Rrty & Helper rides

[quixoticgeek]

When organising a BRM, the organiser and helpers can do the ride upto 2 weeks in advance, and be validated (I assume this is on trust, as the organiser is validating themselves?). If the event is on the first weekend of the month (say March), and you do the test ride 2 weeks before, that would be in the previous month (say February), for RrtY, does that mean it counts as the March, or February?

J

[Chris S]

Helpers appear on the same result list as the riders on the Calendar day, so for RRTY purposes, it's as though you rode on the event day.

So in your worked example, it would be a March ride.

[grams]

Claiming RRTY in your example if you didn’t actually do a ride* in March would be highly dubious, even if the database record says otherwise.

(* ok, start one)

[quixoticgeek]

Claiming RRTY in your example if you didn’t actually do a ride* in March would be highly dubious, even if the database record says otherwise.

(* ok, start one)

Yeah. But it means doing 2 in Feb...

J

[grams]

I’m sure the RRtY bod will accept it as a February ride, perhaps backed up by appropriate Stravidence.

[jiberjaber]

When organising a BRM, the organiser and helpers can do the ride upto 2 weeks in advance, and be validated (I assume this is on trust, as the organiser is validating themselves?). If the event is on the first weekend of the month (say March), and you do the test ride 2 weeks before, that would be in the previous month (say February), for RrtY, does that mean it counts as the March, or February?

J

Suggest you drop Huggy an email to confirm approach.  I've certainly used helpers ridden on the date they were ridden, not the cal date.

https://audax.uk/awards-pages/randonneur-round-the-year/rrty-claims-and-badges/

[S2L]

The ride will appear on the same day as the event, if you want things different, then tell your riders to do it as a DIY... it won't be a BRM though, if that matters

[telstarbox]

100 years ago:

https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=105667.0

[frankly frankie]

The ride will appear on the same day as the event, if you want things different, then tell your riders to do it as a DIY... it won't be a BRM though, if that matters

There's no need for DIYs.  A helper ride is listed as part of the event results list - that's a requirement of both AUK and ACP - and so naturally acquires the event date by default.  It is possible to get your individual ride date altered to the 'actual' date, on application to the Validator or Recorder.  If this is done, it has no visible effect in the event results (a BRM will still be a BRM), but in your individual 'rides ridden' list the actual ride date will be displayed.  So you could then in practice use either date when claiming your RRTY.

This is sometimes necessary if someone does a helper ride and then rides a different event on the actual event date (sounds odd, but can happen - an organiser for example with 2 events on the same day, could recce one then ride the other) - and the results system doesn't cope very well with the 'more than one ride on one date' scenario.

[huggy]

For the purpose of claiming a BR/BRM event for RRtY validation, unless there is communication with the RRtY Secretary (currently me) to the contrary, the ride will be credited in the month of calendar ride.
If riding as a helper in the month either side of the calendar event and wish it to count in the month you actually rode, which is clearly the moral thing to do anyway, then I need to be advised of when the helper would like their ride to be counted for.  Without that communication I am none the wiser as to when the ride was actually ridden.
email address rrty at aukweb dot uk should be used in such circumstances.

[3peaker]

Morally a month is a month and I would expect to respect the date ridden, rather than the event date. It is about honesty and trust. I would have a conscience if I ‘cheated’ the simple RRTY code

[huggy]

Morally a month is a month and I would expect to respect the date ridden, rather than the event date. It is about honesty and trust. I would have a conscience if I ‘cheated’ the simple RRTY code

That is the unwritten code nicely put 

[quixoticgeek]

Morally a month is a month and I would expect to respect the date ridden, rather than the event date. It is about honesty and trust. I would have a conscience if I ‘cheated’ the simple RRTY code

That is the unwritten code nicely put 

Edge case pedantry:

How would you deal with that if someone's 1st and 12th rides were done in say, Alaska, and New Zealand, such that The rides they did, while 12 different months, when the 12th ride was done, in the timezone of the 1st, it was still the 11th month? Obviously this is highly unlikely to happen, I'm just curious how people would judge it.

I'd also wonder, how a 400km DIY ride starting at 2100 on the 29th of February, would be reasonably counted. Most of the ride is done in March, so by the practices of DIY's, you can ask it to be considered a March ride, This becomes more pronounced if it's an even longer DIY...

J

[huggy]

There is a simple answer to the not so pedantic query. 
Let's take a real world long ride as an example, which one, oh, let's choose LEL, as in 2017 that started in July and finished in August.  For the purpose of the AUK event calendar and rider record it is a July ride, therefore counted in July 2017 for default RRtY validation.
Some riders wanted to have LEL counted in August which upon application to the secretary was duly granted BECAUSE they could demonstrate that they had ridden at least 200km of it in August.
Therefore, the default stands that the ride will count for the event start date, but, if you can demonstrate that 200km+ was ridden in a different month then your RRtY credit can count for your preferred month.  However, that needs to be communicated in email to the incumbent RRtY secretary of the time and is at the secretary's discretion.

