32-718: The British Best All-Rounder (BBAR) competition, organised by Cycling Time Trials , is an annual British cycle-racing competition. It ranks riders by the average of their average speeds in individual time trials , over 50 and 100 miles (160 km) and 12 hours for men, and over 25, 50 and 100 miles (160 km) for women. There are similar competitions for under-18s and teams of three. Qualifying races have to be ridden between April and September. Certificates are awarded to men with 22 mph (35.5 km/h) or faster and women averaging 20 mph (32.25 km/h) or more. The junior speeds are 23 mph (37 km/h) and 21 mph (37 and 33.9 km/h). Competitions modelled on
64-599: A distance. Ian Cammish Ian Scott Cammish (born 1 October 1956) is an English time trial cyclist. He dominated British time trialling in the 1980s, holding the Road Time Trials Council ’s British Best All-Rounder for nine years – 1980 to 1985 consecutively (still the longest unbroken string of wins) and 1987 to 1989 consecutively. Cammish has won and broken over 50 National Championships and Records including nine times National 100 miles champion and four times National 50 miles champion. He
96-401: A minute, and race against the clock. Riders meeting on the road were not allowed to race against each other. Unsure of the legal situation, riders dressed from neck to ankle in black to make themselves less conspicuous, never wore numbers but always carried a bell. Races started in the countryside at dawn on courses referred to only in code. Even the cycling press was asked not to say where a race
128-556: A race it could not report was happening. Compromise was reached when the newspaper, the NCU and the RTTC agreed to say that a time trial stage would be held from Folkestone to London but they and the cycling press were obliged to keep the start and finish lines secret. In 1951 the RTTC said, in a statement of around 3,500 words headed The Council's Statement on the Menace of Mass Start Racing on
160-464: A slave to create the new body on thoroughly democratic lines." Clubs in Yorkshire then broke away, dissatisfied with the RTTC's national control, and set up their own regional body. It lasted only briefly. In the RTTC's first year there were 429 races. In December the membership was 434 clubs, with a further 69 proposed. It sold 5,564 handbooks. Although started to thwart the NCU's ban on racing on
192-606: A time of 1m 27m 47s on a high ordinary. What the RRC did contribute was as great a measure as possible of uniformity in the conduct of road competitions. In 1922, Bidlake formed the Road Racing Council – membership of which was restricted to members of the North Road, Bath Road, Anfield, Polytechnic, Kingsdale, Etna, Anerley, North London, Century, Unity and Midland cycling clubs . Each was already organising events on
224-558: Is the fastest over the course, routed so it finishes close to the start to lessen the effect of hills and wind. Longer events, lasting 12 or 24 hours are also held, the winner covering the greatest distance. There are records at all distances, for riders on conventional bicycles, tandems and tricycles, plus for teams of individual riders, calculated on aggregate times or distances. There are championships for men, women, riders younger than 18, and competitions for veterans (riders aged 40 or more). The British Best All-Rounder competition, run by
256-730: The Road Time Trials Council ( RTTC ) in 2002. A time trial tests a rider not against other cyclists but the watch. Other than in team events , which are less numerous, competitors race individually, starting at intervals of a minute. Riders may not ride together when one catches another. The order of start is often organised so that the fastest riders are spaced apart. In that way they are less likely to catch each other, while when they catch lesser riders they will pass that much faster that neither will be helped or hindered. UK races can be organised over any distance but in practice they are most often run at standard distances of 10, 25, 50 and 100 miles, with occasional races at 15 and 30 miles. The winner
288-641: The Road Time Trials Council , RTTC. Its first recorded meeting was at the Devereau hotel in The Strand , London, on 16 November 1937. The first committee was Maurice Draisey (chairman), E. E. Stapley, E. F. Cash, W. S. Gibson, H. Parker, A. Shillito, Alec Glass, W. Frankum, A. Reeder, Bill Mills and Alex Josey . The rules were written by Glass, Josey, Mills and Draisey. The first general meeting, in spring 1938, resulted in its secretary, Stapley, being disqualified from re-election, even though "he had worked like
320-750: The BBAR are organised within UK regions, and for over-40s. The BBAR was announced by the magazine Cycling on 4 April 1930. It offered an annual trophy valued at £26 and a shield to be held for a year by the winning team. Time-trialling had been the staple of British cycling since the National Cyclists' Union (NCU) had banned massed racing on the road in 1888 as a reaction to police objections it feared would threaten all cyclists. The NCU wanted clubs to promote races only on tracks, or velodromes , but they were too distant and local groups began organising not
