How accurate is the race timing?

[Wannabe]

Racetec starts when the gun goes off, Winning time when you cross the mats.

at the CTCT it took me 1:10 from the gun went off, till I crossed the starting mat.

Can make of break your Sub 3.0  

[Halfdoesyn]

Racetec starts when the gun goes off, Winning time when you cross the mats.

at the CTCT it took me 1:10 from the gun went off, till I crossed the starting mat.

Can make of break your Sub 3.0  

 

Ja, make or break your sub 6:30, in my case...

[PietSw]

Two years back at 94.7 I finished just under 3 hours. Strava has it as 2:59 and some change. My official time however was 3:00:01. I did query it, but they just said "you're wrong, we're right.)

 

From my perspective, their timing is always out by a bit.

 Don't they start the Group time all at once?

 

So by a few seconds might mean that you started your Strava later than they started the official start time... for eg, you might have started it as you crossed the start line as they start it when the gun goes?

 

Just something to considder.

 

***and then i see a bunch of you commented on the same thing***

[Frosty]

Here are my Racetec times for two races, one where I started at the back, and another starting at the front. Both within a second (edit: 2 seconds for the one) of my own Garmin time uploaded to Strava.

 

I start my Garmin at the time the starter has finished the countdown, and stop it going over the line. Fortunately, I'm working for the team so I don't have to concentrate too much going over the line and can stop once I hear the beep.

 

 

Then, from my experience having worked with Championchip (on the start line for 8 years).

Below is the actual start time for groups chosen at random. The Start Time is the time of day, while Reel time is the time the person crossed the mat. The red time is the official start time published for the race,

 

 

Make what you want, but believe the timing is accurate if you understand how they time... GUN TO MAT.

[Skubarra]

 

 

 

Make what you want, but believe the timing is accurate if you understand how they time... GUN TO MAT.

 

That still don't explain the OP's question? How come to people that cross the MAT at the same time would have times that differ by 30 seconds?

 

I'm curious how that would happen?

 

That said - in my own experience the racetec times are also very close to my Garmin/Strava times so I'm not too worried that it would be inaccurate.

[Halfdoesyn]

If it is indeed gun to mat, there is a problem - at least in my case.

 

There is at least a 32 second difference between Racetec's time and my own. Add to that the fact that I stopped my clock about 15 seconds after I crossed the mat, the time difference is probably 47 seconds (my time being measured shorter than Racetec's).

 

I can add that while waiting to start, I found the start gun for the groups starting before mine, was bang on the published time, according to my device (Polar M400).

 

I can also confirm that my time was started 1 second before the gun, according to the tcx log produced.

 

I don't find myself close to any cut-off or personal goal, so it's academic to me. Just pointing out there are inaccuracies.

[Eldron]

I don't find myself close to any cut-off or personal goal, so it's academic to me. Just pointing out there are inaccuracies.

 

Silly idea - did you stop at any water tables? If your computer has an auto stop function then your computer time will be shorter than the race time by however long you stopped for.

[Eldron]

Yes, CTCT is supposed to be the world's largest individually timed bike race, but they also state that your start time is recorded when the group you start in moves across the mat, in other words, everyone in the same start group will share the same start time.

 

Not reaaaalllly individual, nê?

 

Sure but unless all ~35,000 people ride ITTs it will never be "individual". We cheat behind each other all day long.

[J∆kk∆ls]

CTCT

 

Garmin- 03:07:33

Ractec- 03:07:27

 

Not bad! 

[Halfdoesyn]

Silly idea - did you stop at any water tables? If your computer has an auto stop function then your computer time will be shorter than the race time by however long you stopped for.

 

My bike computer does pause the time when stopping - which I did quite a lot, but the Polar did not. It's explicitly set not to stop/pause the time at any time automatically.