Section Marking

[cornishtwinspring]

Question for all you good folks who give up their valuable time cutting out & marking the sections. Do you have a estimate in your heads of the marks the section is likely to take ,thereby having a winning score per class/route at the end of the event. Be interested in your thoughts ,comments. Cheers Folks.

[wheelieman14]

I have some information to share, regarding how hard our most recent NETA event was for dropping points for 4 Loops of 8 Sections, by the Lines (Gates) ridden. Here are the Expert Section riders' scores: http://www.newenglandtrials.com/files/MMC_5-15-16_NETA_2_Expert_YouthSectionResults.pdf

 

Here are the Novice Section riders' scores: http://www.newenglandtrials.com/files/MMC_5-15-16_NETA_2_NoviceSectionResults.pdf

 

I gathered all the Loop Punch cards after this event and considered tallying how many points were dropped in each section to rate Sections 1 through 8 by order of difficulty, for each class riding it. I still might do this and post the results online at www.newenglandtrials.com 

 

Typically, we want the riders to be challenged, but not discouraged. After the event, we noticed that there were quite a few riders in some of the classes that even had penalty points for arriving up to 30 minutes after the 4 hour soft time limit - so I listed their penalty points (1/2 point per minute late & total score reflects time penalty)

[dadof2]

http://www.westmorlandmotorclub.com/events.html

 

Take a look at the above, 40 sections, 10 to 15 marks off class winners and highest score about 130.

 

Just about spot on, a good challenge but not too severe.

[lineaway]

Score also is decided by what rules you run. A high scoring trials with the all day dab is considerably harder than no stop. Either way good flowing sections usually bring out the most smiles no matter the class. 

[crazybond700]

Question for all you good folks who give up their valuable time cutting out and marking the sections. Do you have a estimate in your heads of the marks the section is likely to take ,thereby having a winning score per class/route at the end of the event. Be interested in your thoughts ,comments. Cheers Folks.

 

In our country we have a Dutch Championship, regional championship (Although I think there is only one region? ) and club competitions. I organise club and regional events.

 

Our own club regio event is often difficult. So on avarage quit some 3's, also some fives here and there. But people like the challange we can offer in our terrain, and it is a nice contribution to the total championship, and at the end the winners of our event will most likely be the same as the total championship, so it is not bad.

 

We have four classes (ABCD), but this year we added a C+ class (and sometimes we have A+ class for riders that drive internationally), because the C class has the highest number of participants, and has big diversity in riders (old and young, but also in skills). The + route follows the normal routes of C, but has some extra passes with some obstacles or really difficult climbs or drop offs. This way the youth can up their game without having to ride dangerous stuff. And people that dont want to go to the B class have a challange. The scores in the C and C+ class are about the same, aswell as the distribution of points. Lets say 10 riders in each class. 1 or 2 with nearly no points, 5/6 with medium points, and some with high points.

Edited June 2, 2016 by crazybond700

[jimmyl]

I use a matrix for St Davids BTC and score each sections easy, medium and hard for each route - then try for a 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 .

I do this before marking the trial out so you know what each sections needs to be before you get there - its easy to get carried away once you start sticking the markers in.

We have graphs from previous events supplied by ACU so we can compare theoretical with actual for past sections. Also get somebody else to rate the section to get balance view.

I also try and avoid having hard on all routes in the same section -ie hard on champ would then try and be easier on expert route to avoid bottle necks. (terrain sometimes dictates that this is not possible)

Ideally 15 to 20 marks is ample for the winner but also try and avoid real stoppers that the very few can fly through but the lesser will be upside down on. Several tricky bits rather than a do or die.

it doesn't always work out and things you think will be hard are easy and that simple muddy bank suddenly become the test of the trial

[crazybond700]

Also I avoid go/no-go points early in the routes. If they get a 5 its better to have them at the end of the route, so they attempt, fail, turnaround and ride out of the zone and go to the observer for their five.

[rabie]

the other issue (i find) is the "spread", ie the winner of a class might be on really low marks, but the last rider might have (say) 3'ed and even 5'ved most sections. when the "spread" is this vast it normally indicated that a) you have got riders who are riding in a class they can't cope with (but might be learning / first ride in new class / etc) and that some good quality riders are "bedblocking" (to use a NHS phrase).

 

now the realy question in the above situation, is where do you pitch the route difficulty if you've got that wide range of ability

 

in practice for us we find that a lot of our "novice" / red route riders won't move up a class (is the next route too hard - probably) and thus we (all local clubs) make that route harder for the top riders in that class, while at the same time this drift in difficulty makes the class unappealing for the riders wanting to enter it (ie the jump from beginner to novice becomes too large)

 

how you solve this requires the wisdom of solomon!!!

[crazybond700]

Like mentioned above we had the problem in our blue class (C class). This class has the most riders. We split it up ths year as experiment to a C and C+ class. C+ riders ride the C route, with some extra steps or really difficult turns or climbs.

 

This can be done to every level class.