Our competition is now over, and we can declare the winners. But before we do that, thank you to all who took part. We had 43 entrants this season: 2 female, 41 open, of whom 8 were also v50+.
And the results for November on the flat Colbury to Beaulieu segment reflected the pattern we had seen across the rest of the season. Jen Dawson was once again the only female entrant, and maintained an enviable 100% win rate. There must be some female entrants who can challenge her next year?
In the open category, Niclas Olley continued his recent dominance, setting a 3rd best time in the overall Strava segment. Jon Hall was just about a minute slower, and had a further one minute advantage on Phil Banks in third place.
Jon once again won out in the v50+ competition, this time with Jon Dudley and then Paul Macken sharing the podium with him.
Season winners
And now the season winners. The competition came quite close to the wire, due to the way that the GC competition allows riders to discard their two weakest results (or can miss months due to illness or other absence) so that their top 6 achievements count. We also had a sub-competition, where the segments were divided into hill climbs (for the KQoM competition) or flat segments (for the Rouleur competition). But we have a set of winners:
Female category
GC: Jen Dawson (155 points; the maximum available!)
QoM winner: Jen Dawson (80 points; the maximum available!)
Rouleur winner: Jen Dawson (80 points: the maximum available!)
Open category
GC: Jon Hall (150 points); Niclas Olley (149 points); Tim Cooke (143 points)
KoM winner: Niclas Olley (75); Jon Hall (73); Tim Cooke (69)
Rouleur winner: Jon Hall (75) Niclas Olley (66); Tim Cooke (65)
V50+
GC: Jon Hall (154); Tim Cooke (151); Paul Macken (141)
KoM winner: Jon Hall (78); Tim Cooke (76); Paul Macken (53)
Rouleur winner: Jon Hall (79); Tim Cooke (74); Paul Macken (71)
A complete set of results can be viewed at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uGV6bqDiD42i7wAZL_wz0hUnxRECrNPIhlA69cDwR88/edit?usp=sharing
Again, thank you to all who took part. We now need some help from you, to suggest segments for next season’s competition, which will start again in April. These need to be safe(no right hand turns at speed; no crazy descents; relatively traffic free), within the typical ride range of a Sotonian member and able to fit either in our KQoM or our Rouleur competition.
And we’re open to feedback about competition design. I’ve had a suggestion that we should allow riders to record times for the competition during club runs. I’m wary of this as it makes it impossible to edit out any accidental drafting advantage; but if anyone knows how to make this manageable, let me know. Similarly, I was asked to review the consistency points bonus; does that penalise people too hard if they have to miss a month or too?
Finally, thanks again for entering the competition. There’s more to come next year.
Tim