gold for first, second and third by gender and age category. Well worth racing for! Winners also get their name engraved on the Club Trophies, awarded at the AGM.
We hope to have as many rider supporters at the track as possible. However, throughout the races all parents/supporters will need to remain outside the track centre, unless there’s a mechanical or issue when the riders needs support.
Please remember that to ensure fair racing we do expect riders to adhere to British Cycling technical regulations and age category gear restrictions – we’ll be checking gears following sign on. Please see a previous post on this for info. Essentially though, unless you are running a youth specific cassette on the rear wheel you will need to ‘lock-off’ the ability to change into the large chain ring. This just takes a few minutes and involves tightening the limiting screw that restricts movement of the front derailleur and prevents it from shifting up into the big chainring. There are videos on YouTube for all makes of derailleur and this is a very simple change to make. We really encourage all riders to train and race on the gears for their age group. This helps develop their pedalling technique, particularly high cadence, avoids injuries from riding too large a gear and ensures fairness in racing.
If this is an issue for you, a coach can support you in adjusting your gears, but please get to the track early, as we have limited time to do this.
Age Categories , year rider was born:
Youth E 2017 & 2018
Youth D 2015 & 2016
Youth C 2013 & 2014
Youth B 2011 & 2012
Youth A 2009 & 2010
We are running a very tight schedule on Saturday so please can we ask that riders arrive on time. Please note that some Outer Ring riders (those in youth C/ Under 12) will be racing during the time usually taken up by Inner Ring, and vice versa for Inner Ring riders in Youth B.
| Start | Finish | Duration | |
| Sign-on Youth C,D,E | 08:45 | 09:10 | |
| Warm-up on track | 09:00 | 09:10 | |
| Youth D&E sprint race | 09:15 | 09:20 | 5 mins |
| Youth C sprint race | 09:25 | 09:35 | 10mins |
| Youth D&E circuit race | 09:40 | 09:55 | 15 mins |
| Youth C circuit race | 10:00 | 10:20 | 20 mins |
| Podiums | |||
| Sign-on Youth A, B | 10:00 | 10:30 | |
| Warm-up on track | 10:20 | 10:30 | |
| Youth B sprint race | 10:35 | 10:45 | 10 mins |
| Youth A sprint race | 10:50 | 11:05 | 15 mins |
| Youth B circuit race | 11:10 | 11:40 | 30 mins |
| Youth A circuit race | 11:45 | 12:25 | 40 mins |
| Podiums |
Points system :
In each race the following points will be awarded. Each riders total points across the two races will be used to award the final championship positions in each age category for boys and girls. 1st 20pt, 2nd 15pt , 3rd 12pt 4th 9pt, 5th 7pt,6th 6pt, 7th 5pt, 8th 4pt, 9th 3pt, 10th 2pt …. below 10th place all riders will be awarded 1 point.
Bonus points also will be awarded for a prime lap in the circuit race , the start of which will be signified by a whistle or bell halfway through the race. The first 4 riders across the line at the end of that lap will be awarded the following points :1st 5pt, 2nd 3pt, 3rd 2pt, 4th 1pt.
Additionally, to reward attacking and bold moves in the races we will be awarding a combativity prize for each age category.
Looking forward to seeing everyone on race day !
