In my relatively short experience of road racing so far, out of the styles of races so far the one I've enjoyed most has been handicap racing.
You have to pre-register and inform the handicapper of your recent racing results, and are then allocated a time handicap, in intervals of a few minutes. The best riders are in the "scratch bunch", the next best in the "3 minute bunch", and so on up to the "limit bunch". The handicaps are adjusted so that the groups are even in number.
At the appointed starting time, the limit bunch starts together. A few minutes later, the next group goes, and so on until the scratch riders go. The last race I did, a 45-mile race over an undulating course, the scratch bunch started 25 minutes after the limit riders.
Tactically, it means that, at least initially, your bunch has to cooperate like it's in a breakaway, and everybody goes as hard as they can sustain; more typical road racing tactics start to come into it towards the end of the race as the bunches catch each other and riders try to hang on to the back of the stronger (but possibly more fatigued) groups coming through.
As an extra incentive for the scratch riders, there's usually a prize for the fastest rider around the course, so it gives them an incentive to continue to chase all the way to the line.
I reckon they're fun because a) you get to compete against a huge group of riders, on terms that give everybody a chance of victory, b) people ride as fast as they can sustain from the start, rather than the rather dull racing you can sometimes get in a scratch race if the conditions don't favour breakaways, and c) there's a chance to work in a group in a pseudo-breakaway situation, which we don't get a lot of in non-handicaps.
Is this style of amateur races common in other countries, or is it an Aussie-only thing? And do others who do them, like them?
You have to pre-register and inform the handicapper of your recent racing results, and are then allocated a time handicap, in intervals of a few minutes. The best riders are in the "scratch bunch", the next best in the "3 minute bunch", and so on up to the "limit bunch". The handicaps are adjusted so that the groups are even in number.
At the appointed starting time, the limit bunch starts together. A few minutes later, the next group goes, and so on until the scratch riders go. The last race I did, a 45-mile race over an undulating course, the scratch bunch started 25 minutes after the limit riders.
Tactically, it means that, at least initially, your bunch has to cooperate like it's in a breakaway, and everybody goes as hard as they can sustain; more typical road racing tactics start to come into it towards the end of the race as the bunches catch each other and riders try to hang on to the back of the stronger (but possibly more fatigued) groups coming through.
As an extra incentive for the scratch riders, there's usually a prize for the fastest rider around the course, so it gives them an incentive to continue to chase all the way to the line.
I reckon they're fun because a) you get to compete against a huge group of riders, on terms that give everybody a chance of victory, b) people ride as fast as they can sustain from the start, rather than the rather dull racing you can sometimes get in a scratch race if the conditions don't favour breakaways, and c) there's a chance to work in a group in a pseudo-breakaway situation, which we don't get a lot of in non-handicaps.
Is this style of amateur races common in other countries, or is it an Aussie-only thing? And do others who do them, like them?
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