SEASON ONE IS NOW COMPLETE! Check out the final season report here!

Season 2 will be announced soon and likely to begin early June! Sign up for email updates (bottom of page) so you don’t miss out!

Inspired by the COVID ‘KOMpetition’ series (chapeau Dirtious J Dirt for the OG in 2020, and Dan Blackwell in 2021!), the Victoria Segment Challenge is a fun series for riders of any level to challenge themselves, compete with friends, and find new roads and routes! It’s basically individual time trials, done on your own schedule.

Simply put, every week we feature two segments, and riders can go ride them as fast or slow as they want. They’re essentially ITTs (Individual Time Trials). I collect results and scores, and there are a ton of prizes! Works if your Strava account is free or paid, all are welcome!

Season 1 – our first season runs 12 weeks, February 27th thru May 22nd! There will be three blocks of 4 weeks. Aiming for the first half to have all segments within a 60min ride of the Switch Bridge, after that there may be a few further beyond. Here’s our event poster! (PDF)

Safety is a huge priority of course, and all efforts are made to select quiet roads that are low traffic, but please do not take any unnecessary risks, this is just for run!

Victoria Segment Challenge Rules & Sign-Up

A few rules to try to keep things fun for all:

• There’s a full week to complete segments, ride any time you wish, as many times as you wish, your fastest result will be the one that counts.
• Make sure your ride(s) is ‘public’ on Strava so I can see it in the segment list.
• The hard cut-off is 6pm Sunday when I pull the results from the segments, if you upload after that, tough luck!
• These are to be SOLO efforts! You are not allowed help! Cannot draft another rider during any portion of a segment. Any riders found to be cheating will be removed from the competition. (It’s fine being side-by-side with a friend however, since there is no drafting benefit.)
• Bikes: this is intended to be done on road bikes, ‘Merckx-style‘ – no aero bars! TT bikes are fine if riding on the drop bars. No swapping between road and gravel bikes. (Tho if you only have a gravel bike, fine to ride that all the time.) Main intention is to level the field, and not turn this into an arms race!
• Do not edit your Strava ride files. Do not crop your ride files to the segments. There must be a ‘substantial’ amount of time and distance before and after each segment, so it’s part of a ‘ride’, and not an edited/cropped file of only the segment. This is supposed to be a fun cycling challenge, not a hack-a-thon.
• Safety safety safety – please follow the rules of the road!

There are Female and Open categories, and you can select A, B or C. A typically are pretty fit folk, C’s are definitely on the more casual end of the spectrum, or just planning to ride the segments as a fun destination or goal each week!

• A’s should know who you are! For Open A, if your 1hr FTP has been over 4w/kg, this is for you. For Female A, above 3.6w/kg.
• Open C’s should be below 3w/kg, Female C’s under 2.6w/kg for 1hr FTP.
• B’s should find themselves in-between these.
• If unfamiliar, or unsure, just add a note. I will move riders around if necessary. Riders can upgrade during the ‘season’, but will lose half their points.

And yes, it’s totally free! (Although if you wish to chip in, scroll down to the bottom.)

The segments will be a rich variety of roads – there will be climbs, but there will be sprints. Some will be short, and some may end up rather long efforts! (And all appropriate for 23mm road tires, no crazy gravel sections!) Most will be within 20-60mins riding distance from the Switch Bridge. The segments themselves will normally be nearby each other as well, so reasonable to do in one ride.

To sign up:

•  please fill out this quick form (it’s hosted by Google Docs)
• and then join our Strava group. (This makes it easy for me to sort our riders out on each segment.)

Sorry, but failure to follow these two steps will likely result in omission from weekly results.

Week #12 – May 15 – 21 – The Gravity Challenge Finale!

This is it, the grand finale! It’s nothing too wild, but it’s inspired by a race format I’ve wanted to see happen for a while. Basically up and then back down the lower portion of Willis Pt. It’d be fun to have a ‘team’ format, with one rider doing the climb, and the other the descent, but we’ll all do both individually.