Please note:  RRtY validation is still a wetware powered function, very little is left to care of machines alone.

[lmm]

How would you deal with that if someone's 1st and 12th rides were done in say, Alaska, and New Zealand, such that The rides they did, while 12 different months, when the 12th ride was done, in the timezone of the 1st, it was still the 11th month? Obviously this is highly unlikely to happen, I'm just curious how people would judge it.

I'd say the rule is that you do rides (listed as) in each of the 12 calendar months, not x hours apart, so that wouldn't bother me. No different from how if your second ride was 59 days after your first that might be a perfectly good RRtY or might mean you've missed a month, depending on which date you started on.

Separately, I would consider a mixed-hemisphere RRtY as against the spirit of the thing, as part of the challenge is riding through all seasons.

I'd also wonder, how a 400km DIY ride starting at 2100 on the 29th of February, would be reasonably counted. Most of the ride is done in March, so by the practices of DIY's, you can ask it to be considered a March ride, This becomes more pronounced if it's an even longer DIY...

IIRC rides are considered as occurring on their advertised (start) date by default, but may be counted for the next month (but not both!) by application if your brevet card shows that you rode at least 200km of the ride in that month. Which is a slightly arbitrary rule but doesn't bother me too much. It pains me that riding the same ride as two 200kms on successive days can get you better RRTY cred than doing it as a 600km, but I do agree that an RRtY should consist of 12 distinct rides. If it were up to me I'd say that all rides - even the 23:59 starts - should be credited to their start date (in local timezone), because I think the organisational overhead of doing anything else is larger than any benefit gained. But if the secretary is happy to undertake the extra work then I see no reason to forbid them. At the end of the day you've still gotta ride the 2400km one way or another, and while I'm sure there are plenty of marginal tricks (I fully intend to use rides from December 1st and January 31st or something on those lines) they are ultimately, well, marginal.

[quixoticgeek]

I'd say the rule is that you do rides (listed as) in each of the 12 calendar months, not x hours apart, so that wouldn't bother me. No different from how if your second ride was 59 days after your first that might be a perfectly good RRtY or might mean you've missed a month, depending on which date you started on.

Separately, I would consider a mixed-hemisphere RRtY as against the spirit of the thing, as part of the challenge is riding through all seasons.

Depends how you do it, you could end up doing 12 winter rides...

I'd also wonder, how a 400km DIY ride starting at 2100 on the 29th of February, would be reasonably counted. Most of the ride is done in March, so by the practices of DIY's, you can ask it to be considered a March ride, This becomes more pronounced if it's an even longer DIY...

IIRC rides are considered as occurring on their advertised (start) date by default, but may be counted for the next month (but not both!) by application if your brevet card shows that you rode at least 200km of the ride in that month. Which is a slightly arbitrary rule but doesn't bother me too much. It pains me that riding the same ride as two 200kms on successive days can get you better RRTY cred than doing it as a 600km, but I do agree that an RRtY should consist of 12 distinct rides. If it were up to me I'd say that all rides - even the 23:59 starts - should be credited to their start date (in local timezone), because I think the organisational overhead of doing anything else is larger than any benefit gained. But if the secretary is happy to undertake the extra work then I see no reason to forbid them. At the end of the day you've still gotta ride the 2400km one way or another, and while I'm sure there are plenty of marginal tricks (I fully intend to use rides from December 1st and January 31st or something on those lines) they are ultimately, well, marginal.

I now find myself wondering what happens with rides that go across time zones. Start a ride at the right time on the border between Central European time, and eastern European time, mix in a day light savings time change too, and you can make for some really fun edge cases...

Timezones are fun, and also hard...

J

[lmm]

Separately, I would consider a mixed-hemisphere RRtY as against the spirit of the thing, as part of the challenge is riding through all seasons.

Depends how you do it, you could end up doing 12 winter rides...

Indeed, and in some ways that would be easier than a "proper" RRtY - a long ride in a hot summer is its own set of challenges.

I now find myself wondering what happens with rides that go across time zones. Start a ride at the right time on the border between Central European time, and eastern European time, mix in a day light savings time change too, and you can make for some really fun edge cases...

Timezones are fun, and also hard...

I think the same rules handle that ok. By default your ride counts as the day you started it (in whatever timezone you depart from), if you can show control stamps to substantiate 200km in the next month (in whatever timezone those controls are) then you can claim it as that next month.

I suppose a fiendish rider could e.g. start a ride from Tasiilaq at 9pm on June 30th, control in Thule Air Base just after midnight, ride 80km and control just after midnight again (3 hours later), ride another 120km, and claim July credit when they'd actually not ridden 200km in local July.

