Dear Wessel / Advendurance Please take this as constructive criticism. It is great that a race organizer has a presence on the hub for us to communicate with. Most leave quite quickly because of abuse thrown at them, this is not my intention. To be honest, I realize how difficult it must be to host a race and keep everyone happy. I have said for some time, cyclist must the most whiniest, complaining bunch around. I find my mouse pointer hovering over the enter button on your site. It remains there for a few seconds then scurrels away scared, we open a new tab and read facebook or the hub or whatever. We will think about it and go back later. We have been doing this for the last two days. I want to enter I want to commit, if I enter one, I will be in for the series. My mind keeps going back to the last few advendurance races. Getting horribly lost, poor signage, no results, terrible routes (Ashburton Ultra in January.) It was with great excitement last year when we found out that Advendurance would be running a series in WC. Although the Western Cape has fantastic race organizers, none ran a series, and few were as well regarded as advendurance, from what we had heard from our up country counterparts. These guys were tops. We lined up for round one which was to take in the Helderberg trails, one of my favorite places to ride. It quickly turned into a stuff up, we all got so lost, nobody knew where we were, not even the lead out bike. It was so bad I found it funny. We eventually just rode the Helderberg trails and went back to the finish. We got a free entry to the next round in Grabouw and the results for this round of the series would get tossed. We were told that kids in the area had removed the signage. Come time for Grabouw, the event was awesome. There were like 6 sign boards in every corner, a guy wouldn't get lost with his eyes closed. Great! I wondered how they got so many sign boards in from Johannesburg, it must have been a very big truck. Some nice trails too, this series is going to be great. Had a chill with my buds in the gazeebo, just missed out on a podium in my age category. Good day out! The next round was Hemel and Aarde. All those lovely sign boards that were at Grabouw, they were gone. They obviously couldn't get that big truck again... We got lost... Again. The riding was amazing, but I spent the day fighting back the few minutes that I lost, getting lost. I missed Meerendal, as I was away racing something else. I believe that went off without a hitch. Although I seem to remember someone whinged about something. The series seems to be very hit and miss, some events are just spectacular others are a bit of a disaster. If I enter the series I want to know that they are all going to be as well run as they can be. Accurate routes, excellent signage, good parking and toilets. Actually I don't think this is unreasonable to expect. The problem, it seems, and I am only guessing now, is that the events are run remotely from Johannesburg. One gets a feeling that a route is plotted on strava or google earth a few days before. No one from advendurance rides the routes before hand and they get hastily marked when you guys get here a few days before. The route for the Ashburton Ultra was just ridiculous (and we got lost.) I am not that fond of Meerendal, but how did the epic organizers fit an absolute amazing ride in a 26km prologue and the 100km Ultra was just awful? Do you guys know that area? Had someone ridden that route beforehand? It seems like you guys have a formula to fill. You have to get a certain amount of distance in per event, which has us off at some funny angles and turns to get extra kilometers in. I don't know, that is just how it seems, it also tends to get us off in the wrong direction. As an outsider who has never organized and event before, but has been cycling for 20 years, it seems like advendurance needs a partner based in Cape Town. There are loads of guys / companies that could plot your routes, ride them and then take the time to mark them properly. You could even leave that truck load of signage boards here. Again, I have never marked a course, but how can it be so hard? In the week long race I did last week we did not get lost once in 500km (I eventually lobbed myself against a rock and did not finish so cant comment on the last 200km.) In my opinion you cant have too many arrows in a corner, and a bit of bunting or tape every 100m to 200m does the trick to let people know we are on the right track. The organizers in Cape Town have been getting this right for a long time. It would also be great to have proper route maps and profiles available well before the event. It would just give us confidence knowing that YOU know where we are going to be riding. We tend to get a route map and profile which changes a day or two before and ultimately is just fiction in the end anyway. I really want this series and advendurance to succeed in Cape Town, I think it could be a great series. We just need a little confidence in you at the moment. Thanks
