The state of Australian CX part 3: Victoria
With the most recent round of COVID-19 restrictions putting much of metropolitan Melbourne back into lockdown, there’s no time like the present to look back on what cyclocross racing in Victoria looked like back when it was actually allowed to happen.
Will Ockenden races around the lakeside course at Round 3 of the 2019 Victorian Cyclocross Series at Beechworth.
Photo: @thatbikenerd
The third entry in our State of Australian Cyclocross series sees us move north from Tasmania, over Bass Strait and into Victoria. While Tassie hosted the fewest races of any of Australia’s states in 2019, Victoria held the most, with 17 separate race days according to the 2019 Australian Cyclocross Calendar.
Methodology
Where ages of participants are referred to, these will refer to racing ages (effectively one year older than most people are IRL). The participation figures are for each individual race day, so a person who entered every round would account for 10 people in the figure below. While this may skew results slightly in favour of those who turn up most regularly, we feel it’s most representative of what the sport as a whole looks like from race day to race day.
Things we’ve included in this dataset:
Race results from the 2019 Victorian Cyclocross Series, including results by age and gender;
Race results from the 2019 Victorian Cyclocross State Championships, including results by age and gender; and
People who started races, but did not finish, and are marked as DNF on the results sheet.
Things we’ve not included in this dataset:
Data from MTBA cyclocross events organised in Victoria - three National Series rounds and the 2019 CX National Championships;
Data from the three club races held in Victoria that were not part of the official Victorian CX series;
Data for kids races where participants are 10 and under, because:
Most kids races don’t give their smallest racers timing chips (meaning they won’t show up in officially timed results);
We believe that the priority for young kids is to get them enjoying bikes, and we want to encourage race organisers to promote having fun over racing; and
We want to respect the privacy of the kids and their loved ones.
People who entered races, but didn’t start, and are marked as DNS on the results sheet.
Erin Mitchell shreds a corner during her Women’s A Grade race in round 2 of the 2019 VICXS series at Beechworth.
Photo: @thatbikenerd
The 2019 Victorian State Cyclocross Series
Uniquely among the state cyclocross series in Australia, the Victorian state cyclocross series is directly overseen by Cycling Victoria, the state’s road and track governing body and a subsidiary of Cycling Australia. The eight race days on the Victorian calendar were organised by six different clubs, with CV providing oversight in terms of assisting in the organisation of races and outlining of technical regulations.
Round One: Fields of Joy CX, April 28th
Rounds Two & Three: Beechworth, May 4th & 5th
Round Four: Creswick, May 25th
Victorian State Championships: Mt Beauty, June 8th
Round Five: Mt Beauty, June 9th
Round Six: Dirty Deeds CX, July 7th
Round Seven: Caribbean Gardens, August 4th
Dr. Miranda Robinson can’t resist a smile as she powers through the Mt Beauty course in her women’s C grade race during round 5 of the 2019 VICXS.
Photo: @thatbikenerd
Facts and figures
Number of 2019 CX series races (including State Championships): 8
Number of other 2019 CX race days: 9 (3 x club races, 5 x CX National Series rounds, and CX National Championships)
Organising club/s (series races):
First race: April 29th
Last race: August 4th
Total number of race entrants: 1440 (1st)
Biggest race day: 249 (1st)
Average participants per race day: 180.0 (1st)
Percentage of male participants: 73.2% (6th)
Percentage of female participants: 26.8% (1st)
Racers graded by: Ability (A/B/C Grade)
Claims to fame:
Biggest series by participation
Most participants at a single race day
Highest percentage of women’s participation for a state series
Racing in Victoria: it’s bigger
If there’s one thing that characterises CX racing in Victoria more than other states in Australia, it’s the numbers of riders who participate: like everything in Texas, racing in Victoria tends to be bigger.
If we have a look at the numbers of riders who attended Victorian CX Series races in 2019, there was no race day with fewer than 140 attendees.
2019 Victorian CX Series races, by total participants
Indeed, of the top 10 cyclocross races held in Australia in 2019, 8 of the top 10 most attended races were held in Victoria, with Rounds 1 & 2 of the MTBA CX National Series in Adelaide being the only races to break the Victorian stranglehold on the nation’s biggest races.
NOTE: Victorian races coloured in blue, South Australian races coloured in red.
One other thing to keep in mind is that all those races above are only counted in terms of the number of attending adults - if you were to include the number of kids, the biggest races in Australia would be touching 300 participants!
Grading in Victoria
The Victorian system is almost entirely graded by ability, with adult riders participating in A Grade, B Grade or C Grade racing depending on their speed and experience, all of which are only for CX bikes. There are two other grades: Open, for those riding mountain bikes, and Young Guns, which is worth diving into in a bit more detail.
