Sounds about right. They are pretty strict with the elite bunches. Although no one can actually tell me what all the requirements are - the one thing I was told when I asked about riding in vet ladies was a sub 3 is a must. So could be a previous race time or perhaps the bunch was full. I think it worked like that with the men too some years ago. A certain number of elites were allowed in the elite bunch and the balanced got thrown in A. Which made the regular A bunch riders upset as there's a nice prize for A bunch at 94.7. It might also be this reason why women are not allowed in A-C. Of course I could be wrong. The only reason i wanted to ride with the vet ladies was an earlier start. I have never had grand illusions of being able to stay with them to the end. One of the only races I did in the ladies bunch was THE hardest race I've done.
Lol - mine was ok. Ian, Gareth and Justin were gracious enough to ride with me and encourage me along the route. I struggled with some knee pain from Jan Smuts onwards so that resulted in a not so pleasant and slightly slower ride. That and of course the not enough training factor :$ Did a 3:17 according to my Garmin, 3:18 as per racetec as it took a minute to ride over the matt. Not my best but not my worst either. But there's always next year
If I am not mistaken the expo is open until 20:00 tonight. Which I thought was quite convenient. I have never before experienced queues at collection but then again I never went during office hours. I always found it a pain in the backside that the expo closed so early on a Fri and I never saw anything. After reading this I feel like burdening one of my friends with collection but I might just go past. MTB number collection wasn't any better for me than the people ranting on here. Perhaps it's just this year - perhaps the staff that they hired wasn't as good and they'd need to train them more. Fetching an envelope is one thing, dealing with issues like missing numbers should be escalated to someone who knows what to do in the situation
It is amazing that the people that want to ride in open get seeded in licenced but they put people that ride in licenced on a weekly basis in open. Go figure. Scotty, will be seeing you on my way to the start. First time seeded ahead of you I might even ride in your bunch since i am always late.
Nothing in particular but you never know. These are conclusions from reading the comments on the thread + talking to people that rode in licensed bunches. It is a big race, everyone prepares for it, licensed riders maybe more than others. We all pay fees, some in the licensed bunches 10 x what we pay but in return they can't even know for sure it will be a fair race.
That is actually horrible. Shame on the organisers! We all can't stop discussing cheating by taking performance enhancing drugs but slipping a car back or slipping a tandem or a bunch you don't belong in....that's ok. I really think this year they (the organisers) weren't as good as previous years. I am wondering how much money was paid in by people for re-seeding only. And yes you can't make everyone happy. I guess I am one of the unhappy people.
It doesn't seem like CSA cared much for the licensed bunches besides Elite men and ladies. No commissaires, no line judges, no frame numbers even for some of the bunches. Turning into a pure fun ride. How can you not have at least some policing in bunches that receive prize money?
I also have a 725something at home. I didn't get it brand new so when it got to me it wouldn't work. It would NEVER EVER connect to my pc. And I'd do 2 workouts and it will be full of data. So I understand your frustration. I had to just put in the cupboard and forget about it. But even though I had no joy with the 725 I went and bought a FT7 this year, which is purely a HR monitor. It is the cheapest Polar that can connect to a PC. I am quite happy with it. However after 6 months my flowlink (the new transmitting device) stopped working. I took it to the shop I bought the watch from, they sent it in for me and 2 weeks later I received a new one. I guess they haven't figured out how to make transmitting devices that last. I was told at the shop that Garmin has even worse customer service than Polar but I have heard good things about Garmin's service. Makes it very hard to decide what new unit to buy.
Hey Dipstick, why don't you try a calorie monitoring website for a few weeks. There's tons out there. Including Discovery's one that became available recently. I personally use myfitnesspal.com and I can go on forever telling you about it. Do a quick test on the site - entering your age, weight etc and see what it tells you. It will normally give you a few options for calorie intake. Calories per day if you would like to maintain your weight, calories if you want to lose weight and so on. Then start logging. I carry a diary with me and write everything in it. You'd be surprised what amout of calories things you think are "healthy" contain. If you consider trying it for a while remember that in SA most foods' energy is measured in KJ where those sites are generally international and measure energy in calories. Could be a bit of a shock in the beginning
Ok then I'll do it. Please edit and add groups I might have left off (like all the double letter ones), charity groups, juniors etc $ % & Tandem Racing Tandem VA VB VC VD VE VF VG W WA WB WC A B -Helpmytrap, cyclewizz, robox C D E - Ryan, jcza F G - bradwentzel H I J K L M N O P - Dexter Morgan Q R S T
