Clifton CC

Hello there,
Is there any reason why members from other clubs cannot ride your TT series, or have I read the rules incorrectly?
Cheers, Matthew, Malton Wheelers

My reading is that members of other clubs can ride the summer TTs as long as they join Clifton as '2nd Claim'.

Of course riding as '2nd claim' means that you'd be eligible for the '2nd claim' competition category prizes and not the main category.

Hi Matthew

As Dr.Dave's said, the Thursday evening TT's are open to first or second claim Clifton members. Restricting it in this way wasn't taken lightly, but was a response to last season's events. The series has been something of a victim of its own success; as club (rather than "open") events we are limited on maximum numbers, and last year we were turning riders (Clifton members) away on a number of occasions. At the same time, it was (as ever) hard to get commitment in advance from people to marshal the events, and this made it stressful all round for organisers.

This year we wanted to find ways of hopefully keeping the numbers manageable and at least avoiding the situation where club members were denied a ride yet riders from elsewhere took part. It's also easier to chase club members to do marshalling duties - we know where they live! The policy adopted seemed to offer an arrangement which allowed members of other clubs who regularly ride Clifton events to take part by becoming second claim members. I hope that all seems understandable.

I understand. Cycling in general has become really popular in the last few years. Our TT usually only had 5 or 6 riders turning up, last season we regularly had 15 riders. So, if you fancy another mid week TT, try ours on Wednesday evenings.

Hi menticknap, which club are you from and where do your TTs run? Thursday evenings are no good for me, so I'm interested in other TTs in the area.

Malton Wheelers
We usually race on the Malton/Pickering road, a little busy, but its rather fast.
Check out our website and download our race list. You will also find route maps.
www.maltonwheelers.co.uk

This is only a personal opion, but actually I think I need to put it out there.

Last year there was only one TT where we had more riders than slots. So whilst I am in favour of either Clifton members having first call on the TT, say up to 7pm. Or by pre-registration, I cannot for the life of me see why if we are standing with only 20 people wanting to ride and a member of another club comes to ride why we should refuse them.

In my view it makes us insular, which is a real shame.

As a small protest I may not ride the TT's for the next 3 years -)

Brian

justsweat wrote:
As a small protest I may not ride the TT's for the next 3 years -)

Brian

Not that I am protesting about anything ... but if I was ... - I haven't ridden TTs for about 43 years.

justsweat wrote:I cannot for the life of me see why if we are standing with only 20 people wanting to ride and a member of another club comes to ride why we should refuse them.
Brian

I agree. I think the hillclimb last year used a formula along the lines of: Clifton members given priority up until close of sign-in; at that point, others allowed if there's space. I guess that option was considered at the committee meeting so there may be a reason why this isn't a great idea.

In order to keep my, and Cath's, and others', blood pressure down can I just note that this issue was discussed at length at the OGM (to which all members were, vigorously, invited). The various proposed responses to rising numbers (which could easily continue this year with further increases in membership) were considered in the light of what CTT allow us to do - which rules out quite a bit - and what would keep it simple for event organisers; especially getting helpers/marshals prior to events. Running the SPOCOs is a stressful business; I'd suggest organising one should be a precondition for suggesting alternative arrangements.....

Guilty as charged: armchair organiser. I should also have consulted the minutes.

But do you want just the ex-SPOCO-organisers to turn up to the OGM, or should the non-ex-SPOCO-organisers come too and keep a respectful silence?

As long as it's respectful, Tom, and there's no smirking

Brian

For the record we had three "10's" with 40+ and a couple of hillies where we were very close to that. I'm sure this year will be no different. Seems fair to me to restrict the events to Clifton riders - after all we are organising the series simply as club events. By doing this everyone is clear that they need to be a member to ride. I was the organiser turning Clifton riders away last year because we already had 40+ signed on with non clifton riders already on the sheet. This doesn't seem right somehow when it is club members supporting the series and providing the help? I'm not saying this would necessarily happen this year - we could get club members signed on first but lets face we are not running this as a recruitment campaign we are actually trying to restrict the number of riders! My view is 40 riders is too many - its a long night for the helpers and particularly the organiser and means we require additional timekeepers.

I don't understand why you think this alone makes us insular - name me a club with so many varied events that are open to all - this year - Reliability, Scotton, open TT, 3 x road races?
And a club with members participating in so many activities?
Thankfully club time trialling is only a small part of what we do!

Ok to give a slightly different point of view, i rode three Clifton events last year and prob the same the year before and i am a member of malton wheelers. Now we only usually get on average 10 to 15 riders to our tt's and so presumed that yours would be similar to ours, but seemed that you had way more. Now for me the clifton events are closer to me than the Malton ones and so decided to ride a few when they did not clash with our evening 10's the day before as i could only manage one night 'away' from the family in the week. It was soon clear that you had way more than us and signing on was a bit of an issue due to the high number of entrants, but also was well organised & good events which i happened to mention to our secretary who then came down and rode to see for himself the successfull nature of the clifton events.
I can see why Clifton have gone for this way of dealing with the numbers and totally agree with the direction that has been taken and cannot see a suitable alternative. Certainly the old forum saying 'that is no good' attitude with no offer of help does nothing for anybody.
My action? Well as i have enjoyed all the courses that i have ridden, and how well organised the events have been i have had no second thoughts about the TT issue and so have joined the club so that i may ride as many of the TT's as possible this year. Also as i am not a big lover of the hills and especially the Coneysthorpe circuit i am going to help out when this event is being run.

Was speaking to someone today about my plans to do TTs this year and he told me that in the past he knew people who had been refused entry to a Clifton TT because they were using fixed wheel bikes. I was hoping to use a fixie for the flat TTs. Is it right that I won't be able to?