In Victoria, the Young Guns grade is for riders from around 10-15 years old, and is designed to be a stepping stone for younger riders between kids races and crushing souls in C grade, with riders allowed to race their MTBs if they don’t have a CX bike of their own. Typically these riders will race at the same time the C grade fields, allowing the C grade field to pass after their first lap before starting. Although the numbers of Young Gun racers may seem small compared to other states, it’s important to remember that by age 15 or 16 most Victorian riders have made the transition to C grade and are already ripping legs off - in the last round of the 2019 VICXS, 4 of the top 5 finishers in men’s C grade would go onto to occupy the top 4 positions in the U17 national championships a week later!
In Victoria, grading according to age groups is restricted solely to the state championships, which functions very similarly to the system found in the CX National Series, with the added wrinkle that there’s no Expert category at the state championships - meaning 20-29 year olds who normally race in lower graded have to trade elbows with the big guns for the Elite title!
Although Victorian CX is mostly contested by home riders, occasionally interstate riders come for a visit - Tom Chapman came over from South Australia to christen the new Fields of Joy track at round 1 of the 2019 VICXS.
Photo: @thatbikenerd
Breaking down the numbers
If we take a look at which of the racing grades proved most popular among male participants, Men’s B Grade and C Grade tended to have the most participants - on more than one occasion the Men’s B grade field was near full less than 24 hours after entries open.
Men’s B Grade had the most consistent field sizes (ranging between 37 and 67 riders depending on the race day), and of all grades in Victoria probably has the largest core of racers who would reliably turn up to each event and race.
The next most popular was Men’s C Grade, which had notably bigger turnouts for the four races closest to Melbourne’s CBD (rounds 1, 4, 6 & 7) - possibly indicating that there’s possibly a larger base of CX riders that are likely to participate in races closer to home than in A Grade and B Grade, where the cast of characters tends to be more consistent from race to race.
Men's participation in the 2019 VICXS, by grade
On the women’s side of the ledger there was encouraging growth in numbers across all grades, with real growth being seen at the C grade level over previous years - there were a whopping 30 riders in women’s C grade at the first race of the VICXS season!
One of the things that has helped improve racer satisfaction among female riders and in turn increase women’s participation in Victoria is to organise races such that women ride with other women. The VICXS technical guidelines recommend that women’s grades don’t mix with the men’s grades, and ideally that the women’s C grade races separately from the women’s A and B grades, so that C grade riders don’t have to worry about coming into contact with the women’s A grade or B grade field - something that we’ve anecdotally noticed is a common concern for newer riders.
Perhaps most notably, the 2019 races where this was the case (Fields of Joy in R1 and Dirty Deeds CX in R6) advertised themselves as such in the leadup to the race, and thus resulted in the two biggest turnouts in women’s C grade. This indicates that having a dedicated slot for new female riders helped increase participation levels, rather than that being a side effect of expecting large crowds. If having a dedicated slot for the women’s C grade race will help lower the barrier to entry and introduce more women to the sport of CX, then it’s something we wholeheartedly support.
Women's participation in the 2019 VICXS, by grade
The women’s field takes a break for a photo opportunity after competing in the Mt Beauty round of the 2018 VICXS.
Photo: @thatbikenerd
Gender in the 2019 VICXS
We’ve just talked plenty about gender in the 2019 VICXS, so why not talk about it some more?
Over the course of the 2019 VICXS and Victorian State Championships, women made up 26.8% of the total participants, with men making up the remaining 73.2%. While this figure of 26.8% is noticeably lower than the level of women’s participation at the 2019 CX National Series (which was 31.2%), it is still marginally higher than other states in Australia, which with the exception of Tasmania average close to 25%.
2019 CX National Series, by gender % per race day
Where to from here?
Although the Victorian CX Series appeared to be in robust health, there are a couple of areas for improvement - most notably that racing is not obviously allowed thanks to COVID-19!
Once the current health crisis has passed and racing is allowed to resume again, one of the noticeable things about the Victorian CX Series is the distance that most rounds are from Melbourne’s CBD.
Distance of 2019 VICXS rounds from Melbourne CBD, in km
One of Cycling Victoria’s stated goals in running the VICXS is to increase the geographic spread of cyclocross in Victoria, and it’s certainly succeeded in that regard. However, with the difficulty in participating in cyclocross without access to one’s own car and the noticeable spike in participation for the rounds closer to the city listed above (noticeably rounds 1, 4 and 6), there’s a case for trying to hold rounds closer to suburban Melbourne in future (though this would be dependent on gaining approval from local councils, something easier said than done).
Brett Kellett surges to the lead in the Men’s Masters 5 state championship held at Mt Beauty.
Photo: @thatbikenerd