Event Name: Tour Of Good Hope 2017 When: 6 March 2017 - 10 March 2017 Where: La Paris, Western Cape Category: Road Entries for the 2017 Bestmed Tour of Good Hope, presented by Scicon, are now open. The Tour will take place from 6-10 March 2017 in the lead-up to the Cape Town Cycle Tour and cover 5 stages of racing for a total distance of 522km and 6168 vertical ascent. For entries, route and venue info visit the event website. The Tour format, venues and stages will remain the same for next year, with the exception that the three stages that toured through the centre of Paarl this year will follow their original routing on the ring roads around Paarl with all road works on these sections having been completed by then. Franschhoek Pass, Du Toit’s Kloof Pass and Bainskloof Pass present themselves again on the two queen stages of the tour (stage 3 and 4) while the iconic finish on the final stage remains on the slopes of the Paarl Mountain at the Taalmonument. All entries will be allocated on a first come first paid basis and close as soon as we reach the rider total of 500. To eliminate the timing and registration challenges for next year we are putting a few measures in place. We are using RaceTec timing and their timing technicians as time keepers at the event and not implementing time bonuses at hotspot sprints and stage finishes. This will makeRaceTec the sole judge of times and eliminate the need to use the CSA StageRace program. CSA will manage line judging for positions at sprint primes, King of the Mountain primes and at the finish line, but riders times in the tour won’t be dependent on this. We are creating and driving a strong awareness campaign about CSA licensing and which licenses are applicable to which category. We will also make riders aware that they have to produce their affiliation license of their applicable country at registration. This will avoid cues created by CSA checking licenses and selling day licenses. The registration process will further be aided by the fact that the great majority of riders have RaceTec chips and they don’t have to be linked at registration. RaceTec will have chips on sale at registration for those riders who don’t have chips. Then, we have received many phone calls and emails about the new 03h15 qualifying criteria (participants having to complete a 100km road event in under 3 hours 15 minutes). The 03h15 qualifying was brought in mainly to try and limit the total time period of intersection control that we need to enforce daily. This year, on some days, traffic police and our marshals were on duty until 16h00. Traffic Police said they won’t be able to assist again next year in the same fashion and we need to ensure that their pointsmen aren’t put in the same position having to be on their feet (on some days in 38 degree heat) for 7 hours. Secondary to this, the qualifying measure was also put in place to ensure riders do the required training to meet the demands of the tour. It’s a very tough event and a rider can really damage him/herself if they come into the tour without the proper training. However, to try and be lenient and accommodate as many of the participants as possible, we are relaxing the qualifying criteria to 03h30, in particular to cater for women but it will also be applicable to men. Some more good news is that we will consider times in all events from 94km and up. If you have achieved this qualifying time in an ASG event, you can simply email us with the event in which you rode the time and we will check it in our back-office. If you rode this time in an outside event, riders have to email us their time and we will check it with the relevant time keeping company. These emails can be sent towynand@asgworld.co.za. To cater for our mountain-bikers who would like to give the tour a go, we will also allow official finishers in South Africa’s top MTB stage races – Absa Cape Epic, Sani2C, Old Mutual Joberg2C, FNB Wines2Whales and the Liberty Encounters. If you have finished a similar event either locally or abroad you can send us the details thereof and we will consider. Logistically on the road we will bulk up all the waterpoints on the route as well as at the finish line. We are on the verge of concluding a blanket waterpoint sponsorship deal for all our events with a well-known South African company and this will include the Tour of Good Hope. The strong elements in the tour will all remain and we will continue to be vigilant and try and better on these elements – intersection control, on-route neutral service, sweeps, leads, road ranger assistance, venue, parking, ablutions, catering and goody bag items. Besides receiving a Columbia event jacket, all riders in the 2017 will also receive a Scicon Rain Bag valued at R1800. The entry also includes 5 meals and various other race pack items. An essential part of any cyclist's luggage is their race rain bag. The Scicon race rain bag has several compartments to it which are all labelled and contain the important pieces of clothing a rider needs in the wet. The difference to other cycling kit bags is this one has a compartment for every item you would need. This race rain bag has space for your shoes and covers, warmers (arm and leg), gloves, helmet, jersey, jacket. Look like a pro as you pull your rain jacket out of this bag while your buddies are fumbling with their old rucksacks. Go to Event Page
