This is great.
I think one also has to look at the total quantum of riders in the various CATS ie A / VA / VB / VC etc Would be nice to do a comparison between that as well.
I raced in the VB CAT and we had not more than i'd say 55 people, there were around 5 teams and the rest were individuals, i felt the first half was super slow as there were no attacks and the guys were rolling and talking until Woodmead where things started to happen and the teams started to jostle around and positioning became important. I led the pace up into the kyalami track until we entered where the first major attack happened from Bekker Steel, we all as a group managed to group up again by the end of kyalami and everyone sat up and hugged and hi fived each other and spoke about the rest of the plans for the day was.
The exit of kyalami saw the 2nd big attack and this split the group into two, i unfortunately was part of the latter however we managed to bridge this gap on the way to Witkoppen. I personally held on until the climb up until Dunkeld where that was the end of the day for me. I solod from Dunkeld all the way until Nasrec alone where the VC leaders caught me, I moved over and let them thru, the rest of the VC peloton guys caught me just before the finish.
This race illustrated to me that numbers are so important, and also if you get dropped and you are dropped with 10-15 guys, your pace is not entirely lost and you can work well together to get to the finish. Riding alone from Dunkeld into that headwind after trying to close down attacks were just super hard and I was spent by the time i got home. Nevertheless the A batch guys were flying yesterday, my mate was so stoked as he wanted to break a sub 3 and landed up doing a 2.29.