[FifeingEejit]

Separately, I would consider a mixed-hemisphere RRtY as against the spirit of the thing, as part of the challenge is riding through all seasons.

That's getting into the territory of "my RRTY is more valid than yours because I rode on frozen drift snow and ice with an air temperature of -8c"

An RRTY completed wholly in the Cairngorms may involve considerably more challenging conditions than one ridden in Cornwall, or one spread across the world to catch the best conditions, but the challenge is completing a BR(M) ride thats credited to each of the 12 Gregorian calendar months, nothing more or less.

[lmm]

That's getting into the territory of "my RRTY is more valid than yours because I rode on frozen drift snow and ice with an air temperature of -8c"

An RRTY completed wholly in the Cairngorms may involve considerably more challenging conditions than one ridden in Cornwall, or one spread across the world to catch the best conditions, but the challenge is completing a BR(M) ride thats credited to each of the 12 Gregorian calendar months, nothing more or less.

That's certainly the letter of the rules, and any valid RRtY is valid. But I'd think the spirit behind saying that a RRtY is not just 12 rides over a year but one ride in each calendar month is to say that it should involve riding over a spread of climate conditions - there's something romantic about being "a rider for all seasons" (whatever that means in your part of the world) and to my mind that's what RRtY exists to celebrate. If others are getting something different out of it that's fair enough, though I'd be interested to know what.

[bairn again]

Of course there was the extra 1 month dispensation granted a few years back (Jan 2011?) for RRTY when there was such a ghastly hard frost in the Home Counties that everybody in the UK got to do that months ride the following month and it still counted as a ride in the month before. 


So debating time zones, 2359 start times and helpers rides v calendar Rides does seem all a bit second order.   


   

[S2L]

Of course there was the extra 1 month dispensation granted a few years back (Jan 2011?) for RRTY when there was such a ghastly hard frost in the Home Counties that everybody in the UK got to do that months ride the following month and it still counted as a ride in the month before. 


So debating time zones, 2359 start times and helpers rides v calendar Rides does seem all a bit second order.   


 

A bit unfair... no such luck for those who lost February 2018 to the Beast from the East... 

[Nik's Nick]

Separately, I would consider a mixed-hemisphere RRtY as against the spirit of the thing, as part of the challenge is riding through all seasons.

That's getting into the territory of "my RRTY is more valid than yours because I rode on frozen drift snow and ice with an air temperature of -8c"

An RRTY completed wholly in the Cairngorms may involve considerably more challenging conditions than one ridden in Cornwall, or one spread across the world to catch the best conditions, but the challenge is completing a BR(M) ride thats credited to each of the 12 Gregorian calendar months, nothing more or less.

That's what tickled me when, as a still relative Audax newbie, I posted my RRTY and had a response within 20 minutes stating that it was an easy winter. Well yes. But real life stuff meant I didn't get to choose when I rode, and at least one was sub-zero and in snow. And that was an easier ride than some of the warmer ones...

[phil d]

My, don't we spend a lot of time getting our knickers in a twist planning hypothetical ways of gaming the rules for RRtY (and any other audax-related award for that matter)? When RRtY was introduced, back in the early naughties, the rules were laid down with exemplary clarity (thanks Mike) and except for the silly extended January we had one year have remained refreshingly constant. You have to RIDE one event of 200k or more in 12 consecutive calendar months.

As a veteran of some 14 RRtY awards (the first seven entirely on calendar events, and without using that January dispensation) I enjoy watching the reports of newer members tackling this most excellent challenge. It's often (usually?) not the weather that makes it difficult, but the scheduling around Real Life.

JFDI

[FifeingEejit]

Separately, I would consider a mixed-hemisphere RRtY as against the spirit of the thing, as part of the challenge is riding through all seasons.

That's getting into the territory of "my RRTY is more valid than yours because I rode on frozen drift snow and ice with an air temperature of -8c"

An RRTY completed wholly in the Cairngorms may involve considerably more challenging conditions than one ridden in Cornwall, or one spread across the world to catch the best conditions, but the challenge is completing a BR(M) ride thats credited to each of the 12 Gregorian calendar months, nothing more or less.

That's what tickled me when, as a still relative Audax newbie, I posted my RRTY and had a response within 20 minutes stating that it was an easy winter. Well yes. But real life stuff meant I didn't get to choose when I rode, and at least one was sub-zero and in snow. And that was an easier ride than some of the warmer ones...

Easy Winter? Depends where you were and what you consider easy.

[bludger]

If anyone is up for establishing a foul weather riding award then that is to be applauded, but I don't think it is fair to impugne anyone's rrty for getting lucky with precipitation and wind etc.