I took part today in the group that was supposed to start at 7am. Now before I get to some of the incidents of this morning, I have to say that CSA could NOT have made a bigger stuffup of things! I've been riding since the age of 14, have taken part in road & track SA's, and have NEVER had such a bad experience!!! According to my knowledge CSA is solely to blame for all incicents. They have to take the ultimate responsibilty for their events!! Damn man, don't dare to pass the buck now!! It cost me a damn lot of money to bring my family & myself down to this wonderful city, just to be spoilt by an atrocious arganised event. I wonder if CSA will ever refund my and many other competitor's expences. If this is how CSA dares to treat the cyclist that supports them, then CSA heads must roll!!!!! It shows an utter disrespect to the whole of the cycling community. It's a known fact that motorists do not really like cyclist, and with how CSA handled this event, it will cause the PE motorist to disrespect their cyclist with an even greater retalliation!!! After this weekend, CSA will leave, giving all kinds of excuses and leaving PE to deal with this and also hurting the city's tourism industry. Utterly disgusting and distastefull!! Now for some of my reasons: 1) The starting time was postponed on several occasions, with always the possibility of moving the event to the Herald on Sunday, without any considiration for those that are not riding the Herald. 2) This apparently altered starting time and altered route was only mentioned via CSA's twitter. Now how the heck must we assume that everyone has access to twitter! Why not use bulk sms as CSA surely has all cyclists cell numbers. When I arrived at the start this morning, there was plenty cyclists waiting and not knowing what was going on. 3) The bikes was weighed with the scale hanging on a flimsy and flexing tree branch, with scale measurement jumping around on each bike weighing. Sury it must be a fixed, solid unit? 4) Many competitors were getting hungry as they had breakfast and food on them for a race that was supposed to start at 7am, not at 9h15+!!! 5) Then the whole of 30-49 had a so called neutral lap, just to be stopped after we turned out of LaRoch drive, through chaotic traffic, some riders even passing oncoming traffic on the right. Still I don't know why, but I saw riders and CSA official exchanging words. 6) It is only by luck that no one that I'm aware of had no accidents going down to the harbour area at 60km+, approaching an unmarked, newly build pavement area that is protruding into the road. 7) At the top of Upper Valey road we nearly road into a car and an ambulance, being pushed by spectactors. 8) Then we were pulled off the circuit, apparently because we were more than 10% behind the leader(s)!!! Hallo!!!!! 9) Then I believe some guys sprinted on the 2nd last lap and stopped afterwards accordingly, apparently then being disqualified. 10) Then the main 40-49 bunch, with a lot of the main manne was also pulled of because of being more than 10% behind the leader(s). So far I know mighty mouse is not in the 40-45 group, so this 10% ????? So according to my assumption, there was no 3rd place for the 40-44, for they were either disqualified or pulled off the course. Now this rule was never mentioned to us. 11) Also, according to hearsay in the carpark this morning, a reprentative of the Summerstrand suburb approached CSA last night and told them that if they decide to bring the cyclists through the suburb again that the residents will retaliate. If this is so, then obviously these suburbs were NOT approached and\or notified. 12) Then nobody knows anything regarding the prize giving???? Who, where, when, etc. 13) I also spoke to some of local residents and they mentioned that they only saw a very small piece of writing in Thursday's newspaper regarding the SA's. Bear in mind that these guys are keen Iron Man supporters, so they will be aware of any publicity regarding the SA's, which they never saw or heard of. All in all, CSA is the biggest laughing stock ever and is hurting cycling in this province and this country, and we as cyclists have to stand up againt them. We CANNOT accept this. The above is only some of my personal experiences today and view points. I know for a fact that others had similar and others as well. And you'll probably find that shortly on Super Cycling the public will NOT hear the full story, but more a one sided CSA success story.
