OFFICIAL CTG REPLY Dear lucmccann, Although it would have been better to send a communication directly to the club first, we nevertheless received your complaint via the hub and acted accordingly. Although you were invited by our chairman, it is unfortunate that you could not be present at our Special Meeting that we had on Monday to discuss this complaint as all parties were notified of their urgent attendance. We discussed the complaint in detail and herewith our response. This year three CTG teams are proud to be training for the Double Century. As part of the DC training programme besides distance training, we learn all about team racing and a few of the races have been identified where concepts like Rotational Pelatons, Double Lane Pelatons, Lead Outs, Climbing as a Unit, Descending as a Unit are implemented. At these races, we drop down to the lowest seeded member of the team and race in that group. So the main objectives of the race is to gel as a team, ride as a team and work together. The team that you registered a complaint against was Race Team 2 and they were all present at the aforementioned meeting. Here is the response of the happenings on the Durbanville race. Seven RT2 members started in the N-O group and the objective was to ride the entire race as a cohesive team and finish together. The group cycled in close proximity at most times and for a large majority of the race lead the bunch. The bunch grew and grew and by the time the last 10kms approached the bunch was in excess of 60 riders. This can be verified on racetec by the fact that on the finish line of that group 19 riders finished within 10 seconds and remember there is a climb in the last 1km. About 7kms from the finish the riders recall about 5 meters AHEAD of the bunch a rider lost concentration and went off the road but managed to regain control of the bike and returned to the road. CTG members who were in front of the bunch showed sincere concern for the rider when they passed him. As for the water bottle incident, the bottle fell and CTG rider apologised to the immediate riders around him – the riders retorted and cracked jokes about it. There was no maliciousness about the incident. As for the elbowing incident – CTG RT2 vehemently denies elbowing any rider. Furthermore, there is no recall of a discussion as stated in your complaint with any rider. We can only surmise that this was in fact NOT a CTG rider but another member of the bunch. All CTG riders had a full CTG kit on at the race. May I add that at the end of the race – many – many compliments were given to CTG RT2 (including Team Extreme) – complimenting RT2 for the work that went into the race and the way the team rode. Let me again re-iterate, that CTG Policies are very strict about road safety, about decorum and discretion on and off the road and about going the extra mile to make CTG proud. It is very distressing to team management to receive these complaints and we take it very seriously. We are a safety first club and this is drilled into all our members all of the time. Should you have any further queries, please feel free to contact us directly info@capetowngiants.org.za. Best Regards, Thabiet Davids V. Chairman
