Cyclocross - racing by laps instead of time? (rule question)

so i checked out my first "official" race, which happened to be at kirtland park. part of the bike authority ohio series.

from what i could gather, the race length was determined by a preset number of laps, not time. whenever the front person would cross the start line, they would flip a card to one number lower (i.e. they are on lap seven, person crosses start again, the number gets turned to six). from reading stuff on here and other places on the web, i figured that cat 1 races were 1 hour in length, plus one lap, cat 3 were 45 minutes +1, and cat 4/novice were half an hour +1. when i have been practicing on my own; i was sort of following this assumption.

is either way, by a set amount of laps OR by elapsed time, acceptable to time the race? or am i just dumb and missing something?

Most of the races I've done the officials timed the leader, estimated how many more laps the leader would complete in the allotted time, and set the lap cards from there -- e.g. if the first lap was 9min for the leader, then when he crossed the start/finish the lap cards are set for 2 laps to go for a 30min race.

You got it 92, pretty sure that is how they do it for the Bike Authority series as well.

JT

JT, you coming to Nats?

Got a few buds driving over, but gonna be tough for me to work it in. Trying to figure it out right now.

JT

I would love to know who set that course up at Kirtland park..........Run ups up old slate stairs, switchback after switchback and some down hills that were not for the faint of heart. If I lived closer I think I would have to go ride it tonight.

damn, I never knew there were so may cleveland cyclocrossers on bikeforums! Both races this weekend were sweet, but that kirtland park course has to be the most unique thing I have ever ridden on.

I think its good that they count down laps instead of just instituting the "+1 cutoff" at exactly 30, 45 or 60 minutes, because for example the A-racer who crosses the line 59m:59s would technically have to do two more laps, while the guy who's chasing him and crosses at 60:01 gets only one more.

No not a Cleveland crosser, but an Orrville one............Se my posting about our upcoming races.

if i had a bike, i would've entered that race for sure, especially after seeing the course. i know that all cross isn't going to be like that, but it looked awesome!

but my bikes are still in brooklyn until next week. boo.

thanks for the info on the o.g. question, also.

That course was great. Very Euro...a little more pavement and it would have been even closer to a straight up Euro course. JT

Most of the races I've done the officials timed the leader, estimated how many more laps the leader would complete in the allotted time, and set the lap cards from there -- e.g. if the first lap was 9min for the leader, then when he crossed the start/finish the lap cards are set for 2 laps to go for a 30min race.

They do that in our races series too (Missouri Bubba), except that they average the first two laps. But in the example of 30 min race with 9 min first lap, wouldn't that work out to only 27 min of racing? One C race it sort of backfired because everyone went out super fast the first lap, then got tired and slowed down so we were out there for over an hour!

One C race it sort of backfired because everyone went out super fast the first lap, then got tired and slowed down so we were out there for over an hour!

that's exactly why i was confused.

do they do it specifically by time at nationals/other UCI events?