How do they decide who goes in the quick race or the slow race?
The current system is a highly scientific process whereby either Andrew or I:
a) Meticulously enter racer details into the Spreadsheet ov Doom, correcting people's errors on the sign-up form while trying not to introduce any new ones. Then let it have a stab at race allocation
[1].
b) Put all the handcyclists in the slow race (because most of them are quite slow, a few have impairments that mean they get quite cold while waiting around and they've specifically requested to race together).
c) Put all the new
[2] people in the slow race.
d) Put all the known-fast regulars and anything fully-faired in the fast race.
e) Put the known-slow regulars in the slow race, even if they're in a velomobile.
f) For important events
[3], optionally demote one half of the time team to the slow race so that there's always someone who knows what they're doing within reach of the Official Jam-Filled Babbage Engine.
g) Attempt to achieve a balance of numbers by promoting or demoting people based on age, gender, number of wheels, number of fairings and whether I recognise the name of the machine as a production model that's clearly performance or touring oriented.
h) Make last minute changes on the day based on people breaking their bikes, being stuck in traffic, being much quicker than I guestimated, etc.
Ultimately, it doesn't make that much difference, as the results are combined
[4] and ranked by average speed before points allocation. But obviously there are potential psychological/drafting advantages to being at the back of the fast race rather than the front of the slow race.
[1] There's some VBA witchcraft that I've been careful not to look at too closely that weights people according to HPV class and previous race performance. Sometimes it even works.
[2] Which means people I've never heard of whose name isn't in the database for the last couple of years of racing. As a relative newcomer to, well, everything, this means I occasionally miss that someone's an old timer who's been distracted by real life for a few years. But this is generally the safer option where inexperienced riders are involved.
[3] Particularly the first and last meets of a season, venues where we're operating under significant time constraints, and after making substantial changes to the timing software.
[4] Using some VBA voodoo that I thought would be simple when I started writing it (in a language where my previous experience was a 3 line macro I wrote as part of my dissertation), and is now up to version 1517 on account of all the edge cases it has to handle.
