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Ok, I'm in: 1) Tony Martin 2) Fabian Cancellara 3) Mark Cavendish 4) Peter Sagan 5) Chris Froome 6) Alejandro Valverde 7) Alberto Contador 8) Joaquim Rodriguez 9) Vincenzo Nibali Thanks Gerald!

think you had a rough day? Try riding away with 3 others with 30km to go only to be caught at the 3km to go sign. I was already preparing my speech for the podium when I heard the whir of wheels behind me. Finished nowhere. Oh well, next time I'll make it count!

Fantastic response, thank you sir! Great to see a race organiser take it on the chin and promise to make good! (clicks strava "kudos" button). Btw 06h00 is fine (most of the northern suburbs races start this early, so no bias there).

This feedback is really sad - living in the cape peninsula I've missed the simple luxury of getting up a bit later and actually riding to the start of a race in lieu of getting up at witching hour for a bleary-eyed hour's drive to a race. This morning I witnessed first-hand an accident involving a pair of riders who came a-cropper at the intersection of boyes and the road that runs past the westlake golf course. Confused about whether to continue straight or left, the marshall (standing on the island at the intersection, well out of earshot of descending riders) waved his flag to the point of ambiguity where they both lost control of their bikes and went cartwheeling into the island at the intersection. What was more disturbing was that the marshall saw this happen and just carried on waving his flag in some sort of erratic semaphore as if leaving his post would, ironically, cause further catastrophe. I ran up to find the one fellow had landed fairly squarely on his shoulder and managed to raise the ambulance for assistance. I saw him again at the finish bandaged up, I trust he'll be ok. My two cents is that these flag-waving fellows should be just before an intersection and not on it. There is simply not enough time for riders to change direction once we are within hearing range. Post edit: If you guys are all going to send hate mail to the PPA this race is going to go the way of the dodo. I appeal to anyone interfacing with the PPA to please be responsible and send constructive criticism (Peter, I know you've raised some good points already) so that this event can be safe and fun again like it once was. We need these southern rides, guys!

what he said - great advice there

I've found rubbing an ice pack on the quads and calves after a hard session or race limits the pain and seems to speed up recovery.

odd to hear about these being installed on a public road - the only ones I'm aware of down here are in the waterfront which is private property. Typically civils contractors go for the asphalt bumps on public roads.

lots of riders training on tri bikes down here in slaapstad at the mo - plenty of triathlons coming up and the sport appears to be gaining traction generally.

I've ridden up the maritime climb a few times in the past and never noticed the boom that other cyclists have told me about. One thing though - I have been warned by some fellow cyclists that it's not a great idea to ride up there alone due to possible "affirmative shopping". It seems a bit odd for this activity to occur on military property, but then I guess the military have a history of "affirmative shopping", albeit under more formal conditions. I dunno...

judging by your avatar, I presume your mate was the fellow in table mountain bikers kit. If so he actually finished 2nd in our breakaway group from B - he was very strong - did a lot of work to ensure we stayed away. Like Luke said, it was the marshalls letting the groups over the timing mats prematurely / holding up groups another marshall had let through at the start that made the error (no communication between the two) - we tried to explain the situation to the guy releasing the groups, but to no avail. Pity for racetec, now they have to painstakingly fix someone else's error. Bummer.

maybe I'm not putting it out there clearly. I started with the real B group - we were instructed to roll over the mats with the A group and then instructed to wait the 1-2 minutes after A was released at the start line - ppa marshalls evidently not communicating. I was with the breakaway in B group - 4 of us broke away on smits (I finished 4th behind Nic Lamond who took the sprint) The guys listed as B were in fact C-D group. Don't know how racetec is going to clear it all up - I've dropped them a mail in the meantime. Some poor bugger is going to have to go through the first 50 odd riders one by one - happy monday!

Luke, you're a machine - solid TTing there, man. results are up and it appears there are some discrepancies with the grouping of the bunches from the start - A & B started separately, but have been grouped together on the results sheets. Looks like C & D have been listed as B, etc....

glad to hear you're ok. observations from personal experience that seem to apply to this case: a lot of motorists don't see bicycles as equal road users a lot of motorists severely underestimate the speed of an oncoming bicycle although it's hard to swallow (and many will disagree, for valid reasons), weighing up the course of potential outcomes, i think you did the right thing in the end.

She did, actually, but came back pretty quickly in that wind.

Not sure what the op's real question/issue is here... but it's thehub so here's my 2c anyway. If it's not adversely affecting your health/well-being/quality of life then enjoy.