352-637: The Highway : Bunched racing is an utterly selfish and irresponsible use of roads; the policy of the Council is that all such racing should be stopped; the ringleaders and their associates of the BLRC have only financial gain as their motive; unsuspecting commercial concerns and newspapers have been given a distorted story about road racing; BLRC road races violate every one of the principles of clean amateurism, authenticity, and regard for public safety. A leader in
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#1732794590472384-426: The RTTC since 1944, combines performances across three longer distance events. In 1890, the National Cyclists' Union banned racing on UK public roads in fear of a ban not just on racing cyclists but all cycling. The legal position of cyclists was not secure. The cycling historian Bernard Thompson said: "Events organised by clubs in the 1880s, although taking place on quiet country roads, were constantly interrupted by
416-635: The RTTC, because it recognised the NCU's suspension, did the same. "Like the NCU, the RTTC feared that massed racing would endanger the position of all cyclists. The RTTC's position, however, was hindered by its decision to stop all racing at the outbreak of war - a decision quickly changed - and to stop elections to its national committee until the war ended. The committee re-elected itself for four successive years." The RTTC came to recognise that massed racing existed even if it did not approve, and other restrictions gradually relaxed: for example, clothing regulations became impracticable during fabric shortages in
448-416: The RTTC. Events are no longer secret; lists of riders in major events are frequently published in the cycling press and on websites. Far from wearing black, riders are now urged to wear bright clothing to make themselves visible on busy roads. Early morning starts remain common, however, but for the benefit of light traffic rather than secrecy. In 2002 Cycling Time Trials , a company limited by guarantee ,
480-538: The Second World War. But the RTTC continued to insist that races were run in secret. This led it to ban a proposed race from Paris to London in 1947. The NCU's ban on massed road racing meant the stage from Folkestone to London had to be a time trial, but the RTTC said advance reports about the race would be against its rules and refused to approve it. The sponsor, the News Chronicle , refused to back
512-465: The average speeds over the three distances. This average is not an average speed, since the distances are not used to weight the average. The table below shows this simple average as ``average speed``. Cycling Time Trials Cycling Time Trials is the bicycle racing organisation which supervises individual and team time trials in England and Wales. It was formed out of predecessor body
544-454: The competition more than twice are June Pitchford, who won three times in a row from 1984, and Julia Shaw who won a fourth title in 2010. Three BBAR winners have competed in the Tour de France : Charlie Holland (1937), Peter Hill (1967), and Arthur Metcalfe (1967 and 1968); Metcalfe is the only one to have completed the event. The winner of each competition is determined by a simple average of
576-626: The following three years. After his fourth consecutive win, 7,000 cyclists watched at the Royal Albert Hall in London as Southall signed the Golden Book of Cycling during the BBAR prize-giving concert. The BBAR competition was suspended during the war. It restarted in 1944, promoted not by Cycling but by the time-trial administrative body, the Road Time Trials Council (RTTC), today known as Cycling Time Trials . British cycling
608-621: The founder of time-trialling. Bernard Thompson, a historian of British time-trialling, wrote: Neither the Road Time Trials Council or the Road Racing Council before them can claim to have invented time-trialling. Without question, time-trials took place a century ago and the National Cyclists' Union national time-trial championship time-trials are recorded in 1878 when A. A. Weir was the victor with
640-571: The hard way; there were no pocket calculators in his lifetime and it is doubtful that he would have changed his tried and trusted methods, his tables of average speeds combined with his outsized slide-rule... about three feet long." Barlow died aged 90 in 1982. The men's competition has been won eleven times by Kevin Dawson , two more than Ian Cammish (nine). The women's competition was for many years dominated by Beryl Burton , who won 25 times from 1959 to 1983 inclusive. The only other women to have won
672-424: The massed races that the NCU banned but individual competitions against the clock: time trials. British cyclists came to see time-trialling as the purest form of competition, free as it was of the tactics of massed racing. But there was no reliable way of seeing who was the best all-rounder, over all distances and across a season, because difficulties with travel meant not all riders could take part. The BBAR overcame
