The state of Australian CX part 4: New South Wales and the ACT
Our most recent entry in our State of Australian CX was on the recently locked-down state of Victoria. For part 4 of our series we’re heading north over the Murray River to check out the state of the cyclocross scene in New South Wales (NSW) and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT).
Before he was Australia’s sole representative at the 2020 UCI Cyclocross World Championships, Erik Vetisch tore up the course on his way to victory in B Grade at round 5 of the NSW/ACT CX Series at Matcham Valley Pony Club.
Photo: @cyclocrossnewcastle
Methodology
This is the only one of our State of Australian Cyclocross articles that will involve both a state and a territory, but Canberrans need not worry that they’ll be left out - we’re combining NSW and the ACT in one article because the state series in the area is shared between clubs in NSW and the ACT.
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 NSW/ACT CX Series, including results by age and gender;
Race results from the 2019 NSW/ACT 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 the 11 club races held in NSW and the ACT that were not part of the official NSW/ACT 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.
The Men’s Masters A field moments before the start of their R6 race at North Ryde Common in suburban Sydney.
Photo: @cyclocrossnewcastle
The 2019 NSW/ACT Cyclocross Series
The structure of the NSW/ACT CX Series is most closely related to that of Victoria, as it’s comprised of several member clubs who each put on one race day or race weekend. However, unlike Victoria’s state series, the NSW/ACT CX Series is not overseen by Cycling NSW, with the clubs who comprise the series cooperating to lay out the rules of the series, host events and track results from race to race.
Round One: Newcastle, May 19th
Round Two: Canberra, May 26th (NOTE: This also served as the NSW/ACT State Championships).
Round Three & Four: Sun Valley, June 10th - both races were held on the same day.
Round Five: Holgate, June 30th
Round Six: Ryde, August 4th
Niki Hale negotiates a step-up in Round 4 of the NSW/ACT CX Series at Sun Valley.
Photo: @nswcxseries
Facts and figures
Number of 2019 CX series races (including State Championships): 6 (5 x NSW, 1 x ACT)
Number of other 2019 CX races: 11 (All club races - 4 x Orange MTB Club, 3 x Central Coast CC, 2 x Canberra Off Road Cyclists, 1 x Dulwich Hill Bicycle Club, 1 x Manly Warringah CC)
Organising club/s (series races):
First race: May 19th
Last race: August 4th
Total number of race entrants: 310 (5th)
Biggest race day: 75 (5th)
Average participants per race day: 51.7 (5th)
Percentage of male participants: 74.8% (5th)
Percentage of female participants: 25.2% (2nd)
Racers graded by: Ability (A/B/C Grade), plus one grade by both Age and Ability (Men’s Masters A)
Claims to fame:
Most club races of any state
Cross-state collaboration - their state series covers both NSW and the ACT.
Greatest planned expansion for 2020 (pre-coronavirus outbreak).
Brad Eastick pilots his custom-painted Squid around the course in R5 of the 2019 NSW/ACT CX Series at Matcham Valley Pony Club.
Photo: @ohiggins
Racing in NSW and the ACT
There were a total of six races across five race days taking place in the 2019 NSW/ACT CX Series - with rounds 3 & 4 both taking place on the Queen’s Birthday Monday on June 10th. In total there were 302 participants across the series, with the typical race day averaging just over 50 attendees.
The biggest event of the series was the second race day in Canberra, which served both as Round 2 of the series and the combined State Championships for NSW and the ACT. As can be seen on a larger scale with the National Championships, the lure of championship hardware was enough to entice a few extra participants to come along, as that day saw a season-high 75 participants.
Participation in 2019 NSW/ACT CX Series, by race day
Interestingly, rounds 3 & 4 of the series were unique in Australia for being two races that took place on the same day - in the vast majority of cases where two races are held in the one location, they’ll be split over both days of a weekend, and often the same course run in two different directions.
For rounds 3 and 4 in the Blue Mountains there were 8 fewer participants in the afternoon races than those in the morning, meaning that about 14% of those who raced in the morning must have had other places to be in the afternoon - or at least that the prospect of spectating was more enticing than racing!
Grading in the NSW/ACT CX Series
Owing to the lower numbers of cyclocross participants in NSW than in comparable states like Victoria, South Australia or Western Australia, fewer grades are needed to ensure that everyone can have a race.
The result of this is that there’s no C grade for either men or women, and as such new riders will need to slot straight into B grade in order to get their racing fix. It seems as though this is a popular solution for most riders, as the Men’s B grade and Women’s B grade are comfortably the most popular option for participants in their respective genders.
Participation in 2019 NSW/ACT CX Series, by race day and grade
The one oddity of grading in NSW and the ACT is that there’s a single grade for Masters Men - presumably those who would like to thrash themselves just as hard as they did in their younger days, but without having to directly compete against top-level competition (though the two grades do sometimes start together).
What’s perhaps more interesting is that there’s no matching Men’s Masters B grade or Women’s Masters grade for older riders: either you’re a fast racer looking to outwit others your own age - but not race with the younger Men’s A grade crowd - or you can jump in with B grade. The fact that only one Masters grade is offered (and at a level of performance that won’t be accessible to a significant percentage of new riders) seems somewhat incongruous, especially given that the Men’s Masters A and Men’s A fields currently have no difficulty sharing the course at the same time.
In future, it would seem to make more logical sense to either do away with the Men’s Masters A grade altogether and grade races only on the ability of riders, or further commit to welcoming older riders by introducing a Men’s Masters B grade and a Women’s Masters grade to share the course at the same time as the current B grade races for each grade.
Gender and the 2019 NSW/ACT CX Series
Although the cyclocross scene in NSW/ACT is a little smaller than the area’s population might suggest, it’s refreshingly gender equal as state cyclocross series go - its women’s participation rate of 25.2% is second best of Australia’s state series, second only to Victoria.
Participation in 2019 NSW/ACT CX Series, by gender
While there’s obviously still a way to go in terms of achieving greater gender equality in races, there are a number of prominent members of the community who are strong promoters of women’s participation in CX, and some steps are being taken to help increase participation - as an example, elite racer and Canberra native Claire Aubrey led practice laps for women in CORC races in 2018 to help pass on some of her knowledge of the course.
Claire Aubrey flies the flag for the ACT at the 2019 CX National Series event in Creswick.
Photo: @thatbikenerd
When breaking down the numbers of participants in each race of the 2019 NSW/ACT CX Series by gender, it’s quite remarkable how consistent the level of women’s participation was - each race could guarantee that between 9 and 14 women would take to the start line. This indicates that while the size of the men’s fields are more likely to fluctuate from race to race, there’s a small core of women who commit to showing up to each CX event in NSW and the ACT*. While we love seeing committed riders thrashing it out at every race, we sense there might be untapped potential for greater participation among women in the future.
*Incidentally, this was why we chose not to evaluate each race day by % of participants per gender, as the number of men changed regularly while the number of women remained fairly constant.
Participation in 2019 NSW/ACT CX Series, by race day and gender
What the future holds
Of all the states we’re covering in this series, we were most excited for what New South Wales and the ACT had in store before the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic, as the planned 2020 series had three more races on the docket - all within suburban Sydney.
This is reflective of a strong push from a small number of committed individuals to grow the sport in NSW - particularly given that city councils in Sydney are notoriously reluctant to give over their public spaces for use as cyclocross courses.
Whether things will be quite the same once we’re allowed back on the race course is yet to be seen, but the future looks bright!
What might have been…
Photo: @nswcxseries