'I guess the proof will be in the pudding' – UK time trial courses could get makeover under proposed rules

Time trialling courses in the UK could be getting a makeover as the sport's governing body, Cycling Time Trials, seeks to introduce new measures to push it forward.

If a new proposal is voted through at the CTT annual meeting at the end of the month, all UK time trialling would fall under one of two brand new course types – 'Competition' and 'Racing'. The latter would enjoy relaxed course-design rules that would enable organisers to find design new courses with far more ease.

The proposal, which comes straight from CTT's Board of Directors as opposed to one of its regional districts, is designed to combat a significant time trialling bugbear – course loss.

Road and residential development means that courses are constantly being lost because of infrastructure such as traffic lights, which instantly renders a road unraceable.

The current course regulations are tight, making it difficult to design new or replacement courses. They specify that the finish must be relatively close to the start – within 1.5 miles of the start on courses of 10-15 miles for example, and 2.5 miles of the start on courses of 25-50 miles.

Under the proposed set-up, 'Racing' courses could place their finishes up to 50% of the total distance away from the start (for example, a 25-mile race could see the finish placed 12.5 miles away from the start) giving course designers far more leeway. However, only 'Competition' courses, which would retain the current design restrictions, would be eligible for competition records and championships. 'Racing' courses would have their own course records but nothing more.

Mark Bradley is part of the CTT's Regulations Advisory Group (RAG), which designed the new course design regs. He spent time speaking to every CTT District to find out what issues they had with courses, which turned out, he said, to be "wide ranging".

"From personal experience, I also know that my own club event came under threat," he told Cycling Weekly. "By the time you avoid all the limiting factors like traffic lights and housing developments and pedestrian crossings, it's really hard to come up with something that works, so I thought anything that we can do to reduce the limitations on that can only help.

"I guess the proof will be the pudding," he added.

There would be no upper limit on the 50% rule, Bradley told CW, but it would be up to organisers to decide whether – for example – having the finish line 50 miles away from the start would benefit their event, or be to the detriment of it.

The issue of course loss, he said, varied greatly between different areas: "It's probably a disproportionate problem. The more rural areas probably have fewer limitations, but one district that's densely populated came back and said, anecdotally, they've lost about three-quarters of their courses over the last 20 years."

The new course design regulations are not the only thing set to be voted on at the CTT's AGM this month. Also up for debate is a proposal to reverse a ruling last year specifying that only bike frames marketed specifically for road (not time trial) use can be used in road bike time trials, and a proposal to reduce the maximum rim depth of front and rear wheels from 90mm to 65mm – also for road bike time trials.