Booking System

"What a fantastic start to the season!

Given the additional Covid restrictions the start to our season has been quite remarkable in terms of safety, attendance and great competitive sport - well done to all the riders but especially the support team and marshals who have made this possible - an excellent team effort.

The RRCC committee met virtually on the 10th of May, a very positive meeting with some excellent feedback from members and some superb suggestions of how to maintain and build upon this start to our season.

Below is a quick summary of the proposed improvements, and please keep your suggestions and feedback coming, its much appreciated… and remember it's your club!

1. Reserve booking list - We have had a few weeks now where we have exceeded our permitted 60 slots (what a great position to be in!) to manage this fairly we propose opening the booking system to beyond the permitted slots as a reserve list, how this will work is simple: if you attempt to book on and slots 1 - 60 are already booked, put your name on the reserve list (60 onwards). If for any reason a rider drops out and deletes a booking slot the next rider on the reserve list will be expected to access the system and book the now available slot.

2. Booking opening time - Again a wonderful problem to have, we have loved some of the quips and comments about the digital "stampede" to grab a booking slot, given this was keeping many of you from your well-earned rest we moved the opening time to 7am the morning after a race. The system seems to have coped well with the 7am stampede, therefore having considered lots of alternative times we feel the best solution is to leave it at 7am.

3. Start list grading - After a member's suggestion we have operated a trial to start ladies and juniors in the first 10 slots. Whilst any changes like this will never please everyone (so apologies in advance!) we felt the positives of grading outweigh the negatives and are therefore proposing an improved grading system which will be managed simply by goodwill and lots of co-operation of the riders. All this would mean is when you go to book a slot always try first and foremost to book within one of the three grades that apply to you, we understand this will not be perfect and there will be lots of exceptions (work, appointments etc etc) when this rule of thumb cannot be followed. This grading format should stand us in good stead for the future. For a permitted field of 60 riders the proposed 3 gradings are:

Clearly this grading by nature will be imperfect however after hours of discussion and suggestions the overriding factors that we considered were:

Safety - Starting 60 riders in a graded format will result in racing completed well before we lose crucial light and visibility
Volunteers - Starting in this format means all of the volunteers and Marshals can get home before dark.
Racing - We are a racing club, so grading improves competition with riders of similar abilities competing and improving their times!

We propose to start this grading test at our first 25 mile event of the season on May 19th and would love to hear your thoughts. Note this event is limited to 45 riders, so the' rule of thirds' will be 15, 30, etc.

Keep up the good work and Happy racing………..."