Ranking, Grading & Seeding

What’s this all about?
Having so much historical results data one of the riders offered to create a table that allows riders to see how they are tracking with their results vs everyone.   So we now have this ranking and grading system based on the concept of Seeding.  Don’t worry, this is meant to be a bit of fun about nothing too serious, so don’t stress if you still just want to turn up, race and have fun.   The categories, choccies and starts is all exactly the same.  This is just here for those who want to track their progress


What’s Seeding?
After each Shifty Fifty, a riders race time is compared to the outright winner, with the percentage difference calculated.
The winner receives a seed of 1.000. Let’s say they have a race time of 2:00:00. Someone finishing in 2:12:00 would have a seed of 0.9000 as they finished 10% behind the winner.

To ensure seeds are relevant and you are not penalised for mechanical issues or an off-day, to determine your individual seed, we:

– Take your 5 most recent results (last three years included so far)
Include only the best 3 of those
– Average those best 3

Your seed is updated after each race.

What’s Ranking?
This is a list of every competitor who has completed at least 2 Shifty Fifty races, ranked in order of seed, with the fastest seed (the person closest to 1.0000) having the top rank.

What’s Grading?
We are pioneering a system where your calculated seed determines the Grade in which you are placed in this data (does not effect anything at the events and our categories stay the same) . This will be a work-in-progress as we finetune it to make it fair for everyone.    Results will NOT use the grades, and we welcome feedback and open discussion on your thoughts.

In order to be graded you must have completed at least 2 Shifty Fifty races. Those who have completed 1 race will be on the Seed list but not the Grade list.  This helps to average out anomalies

Your grade may be a good way for you to determine how far up the start line you should line up in the “In it to win it” start group.

Grades are as follows (assuming a winning race time of 2:00:00):

Grade Seed band Example race time
PRO 0.9500+ 2:00:00 – 2:06:00
Elite 0.8500 – 0.9499 2:06:01 – 2:18:00
A 0.7500 – 0.8499 2:18:01 – 2:30:00
B 0.6600 – 0.7499 2:30:01 – 2:40:48
C 0.5700 – 0.6599 2:40:49 – 2:51:36
D 0.4400 – 0.5699 2:51:37 – 3:07:12
E 0.2500 – 0.4399 3:07:13 – 3:30:00
F Less than 0.2500 3:30:01+

Why are there no Gender or Age splits?
We had a lot of discussion about this! One of the great things about MTB racing is you race those who are around you. For most people this will be a mix of genders and ages.

Therefore for the purpose of seeding, ranking and grading it is a single list all inclusive.

Say it’s been determined your times place you in C Grade. Your peers in C Grade will be others who you typically race against out on course, irrespective of their gender or age.  On race day this may help you to know your closest competition and try to stick with them or pass them to improve your seed and grade.  All a bit of fun.

Having said this, we have included gender in the table. Using the search function, you can see Female or Male exclusively, but remember the ranks and grades will still be based on everyone.

Is everyone included?
We have started with:
– Shifty Fifty (not Shorty)
– Adults (not Juniors)
– ‘Analogue’ bikes (not eBikes)

This may evolve as we take on feedback and progress but for now we hope you enjoy this new bit of data for you all.