The Hour, Real Track Starts and New Events on the Velodrome

The velodrome on Ride Cave just got a lot closer to the real thing. Time trials now start the way they do in competition: in a starting block, on the UCI start clock. Every track carries the markings you would find painted on a real one. And there are new events to ride, led by the oldest test in track cycling: the Hour.

Ride your own Hour

Pick a velodrome, choose Race, then Time trial, and pick The Hour from the Event list. You wait in the starting block on the pursuit line, the start clock counts you down, and then it is 60 minutes, alone, as far as you can go.

We follow the UCI rules for the Hour. The board shows your time left counting down from 60:00 beside your distance. The bell rings for your last lap once your time left is under your average lap so far. At 0:00 the board reads To the line, and you ride on to finish your lap. Your distance is counted the UCI way: your whole laps inside the hour, plus the part of the last lap you rode before the clock ran out, worked out from that lap's time and rounded down to the metre. That distance is your result, and the race radio reads it out as you cross the line.

It is your own Hour, ridden on your trainer, so it is not a UCI record. But it is the same test riders have taken on since the 1890s, and you can ride it on any of our 22 velodromes or on a track you built yourself. Everything about it is on the new Hour page.

A real track start

On a real track, a time trial does not start with a countdown on a screen. The bike sits upright in a starting block that holds its back wheel, with the rider on the black line. A clock in front of them counts down the last 50 seconds, and the block lets go on the final tone. That is now how every standing time trial on Ride Cave starts.

You wait in the block, seated and still, with the bike upright however steep the banking. Your first pedal stroke starts the 50 second start clock. It pips at 30 and at 10 seconds, then on each of the last five, and ends with a longer, lower tone. In the last five seconds the number turns yellow and a light comes on with each tone. Load the pedals as hard as you like before then: the block holds you, so there is no such thing as a false start. On the final tone it lets you go and your time starts.

If you would rather skip the wait, open Settings, then Preferences, and turn off the start clock in Track Starts. Time trials then start on a 3 second countdown, as before.

The lines on the track

Every velodrome on Ride Cave now has the markings of a real track. The finish line sits near the end of the home straight, a few metres before the banking starts to rise, where the UCI rules place it. Two red pursuit lines cross the middle of the straights, and a white 200 m line is painted 200 m before the finish. We checked the placement against real tracks of different lengths, so on a 250 m track the 200 m line falls in the first bend, just where you would look for it.

The lines matter. The 500 m and the kilo start on the finish line. Pursuits and the Hour start on the pursuit line, as they do in competition, and so does the 3 km pursuit skill.

New events against the clock

The time trial now offers every standard event. The 2 km pursuit joins the 3 km and 4 km, after masters riders asked for the distance they race. The flying 200 m and the flying lap are the events sprinters qualify with: you ride whole laps from the finish line to wind up your speed, and only the last 200 m, or the last lap, is on the clock, from the moment you cross its line. With the 500 m, the kilo and the Hour, that makes eight events, all listed on the time trial page.

Win-and-out, and race lengths from the rulebook

The scratch race has a new Finish option: Win-and-out. The bell rings for the winning line, and the first rider over it wins. But the race does not stop there. It goes on for another lap, and the first rider over the next line who is not already placed takes 2nd, then one more lap decides 3rd. The end of the race becomes three sprints instead of one, solo against the bots or in a Group Race. It is all on the scratch race page.

Scratch, tempo and points races also offer the UCI race lengths, worked out in whole laps of your track: 10 km for elites and 7.5 km for juniors in a scratch or tempo race, and in a points race 30 km for elite men, 20 km for elite women and junior men, and 15 km for junior women. Pick a points race length and the sprints are set for your track, as the rules say. Custom laps are still there, and a points race now goes up to 240 laps.

Points races and the Madison, by the book

Getting lapped, or gaining a lap, now works as it does on a real track. Lose a lap and you lose 20 points, and nothing else: you are back in the bunch, on its laps, and you can still score in its sprints. Gain a lap and you score 20, then ride on with the bunch until it takes the finish. A lap gained counts once you reach the back of the bunch, and a lap lost once the body of the bunch has caught you, not when a single rider slips past.

The standings always show every rider's points, however narrow the board, and a LEADER pill rides over the head of whoever leads, in their team's colour in a Madison. When you win something yourself, the race radio says so: You won sprint 2, You gained a lap, You won the race!

The Madison picked up two changes from a rider's weekly Madison group. A lapped team now rides on with the field, so its laps to go, its sprints and its finish follow the bunch. And if your racing partner slows right down, you can go and get them. Under the UCI rules any touch between partners is a relay, so coming up behind your partner and drawing alongside puts you in the race. Your badge reads CATCH and the radio tells you when your partner has slowed. There is more on the Madison page and the points race page.

Getting started

Open Tracks, pick a velodrome, press Next and choose Race. For the Hour or any of the new events, pick Time trial and choose from the Event list. For a win-and-out, pick Scratch race and set the Finish. All of it is free, like the rest of our track racing. All you need is a smart trainer or a power meter, and for the Hour, about 60 minutes.