ATTA is an association of individuals, bike riders who wish to pursue their sport of road time-trialling with regular, organised events on a range of courses varying in the sort of challenge each offers and at distances ranging from about 16km to 160km. ATTA was founded in 1988 by a group of riders who saw the need for a specialist club to cater for Time Triallists in WA; they took over the running of a number of events which had been run for a number of years by the former WA Veterans Cycling Association that eventually merged with ATTA. At the time of its formation ATTA was the only such specialist group in Australia. Time-trialling involves matching one's current fitness and abilities on a bike against the external milieu of road, distance, weather and the clock. That is, it involves getting on your bike and going like the clappers until you've covered the predetermined distance. (Others may use other terms and descriptions, probably less kind, for what we do!)
The rules are simple but the most important phrase in our vocabulary is "alone and unassisted". That is, with one or two exceptions, we ride always as individuals; we start at one minute, sometimes shorter intervals and take no deliberate assistance from other riders or other traffic. Occasionally we may ride as pairs (or 2-Up teams); very occasionally we ride as larger teams. In a sense the sport is non-competitive; individuals are testing themselves. There are, of course, rivalries and we publish lists of who went fastest on the day and so on. But there are no losers; each individual has his or her own goals whether they are standards (eg from a set of times based on age and gender) or perhaps a sub-hour for a 40km; perhaps a course record but certainly, always that elusive personal best (PB). The courses vary: some are flat and potentially fast, others are undulating and some very undulating. Not all courses are standard distances eg 16, 40, 50, 80 and 160km but they are usually close to one of them because, pointless as it may be, we do like to compare times across courses and often continents. Anyway, we always also express all our results as average speeds which makes it easier for us to consider a season's performances together. Time trials are what win Tours de France and are called, quite properly, the Race of Truth.
