'Cross race times

I'm confused :confused:

How do the times in cyclocross work? So far I have been at the very back of the races, so I just go until someone tells me to stop! I have been lapped every time and I think I was lapped twice by the two lead women in Gloucester's Sunday race. In looking at the race results, the first two women riders came in at 44:07 and 45:01. The third place woman came in at 38:08 and the times go up in a consecutive fashion from there, until getting to the lapped riders.

How can this be?

The first two women passed me near the end of my last lap, and I know I rode about 45 minutes. Did everyone else get lapped by these two also? We rode with the Juniors and the winning time for the lead Junior was 38:25. I thought maybe the first two women started their last lap before the Junior finished, but how did the 3rd place woman get a lower time than the first place Junior?

Gloucester Race Results

wow! HUGE field! how cool is that.

it appears that the two lead women lapped everyone once and then lapped a handful of women twice. however, it looks like the results don't indicate that (ie they missed the 1 lap for most of the field and the women who were noted as 1 lap down should have been 2 laps down).

in general, the race is timed so that the lead riders in the fastest field (if there are combined fields run together) will race for approximately the race time (40 mins, 45 mins, whatever). if there's not much time between races, the officials will make sure that the lead riders finish short of the posted time by the amount of an average lap (8 mins, 9 mins, etc). this ensures that the slowest riders will finish racing in time for the next race to begin on time.

once the bell lap has been run for the leaders, everyone behind them on the field also only races one more lap.

does this help at all?

Thanks, Velogirl. That's sort of what I thought. Maybe someone who was up near the front of the field could say if they were lapped by the two leaders (SheFly? Voodoo Sally?). If they are so far ahead of most of the field, shouldn't they be riding in a different category?

Velogirl was correct - the leaders did lap some of the women twice, and more importantly, were not lapped by the junior leaders, while the rest of the field was.

I didn't get lapped by the women leaders, but did get lapped by Luke Keough and Gaviin Manion - the junior leaders. Once they passed us, we were done on whatever lap they finished on.

Linda - it's a tough call on the women who are so fast they aren't getting lapped, especially in a 3/4 race. I do know that the woman who finished 2nd on Sat and 1st on Sun (same woman) has just upgraded and will be racing with the Elites in the next races. Someone like me races with the Elites most of the season, but didn't want to pony up the additional $90 for a UCI license to race 3 times (at the Gloucester and Verge series races, you need this license to race with the Elites, but not at other races).

It's really a function of how the categories are broken out, letting Category 3 racers race in a 3/4 or 1/2/3 race. I know it can be disheartening to some of the beginner women - it was to me last year! Take heart - most of the women in this boat will move on before too long.

SheFly

Thanks SheFly! I am not disheartened, just trying to figure it out :)