I'll try one more time...
I am in no way blaming what happened on the e-bike team. We accept full responsibility for our unfortunate mistake. Neither am I bitter or angry towards the riders, they seemed like nice enough dudes and were careful when they did pass us and got far enough ahead that they didn't delay us on the technical descents. We only really saw them at checkpoints.
I just pointed out that, unwittingly, them being ahead on the final sector may have affected our race outcome.
In terms of the lead bike being with e-bikes - I must disagree. I spoke to Glen afterwards who said that he had never been so stressed on lead-bike duty, even with the pros on the Sani2c race. He said that the e-bikes go just as fast uphill as down making it really difficult and dangerous to be able to mark hazards, open gates, put down markers etc. He said he may have seen and removed the markers that caused us to go wrong if he weren't stressing about staying ahead.
He mentioned that there would be some rule changes next year to try and avoid these types of issues. Separate day? Separate start time? Not sure. I suppose we will see next year.