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#1732794590472704-413: The police. Often horse-mounted policemen charged at racers and threw sticks into their wheels." The NCU asked clubs to run races on closed tracks, known now as velodromes. But few existed and so rebel races began, under the influence of men such as Frederick Thomas Bidlake , to continue racing on the road but in a way they believed need not bring police attention. Riders would start at intervals, usually
736-547: The problems by allowing riders to compete where they chose and then register their performances. According to time-trialling historian, Bernard Thompson: "It was probably the best thing that has ever happened to British time-trial sport, even to this day." The first winner was the South Londoner , Frank Southall , riding for the Norwood Paragon club. He averaged 21.141 mph (34.023 km/h) and won again
768-523: The road, time-trialling acquired a respectability which not only led the NCU to recognise it but for time-trialling to become a cornerstone of British racing. However, British cycling split during the Second World War when British League of Racing Cyclists (BLRC) enthusiasts for massed racing on the open road organised a race from Llangollen to Wolverhampton against the rules of the NCU. The NCU banned those who organised and took part in it, and
800-474: The road. The first meeting was at the offices of the Cyclists' Touring Club at 280 Euston Road , London on 27 June. The Road Racing Council did not make rules, making only recommendations which, because of its "fundamental common-sense background" clubs followed. As the sport flourished during the 1930s, the council reviewed its constitution in 1937, opening membership to all clubs and changing its name to
832-435: The war and it is doubtful that a sufficient number of marshals and feeders could have been mustered in those austere times." This shortened BBAR was won by Albert Derbyshire with 23.549 mph (37.898 km/h). In 1945 the competition returned to its full distance. Calculations of riders' averages were made from 1945 to 1976 by a Manchester enthusiast, Tom Barlow. Bernard Thompson related: "All Tom's calculations were done
864-683: The weekly magazine, The Bicycle , called the statement "sheer balderdash and offensive writing" and "a disgusting attack on the constitution, officials and members of the British League of Racing Cyclists, and of course, the repeated assurance that the RTTC can do no wrong." The rivalry between the BLRC and the NCU continued until they merged in 1959 to form the British Cycling Federation (today British Cycling ). The BCF accepted road racing, and controlled all competitive cycling other than time-trialling, which remained with
896-774: Was by then in a civil war, with the NCU's ban on massed racing having been thwarted by a new organisation, the British League of Racing Cyclists (BLRC). Both the RTTC and Cycling had campaigned against the BLRC, still convinced massed racing threatened the sport as a whole. But the editor of Cycling , H. H. "Harry" England was so upset that the RTTC had taken over the BBAR that he changed sides and began reporting BLRC races. The 1944 BBAR recognised that few riders had been able to train as they had previously and averaged speeds over 25, 50 and 100 miles (160 km). Twelve-hour races would also have been hard to organise because, said Bernard Thompson: "Signposts had been taken down during
928-399: Was established as a corporate body for the RTTC. Each course has a code, for example Q10/25. In this case, the letter represents the district, the first number the course number and the second number the course distance in miles. In other districts, after the district letter, the code may be just a course number - for example, V212. The abbreviation "HC" is used for Hillclimbing instead of
960-605: Was taking place and details to competitors were headed "private and confidential" up to the 1960s. There is dispute over which was the first race in this fashion but credit is usually given to the North Road Cycling Club of north London . It was held over 50 miles (approx 80 km) on 5 October 1895. Within two years, time trials had also been banned by the NCU, but events continued to be run secretly. Les Bowerman, who researched this and races that followed, said: What distinguished them from earlier unpaced races
992-483: Was that the riders started at intervals of two or three minutes in reverse handicap order, the fastest first. Company riding was not forbidden but was unlikely to occur. This would then be very similar to a time-trial as we know it. The fact, as Bowerman says, that there were unpaced races against the clock before the North Road event in October 1895, means that the North Road club can not, as it often is, be described as
British Best All-Rounder - Misplaced Pages Continue
1024-568: Was the first rider to break the 30 mph barrier for an out and back 50 mile time trial (1983 with 1 h 39 min 51 s). In 1983 he broke his own existing RTTC out and back 100 mile record by an unprecedented 7 minutes or so with a time of 3 h 31 min 53 s, setting a new standard and goals for 100 mile time trials. He remains the current holder of the RRA ( Road Records Association ) 'straight out' 50 and 100 mile records (1 h 24 min 32 s and 3 h 11 min 11 s respectively). Despite his successes he never won
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