Segment 12A Name: Wallace to Ross Durance TT
Deets: 4.06km, 101m Elevation
This is an existing segment, QOM is Mega Rath with a 7:57, KOM is Rob Britton with a 6:26, Gregory Taylor-Lariviere is LL with 10 efforts.
Link: https://www.strava.com/segments/1727707

This segment was featured in a previous KOMpetition! I recall stories of people getting dumped on the day they went and nearly going hypothermic, not as likely this week tho. Not too much to explain – it’ll wear your legs out at the start, but then picks up speed at the end!

Segment 12B Name: Ross-Durance to Wallace TT – Whoop whoop!
Deets: 3.81km, 20m Elevation
This is an new segment, QOM is Caleigh Filmer with a 4:39, KOM is Ryley Rohan with a 4:34, Keith Encinas is LL with 1 effort.
Link: https://www.strava.com/segments/34389697

What goes up must come down! It’s a little bit of an uphill near the start, and then you’re flying the rest of the way, whoop whoop! There is another segment for this (https://www.strava.com/segments/1411429) but it seems like it can be hard to trigger the start, and ends right in the intersection.

And that’s your final assignment for Season 1! 💪💪

Happy riding!! 🚵‍♀️

SUGGESTED ROUTING

There’s really not a fun way to get here, out Interurban and then down West Saanich. If you’ve got fatter tires, there’s a nice pathway that runs parallel to West Saanich (and skips most of the climbs).

Results!

Below are our results! Note the tabs at the bottom to flip between overall and individual weeks. Please contact me if there are any errors. If a PDF is preferred, simply click here! Here is the full link to the GoogleDoc. (You can view the Notes each week for the Bonus and Curse details, which doesn’t show up in the table below.)

Weekly Report

Here are my quick reports each week: Week #1 | Week #2 |

Scoring

Scoring is geared towards rewarding the consistent!

For each segment completed, points will be awarded this way for the A, B & C fields:

1st – 50pts
2nd – 47pts
3rd – 45pts
4th – 43pts
5th – 41pts
6th – 40pts (and one point spread beyond 6th, to 30pts, which all below this will receive.)

Bonus Points

There are a few opportunities to score extra points! Since these are awarded to ‘one’ person each week, the rider may be Open or Female, A, B or C. Some are random, some you can actually go for.

• New QOM/KOM – if a new QOM or KOM is set on the segment, that rider gets an extra 5pts.
• Time Bonus – a time will be secretly pre-selected for each segment, any who happen to ride that exact time will be awarded 5pts.
• The Early Bird – the earliest locked-in effort for the ‘A’ segment will get 5pts. (Eg: someone might preview the segment on Monday, and be the ‘first’, but if they ride it again and their final result tops that one, then the second is what counts – sorry, I just don’t want to have to refresh the segment pages constantly! 😉 )
• The Socialite – tag @AboutTheRideCA on Twitter, FB or IG in a post relating to the competition, and my favourite post each week will get 5pts.
• Bonus Segments – some weeks there may be a bonus challenge, it won’t be scored like the others, but a declared number of points will be awarded to all who simply complete that segment.

Curses

But it’s not all roses – there are also a few ways to lose points each segment!

• Yellow Jersey Curse – if a rider in the competition holds the QOM/KOM at the start, and they fail to defend it, they lose 5pts.
• Try-Hard Penalty – if a rider becomes the Local Legend during the week of the segment, they lose 5pts. (If they go into it already as the LL, then this will be ignored.)

There’s a few surprises to keep you on your toes! (Also note that in fairness Dave the organizer will be omitted from winning any bonuses, but can collect the curses!)

Help Get Word Out!

Ain’t this more fun with more people? Help get word out! Follow our social channels, and share posts, mention what you’re doing on your Strava rides, invite friends to sign up and join you, get your clubs and bike shops to get word out!

Anything Confusing?

Fire over a note on the contact page if you’ve got any questions, ideas, suggestions, etc!

Chip In & Get Tips Back!

I’m organizing this as a labour of love, but it does take up quite a bit of time! If you’d like to chip in a few dollars, you can send an e-transfer to dave \at\ abouttheride.ca – as a thank-you I’ll add you to a secret email list with tips for getting the fastest time on each segment – like here’s my blog post covering the basics for getting PRs. =)