Someone needs to pay for all the "free stuff" - if its not you its the organiser or in CT Marathon's case the big headline sponsor.
Also if you enter cycling funrides for nice goodie bags prepare yourself for many years of disappointments (or consider entering expensive stage races where you might get nice goodie bags)
From past experience on the One Tonner that outside of the climbs the bunches behind A are fairly "conservative", think most peeps respect the 160km distance enough to not want to burn unnecessary matches chasing lost causes. Usually most end up latching onto DC teams doing team training pulling massive groups of other riders hanging at the back.
Not to detract from your post but how many of us are even still PPA members? Think my membership lapsed this year, for me they are becoming increasing irrelevant.
Depends on what your definition of a semi decent seeding is... I see Race to Sea is on the racetec results so a result there should at least give you a start ahead of the backmarkers.
For a "decent" seeding it would be better to do an official seeding race.
The costs of hosting road events ballooned over the past few years(traffic & complying with regulations etc) easily outstripped inflation. Main reason why other than PPA & WPC league almost no-one in the WC is bothering to host road events anymore. And those that are left aren't cheap.
Rock and a hard place for organisers. Especially given that the weather turned out better than predicted.
If they cancelled on Friday we would have a long thread on Monday on how organisers are greedy money grabbers who will take your money and cancel on the slightest excuse.
Worst winds were in the city bowl and that wind funnel beneath the civic centre. Once you got over hospital bend to uct it was fairly normal conditions, was bizarre when they stopped us at the blue route.
That said there were reports of very strong winds on Chappies which could potentially caused serious issues, and of course the unrest and fires, not a great day for the cycle tour.
My issue is not so much with a plaaspad, but 1000(?) people plus using a single road & single access point to get into the venue. An issue I have seen a few times when wine farms host cycle races (and as someone who is as a standard 5 minutes late for every event he attends...)
Not quite convinced that the traffic at the new venue will be any better - nothing against the venue itself but again just one access road for everyone + the start chutes using the exact same road as people entering the venue.
PPA should really rethink the types of venues they use for a race like this, previous venues like Stellenbosch High and Wellington much better at handling the traffic.
Makes sense - Epic came at a time when there was a massive growth in the sport with mtb'ing exploding. As much as I like gravel riding I don't foresee gravel doing the same thing. Also stage racing is not the novelty it was 20 years ago.
I also get the impression he is trying to do something slightly different without trying to be another game changer.
Kevin is leaning into the Epic nostalgia to get a buzz going but it doesn't really look like a Epic type event? Seems they are going for the small numbers but high margin luxury event with a little bit of racing thrown in.
Don't think they are going to bother with the "running 5 years at a loss to make money later" business model, most likely will be expensive and profitable from the start....
Thanks for all the feedback. Few things to work on for next year but I think overall it went reasonably well.
Any other feedback & observations, good or bad - please let us know!
I can't help but notice that the skilled route mappers are using private farm roads near the Durbanville area on which local cyclists are not allowed to cycle on (do you think its safe to assume they negotiated access from the landowners?)
Lets hope they don't stuff it up for the normal events and mtb clubs that go through months of negotiations to have access to those routes.
Depends on how you choose to define "organised event"...
We are also not there to help you in anyway. You take yourself to the start, check in, then the event starts at the allocated local time. We are not there on emails or phone. You are on your own and this is your journey to complete. We are not going to hold your hands, the only way you get the satisfaction of completing it is by doing it yourself.
Not much more to this than a gpx file and a tracker.
One Tonner parking was a disaster last year, one bad farm road for everybody to enter the venue, queued for more than 30 minutes to get into the venue. not enough parking, loads of people missed their starting bunch. But not the first time PPA got the parking arrangements wrong, can name a few events from them where the parking was shambolic.
Have no idea if the new venue will be better, I wouldn't count on it. would be wise to be there early
If all the parents in the country didn't oppose the BELA act we could have sold beers at the finish 😂
Entries up on last year (ignoring the gravel) & weather looks decent - should be a good vibe and ride on Saturday.
Not sure I agree with you here - on Strava the average gradients are around 5,5% and on the steep sections the average about 8%
Guess it very much depends on your fitness but a well prepared fit rider (just ahead of mid-bunch) should be comfortable on a 34 and even a 36 if you are a bit of a grinder.
Most people I know (midpack riders) manage the long section in just more than an hour. For me the key is to pace yourself the 1st 120km so that you hit fangs and mac with matches to spare. If you pop on MAC its more likely because you went too hard in the 1st half of the race, not because of the difficulty of the climb.
