bleedToWin

Hard, but not impossible. Leave them on OdT, but after that hunt them down and flag them from the back of the group. "Pass or let the wheel go or you risk getting pulled over". Do it one team at a time and you can make it safer. Communicate it 100 times before the event that drafting off of other teams will absolutely not be tolerated if you are 3 or more team members together. The pushed the "team spirit" narrative this year, let's put the "team" back in "team event".

The difference comes in when so so many teams plan for a fastest possible time around a drafting strategy. The tolerance from the race organisers is to the point where this is practically encouraged. Others have commented that the social teams can't survive (or really struggle) when the start order is reversed and they can't draft. So the event would loose numbers if we enforce the rules? That's just sad. The Cogmanskloof 9:30 opening makes it very hard to start fast teams early, I get that. But if there was a will to enforce anti drafting it could easily be implemented with the current format. Bike marshal red flags your team, you have to pull over and come to a complete stop. He takes down your team number, three strikes and you're out! I don't like that "the spirit of DC" seems to be starting in teams but drafting off of others then regrouping in the Team Zones. I'm not alone in this opinion, but might be in the minority. As to fairness - I don't really want to get too much into it since it will look like sour grapes from my side, but the amount of group riding by "racing teams" is a joke and the relative times and positions outside of the top 3 mean very little.

This was my first year racing DC after a social one in 2020. Our voices got sore from shouting. We were passing with a huge speed differential all day long and the bunches were absolutely massive. Negligently massive seeing as it's a team time trial, not a road race. No idea why it's tolerated. There's a chance your contact was with my team. We were passing a huge group going up a blind rise when a rider crossed the white line to pass another rider in the bunch. The other rider randomly swerved and the first one was forced to swerve even deeper into the oncoming lane (that we had to use all day to pass). No time for my guy to react so the rider bounced too and fro like a pinball. If he went down he would have taken me out so I may have dropped some foul language. If that was you, sorry... Video of winning team showing how sketch it got out there:

You've got way too much confidence in Google by including "& co" which is referring to their guest riders. DMS will however not get you much closer... The company is DM Shopfitting.

And if you missed yesterday, today is just around the corner from yesterday... 🙄

😢

@Jensie It's hard to eat pasta without sauce = It's hard to believe a story without a source.

Spaghetti is dry without sauce...

It's only about 5 cars or something and it's only racing teams with licenses issued by CSA. It's been like this forever, not something new.

Plenty of parking at the designated spot, but also tons and tons more within a 2km radius. You'll be fine.

Anyway, I'm done ranting and will get back on topic now! Excited for Sunday. @Sid the Slothwhere will you wait for the rest of us after your sub 10 minute Hels send?

Early 2000s PPA was very successful on three fronts - Racers, fun riders, families. Currently it's a trippel failure. Racers are making the best of the situation - in spite of organisers. Fun riders are largely opting for club riding over events. Family participation is virtually non existent. If you have something in place that works for the vast majority, but not everyone, pretending like it should be okay for everyone is disingenuous. It is brutally clear that they haven't even realised this, let alone given low effort or zero effort solutions any consideration. I would have accepted it if they responded with your final thought - "Yeah, the disadvantage is not great but we want to keep normal CSA rulings in place by allowing feeding from team cars. Maybe you can organise roadside support?" This would show consideration for all of their members, even though they are not yet putting anything in place to mitigate. Your suggestion of banning feeding from cars is one way to go. It was done by WP at the Velddrif 222km event. They implored team cars to offer mechanical service to other riders wherever possible and had designated feed areas where you had to stop to feed. You could give your feeding bag at the start and receive it at the feed zone. All were equal, and it didn't take much to achieve it. Admittedly this is a small issue, but it's one of countless issues over the last years and the problems affect everyone across the board, not just the racers.

It's quite easy to shame them. Only takes a few seconds of typing. Not sure how organising my own support would be easier... /s Seriously though, I wasn't expecting them to provide support, I just engaged them in conversation regarding the possibility for neutral support and how much of a difference that would make to the racing for the majority of the riders. I would not have mentioned their response were it not for their callous disregard (or ignorance) of how bicycle racing works. Telling racers to stop at water points is worthy of public shaming. It's indicative of an organisational attitude that hasn't been member focused for years. There are many alternatives to neutral service, some of which WP cycling often enlists. Engagement on the topic, even without resolution, would have been multiple levels better than pointing out the number of water points.

Probably didn't have any issues with your rim brakes, or your butyl inner tubes, or your "nutrition plan" of 200g carbs for the whole race? 😜

PPA's position on whether someone could be placed in the backseat of the commissaire's car to hand out bottles to solo riders / teams without support cars in the A-group: "Unfortunately, we do not offer this service as there is sufficient water points on route. The 170 km will have 7 water points." What a joke.

Yeah. Tough life... If you need to stop your race is ruined at which point you might as well not have entered. 🙄

Late entries at pre registration yes. · Thursday, 3 November 2022: 12h00 – 18h00: Sportsmans Warehouse, Rondebosch. · Friday, 4 November 2022: 12h00 – 18h00: Sportsmans Warehouse, Tygervalley.

As expected. Neutral service with water would really have been nice...

Do it. You can do the climbs at your own pace and find groups to drag you along the mildly undulating kms.

Strava route also has it around that number yes, but with two "big" climbs taking up a large chunk of it, if you look at the remaining 160km it's fairly flat and easy going.

Nah guys. Almost no wind. Not too hot. Mostly flat route (only 1000m of elevation gained in the 160km that doesn't make up the two climbs) It's all good.

I'm just miff 'cause my wife said Riebeek Kasteel is too far to drive to do support...

Doesn't look to be explicitly banned, and if it's not allowed road side support is still possible.

Yeah, it would be part of the challenge, but unfortunately it creates a bit of an unequal situation in the race up front with half the field able to take on nutrition and water mid-race without stopping...

Wish we had neutral service cars with water in the $ group... 🙁