Dear all,
It is time to vote on the proposed change of rule 3.3.1, as we need 20
days to vote before November 1st, the deadline for this year's rule
changes. All board members therefore please write to this list before
October 29th and vote yes or no, or if you prefer, write to Records and
Rules Committee chairman Edgar Teufel or WHPVA chairman Nick Green.
I have heard of no more discussion in the last weeks, but I'll summarize
some points made:
- Giovanni Eupani suggested to change the inside curve definition of
this rule to relate to the *center* of a vehicle rather than the *inside
wheel*. As presently stated, multitrack vehicles must travel a bit
further around curves than single-track vehicles.
Nobody else commented and Giovanni didn't formally propose it (you still
could, Giovanni). For me this is a separate issue even if part of rule
3.3.1.
- Toni Cornelissen mentioned that wind was a major problem, often
disallowing otherwise valid records. I totally agree, but again this is
a separate issue. It is also more difficult, because while advantages
due to gravity can be precisely calculated, with wind it depends on a
lot of things, which we can happily take a year discussing. We must get
away from a simple maximum wind speed to a system which allows more
wind, provided it does not assist the record, as in the present *water*
rules.
- Several people think that the new rule will make it harder to find
good sites. The opposite is true. Under the present rules many sites are
"legal" but only (very rare) courses offering several km of a steady
downslope between 0.5% and 0.66% are likely to produce any new 200m
records, which are presently *all* IHPVA records from the Nevada site
near the town Battle Mountain, which offers this. The new rule will
allow records to be carried out on any reasonably flat coastal, marsh or
lakeside road or any round course, even if the known (to me) "big
circuits" are not flat enough to be competitive after the first few
records. Some of the coastal roads will be perfect then (except for the
wind), e.g. the N701 or N302 roads near Lelystad in the Netherlands, or
many smaller roads in northern Germany. Here the trick will be to either
find reasonable surfaces or get permission for temporary closure of main
roads.
Anyway, please vote on the rule change below. It no longer contains an
Appendix, which Edgar felt was unnecessary, and as Toni discovered, the
rule itself contains a clear simple principle and *one* easy method of
achieving this. (That is, other methods which might be discovered, are
not explicitly banned.)
Best,
Theo Schmidt, for Future Bike Switzerland
---------------
Existing:
Rule 3.3.1
Course Flatness: Except for courses for the road race events, and
time trial events one hour and over, all courses must meet the following
flatness requirement: If an imaginary line is drawn from the end of the
timed portion of the event course back toward the beginning of the
course but sloped upward at a slope of 2/3 percent (1 metre in 150), at
no point may the vehicle course pass above this line. Curved courses may
be used for any event, provided the same flatness requirement is met.
The 200 metre time trap in the 200 metre speed trial events, however,
must be contained in a straight section. All curved courses must be
clearly marked with the limiting inside boundary. Any vehicle crossing a
wheel over this boundary shall be disqualified from the run. Course
distance shall be measured from the inside boundary of turns.
Proposal to change first part to:
Rule 3.3.1:
Course Flatness and Straightness: Except for the road race events, and
time trial events one hour and over involving multiple laps, all courses
must be sufficiently flat to give no speed advantage compared to the
otherwise same situation on a hypothetical course with constant
elevation. This is the case when all points of a timed course or section
have an elevation which is equal to or higher than that of its start,
and for events with flying starts, all points of the run-up section have
an elevation which is equal to or lower than that of its finish, which
is also the start of the timed section.
...
(From "Curved courses may..." to stay the same.)
