There are 6 steps involved in the seeding process:
Choosing the weightings and penalties of the different rides
Establishing a base event
For each ride, adjusting the winner’s time and calculating its difficulty relative to the base event
Calculating an index for each rider for each event
Choosing the best index for each rider
Ranking
In more detail:
1. Choosing the weightings and penalties of the different rides
If you have done any event in the last 2 years where the result is available on our system, it will be sufficient to get you a seeding index. In other words, we will use your best single index from any event. There is no use of a weighted average as has been the case in the past.
In order for a route (distance within an event) to count at all it needs to meet the following criteria:
ROAD EVENTS
80km and over – no climbing requirement, no other penalty; or
750m of climbing, regardless of distance, no other penalty; or
60km with 15% penalty (added to your seeding index) – no climbing requirement; or
400m climbing with 15% penalty, no distance requirement
MTB EVENTS
50km and over – no climbing requirement, no other penalty; or
750m of climbing, no other penalty; or
35km with 15% penalty – no climbing requirement; or
400m with 15% penalty, no distance requirement
In addition the following must apply:
Must be a chip timed event
Only your best result will be used for seeding purposes, so having a few slow results due to mechanical problems or just having a fun ride won’t affect your seeding for the next event, since we only use your best available result.
2. Establishing a base event
Step 3 below relies on us being able to compare the difficulty of different events.
And for that we need a base event.
To enable us to do the calculation equally well for all events across the country, we first perform steps 3 and 4 below for the latest Momentum 947 Cycle Challenge, as well as the Cape Town Cycle Tour, and then use the better of the two indices as our theoretical base event.
The result is that both these events are treated as being slightly easier than the theoretical base that we use in practice.
3. For each ride, adjust the winner’s time and calculate the difficulty (beta)
Some races have a better quality of field than others. For instance, some events may have visiting pro riders participate and some events (especially shorter routes) have no top riders present. So we adjust the winner’s time to take this into account.
It would also be unfair to get the same seeding for being the same percentage behind the winner in a fast, flat ride as in a hilly, difficult ride. To allow for this we calculate a difficulty or “beta” factor. This makes the gap between the winner and you count less in difficult conditions and more in easy conditions.
First, an extract is done of all the riders who did the event in question, as well as the base event. Every rider with an index better than 100 is taken for this calculation. The assumption is made that the same riders should have the same index for both events, so the winner’s time of the event is now adjusted and the “beta” is calculated to achieve this.
In statistical terms, a linear regression is performed for the event relative to the indexes of the people in the event who also rode one of the base events. This determines how much the winner’s time should be adjusted and what the difficulty factor “beta” should be. There is no subjectivity in this process – it is an automated calculation without human intervention.
In layman’s terms, the adjusted winner’s time should be roughly the time that the winner of an event would have done if the winner of the one of the base events had ridden that event at the same effort. The beta factor will be 1 if the event is as difficult as (i.e. on par with) the base event, less than 1 if it is easier (eg flat and fast), and more than 1 if it is harder (eg hilly or very windy).
4. Calculating an index for each rider for each of the different seeding rides
This calculation is done for every result in an event that counts for seeding.
The formula is: (your time / adjusted winner’s time – 1) / beta value and then expressed as a percentage.
To the answer you get for each result, you need to add the following:
If the event took place more than 5 months ago, 1% is added for each further month that has elapsed (up to 5 years after which it will no longer be used)
If the event is a short route or has minimal climbing, a further 15% may be added.
So if the adjusted winner’s time is 3:20 and your time is 4:00, and the event took place 11 months ago and is the same difficulty as one of the Base Events then your index for the event is (240/200 – 1) = 0.2 = 20%. Plus 6% for the time elapsed gives 26%.
5. Taking your best result
Your indices for all the events you have ridden are sorted from best to worst. If you have indexes of 26, 28 and 51, we will use your best index (26 in this case).
6. Ranking
Everyone is then ranked according to their index overall, within their gender, and within their age group.
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