TysonCook

Hello,
My cycling club has around 120 members and all ranges of skill level (pro to 72 yo grandpas) and we're trying to figure out how to do a handicap system for club competition.

Anyone have any experience/ideas for freindly club events that could handicap a very fast rider to compete with those that are slower?

Thoughts of using Strava and doing a % improvement over a season, miles ridden?

It's pretty hard to keep club groups together on the road, and the pro/1/2 guys don't really do much saturday club rides as they are racing :-)

Seeing if anyone has done this before?

TheRef

One club I ride with (i'm not officially a member) keeps a log of miles with other members. At the end of the year the riders with most " group miles" win stuff at the annual winter dinner.
I think it works like this. A 30 mile ride with 1 to 3 group members count as 30 miles, 5 to 10 members you get bonus miles. 11-15 members the bonus miles gets larger and so on. This put emphasis on the group rides with the club.

Elvo

Your score = your miles * (1 + age/100)

trainsktg

Strava Premium allows you to filter segment performance by age and weight class. Not everyone would need to be a Premium member to see these results though; a Premium member can look up the age/weight ranking of a non Premium member.

Keith

K.Katso

Club races with age categories? My club has classes for 40+, 50+, and 60+. There are a couple of guys in their late 60s that are still going pretty good, and their competition between each other is pretty fierce.

TimothyH

I'd like to find a club where everything isn't competition and every ride doesn't turn into a race.

chaadster

If you set up the club on Strava, and have the members join, Strava will automatically do a weekly stack rank of the top 3 club members by distance, longest ride, and feet of climbing, and award virtual trophies. Additionally, you can view the entire club membership weekly stack rankings by those metrics as well as number of rides and average speed.

diphthong

sounds like you need to get the math peeps to work out an algorithm w/age, speed, distance, elevation gained, wattage, heart rate married to a
simpler formula w/number of riders, originality of route, day/night/both ride, type of bicycle, weather to get a "competition score." the higher, the better.

kbarch

What is the nature of this club that it has such a diverse range of riders in such a small group?

Handicapping suggests something like a regularly updated list on the club's website, but "most improved" suggests something more like a trophy awarded at an annual dinner. One would take different approaches depending on what kind of recognition was intended.

chaadster

One of my clubs has a mix like that, because it's organized by a training studio.

We'll, there aren't exactly any pros (though one former member just moved up from BMC's development team to a full pro ride on the Lotto-Jumbo squad! Go Alexey!), but we do have nationally ranked amateur USAT racers.

Any given club ride is rarely more than 15-18 people, but commonly includes ages from 17 to 70-something, men and women, racers, fast rec, and fitness riders.