Crit or road race?

ritcho

Just to follow up on the Amateur racing scene in Melbourne thread...

Short courses, such as the one described in Hawthorn are around 1km and are criterium or crits for short. I understand these races are based on a time limit + n laps.

The question I have is this. The races up at Oakville, run by Parramatta CC, use a 7km course and are run over a fixed number of laps (higher grades do more laps: A grade - 7 laps,..., D grade - 4 laps). Would you call this a 'crit' or a 'road race' (or something else)?

Just wondering...

Ritch

jazmo

Just to follow up on the Amateur racing scene in Melbourne thread...

Short courses, such as the one described in Hawthorn are around 1km and are criterium or crits for short. I understand these races are based on a time limit + n laps.

The question I have is this. The races up at Oakville, run by Parramatta CC, use a 7km course and are run over a fixed number of laps (higher grades do more laps: A grade - 7 laps,..., D grade - 4 laps). Would you call this a 'crit' or a 'road race' (or something else)?

Just wondering...

Ritch

That's an interesting one. The overall distance of the race is more like that of a crit (i.e 49 km for A grade would be a very short road race) but the lap distance is more like that of a road race. Sounds like a hybrid of the two (crit distance and a short road race length circuit). Is the course very hilly?

ritcho

That's an interesting one. The overall distance of the race is more like that of a crit (i.e 49 km for A grade would be a very short road race) but the lap distance is more like that of a road race. Sounds like a hybrid of the two (crit distance and a short road race length circuit). Is the course very hilly?

There are no steep hills requiring the granny gear... but there is a long drag of about 1-1.5km where I use a 39/16 for most of the way (C-grade). I'd describe the course as "rolling"...

Ritch

jazmo

I wouldn't call it a crit. The longest crit circuit I've raced on is about 2.5 km. So I guess it would just have to be a very short road race - particularly for D grade.