Timing a Cycling Race – Road/Crit/Cyclocross

Curriculum

6 Sections
24 Lessons
10 Weeks

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Intro to Cycling Races
Road Cycling is incredible popular, and are exciting races to watch. Although Triathlons have a wider reach as far as participants go, Cycling sees itself as a pure form of the Sport, with over a hundred years of history. The stakes for Cycling races can be very high, both for the fans and the athletes themselves.
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Time Trials
Time Trials are fast, individual races that have cyclists pushing constantly for every bit of speed. While the lack some of the high energy of a Mass Start event, they can be impressive races to watch
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Road Races
Road Races are the classic event that most people associate with Road Cycling. Mass Start races with distances over 100 km, this is peloton riding
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Criteriums
Criteriums are fast, packed, multi lap races that are fun to watch, but messy to time. Good Luck!
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Cyclocross
Cyclocross races are similar to an off-road version of Criteriums, mixed with an obstacle course.
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Advanced Timing Considerations
Well that was easy. but now for the hard stuff. A lot of things in this section are very in-depth and specific to certain events. The information included here may or may not be present on our Zone4 help documentation at help.zone4.ca
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Race File Setup

Start by selecting Cycling as your Sport, and then Time Trial as your Setup Template. Upload your .csv or import as needed. Create the start list as per the Tech Guide, or as discussed with the organizers.

Course set up for a Time Trial is very straight forward. You will have your Start, Finish, and optionally a number of mid-lap splits. Keep in mind different Categories will be doing different distances, so split up your course groups as needed. For ease of result production, it’s a good idea to set up your courses to match these, even if they do the same distance.

Course Groups for a Time Trial, showing distances — Course Groups for a Time Trial

If you are using chip timing only, set up your activators for each timing point as you would. However if you are using Photocells or other devices as Primary, be sure to put your Summit timer as primary, and your activator and other back up devices accordingly.

Start Timing point, showing Summit as Primary, activator and phone as back up — Start Timing point

Finish Timing point, showing Summit as Primary, Activator, phone and Rapid Cam as back up, and an activator as Precall — Finish Timing Point

If this is a high level event, remember the importance of back up timing, and having a Pre-call point for the announcers!

Intro to TTs

Timing a Cycling Race – Road/Crit/Cyclocross

Curriculum

Race File Setup

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