Rewards and categories

We are still working out the details of the prize package. It will include special rewards for the winners of the overall ranking.

Rider/vehicle categories

For the 2021 World Championships, we distinguish the following vehicle categories:

• FF: Fully faired / all fairings allowed
  
• FF-female: Fully faired, female
  
• PF: Partly faired / only front or tail fairing
  
• UF: Unfaired / no fairing allowed
  
• UF/PF_female: Unfaired/partly faired female
  
• UF_trike: Unfaired trike
  
• HF: Hand or Hand-Foot or rowing bike
  

We may add additional categories if someone takes the initiative and brings along at least a dozen participants in that category.

When you register, you specify your bike and the class that you want to participate in. The FF class serves as an open class: there are no restrictions. Except in case of irreparable damage, switching bikes between races is not allowed.
For the Bike Courier race these rules do not apply, you can use any bike and there are no categories.

In addition to the above, there will be one prize for best junior and one for best senior, defined as:
jr: junior, 15 and below
sr: senior, 55 and up

The long read

Below is our motivation for the selected set of categories.

The categories Fully, Partly and Unfaired (FF, PF, UF) are well established and the distinction seems to work reasonably well. See the WRRA website for the definition of these categories. At recent editions of Cycle Vision we have seen that the results in the PF/UF category are much more dependent on rider than bike, so we tend to take them together. At the World Championships however we expect some serious contenders in both the UF and PF categories, so we will separate them.

Categories based on number of wheels
In the FF class, velomobiles dominate because of their street-worthiness. There are not enough two-wheeled FF bikes participating to make a class distinction. In the UF class, bikes dominate and tend to be faster than trikes. But trikes have a dedicated fan base, and at the moment recumbent dealers are selling more trikes than bikes. So we see a motivation for having a UF-trike class.

Based on gender
The number of women participating is 10-15%. The consequence of this is that the number of participants in the four categories that were defined above is very low. It seems a reasonable requirement to have at least 5 participants to award a 1st 2nd and 3rd prize. We could make the decision about this one month ahead of the event, based on registrations. From past experience, we expect there will be a PF/UF-female class and a FF-female class.

Based on age
Two decisions here, the age limits and the vehicle categories.
For juniority: 15 and below.
For seniority: 55 and up.
We tend to not have strict age limits on the lower end: we simply expect parents to not put their children in danger. A 12 year old is not built to sustain a 6 hour race, but doing the first round(s) of the elimination race can be fitting. There will only be a prize/prizes in age categories in the overall ranking.

Based on number of riders
There are too few tandems to make a separate category. Tandems are more than welcome, and are treated as if the riders both ride their own bike in the appropriate class.

Based on propulsion system
Rowing bikes, scooterbikes, handbikes, elliptigo's, all are welcome to join our event. If someone wants to organize a subcompetition for any of these groups, please contact us. For now we have merged handbikes, hand-foot bikes and rowing bikes in a single class.

Open class
In the past we have sometimes worked with an open class. In this class, everything is free, including choosing the best bike for each individual race. We do not consider this option for this event.

Total number of prizes
We will not consider deep nested categories like best female junior unfaired trike. The deepest level is one person and one vehicle characteristic. But even with this limitation, the total number of prizes that we award is of the same order of magnitude as the number of participants. Reserve some space in your vehicle if you plan to win a lot of prizes.