PPA cut cord with CSA

[Velouria]

You obviously havent heard common opinion from the about ex PPA members about the org the races and their charges/costs, with no apparent benefit except being seeded in PPA events, which btw are'nt bucket list items most of the time.

 

Bottom line is we are stuck with organizations like PPA and CSA if we like it or not, and we have no influence if they provide any value to the sport or not. And frankly I am past the point of caring, i just doing join these organizations and i wont till i see them make a tangable differnece in the sport.

Try as I might, I can't make sense of this post. Do you even read what you've typed before posting?

[DJR]

I understand that, but why do you have to be a member of PPA to see your time online once you have a chip and paid for the race?

A couple of people have already answered your question. If you don't want to understand, then you won't. Bad luck. My advice is to simply time yourself. At least then you'll have some legitimate complaints against the timer.

[ti guy]

Sure PPA has its failings, any organisation has problems.

 

But think about it where can you go online, enter a race in 5 mins, pay as little as R70 bucks, then pitch up, have organised starts, refreshment stations, bike marshals, traffic cops and do this pretty much every weekend. IMO they do a great job. I do plenty of other events, running, trail running, triathlon, adventure racing etc... PPA offers the best consistent service and price.

 

Agreed!

[(Deon)]

I understand that, but why do you have to be a member of PPA to see your time online once you have a chip and paid for the race?

 

you pay telkom for line, pay IT shop for router, pay isp for bandwidth but still can't read email. You have not paid for mailbox..

[ricochet_rabbit]

Yes, there should be one seeding system used for all races countrywide, using all "registered" timing chip companies, and not restricted to just one, like it currently is for certain races. It's an abuse of "market share" and is not good for competition.

 

This is the responsibility of CSA and not the race organiser, hence my reason for saying that I hope this will see the end of the so-called monopoly. At the end of the day, let organisers choose who they want to use for timing, without being "penalised" by being excluded from seeding at other races.

 

THey seem a bit like ROAG here in KZN. ROAG are a company that organise races and have their own seeding system. They generate their income from the Race Host, advertising etc. They also have a "virtual club" for which the cost is nominal, abt R50.00, through which you buy your CSA license no.

[Java001]

The LOTTO, as funding arm "owns" SASCOC, who in turn owns CSA - if any of these bodies tell CSA to jump, the only question is "how high, boss?" CSA accordingly is tasked with carrying out whatever Government Agenda it is instructed to carry out and the current obsession is Olympic participation. There are also great concern on the part of SASCOC that the CSA Board is perhaps a bit to "pale", so expect some meddling here in due course ......................

 

Quite an eye-opener to see how things work in other provinces. Eastern Cape (Port Elizabeth) & Border ( East London), despite geographical challenges, became East Cape Cycling two years ago, to align itself to the one province idea. In the Eastern Cape region there is no PPA or similar bodies; there are 22 clubs - 14 in Port Elizabeth and 8 in East London. Only 6 are active in Port Elizabeth and 6 are active in East London, so there are 10 inactive clubs.

The cycle shops sell a lot of bikes ( +/- 10 mtb's for every 1 roadbike), so there are many cyclists, but many on the roads are triathlon or Ironman orientated, who do not belong to clubs and clubs struggle to get cyclists involved. This results in weak and inactive Clubs who are neither interested nor equipped with enough manpower to get involved in the provincial structure.

East Cape Cycling is soon having an AGM, but have struggled to obtain nominations from Clubs to fill the vacant positions caused by the entire 2011 executive stepping down.

Most people also realise that becoming part of the Provincial Body affiliated to CSA, means buying into CSA ideas, plans and agendas and with great negativity here about CSA, are not prepared to get their hands dirty.

 

Maybe affiliating with PPA might become a viable option ?

[Niner]

 

 

you pay telkom for line, pay IT shop for router, pay isp for bandwidth but still can't read email. You have not paid for mailbox..

 

By entering a race surely you have PAID for the result?

[(Deon)]

By entering a race surely you have PAID for the result?

 

by paying telkom you have surely PAID for email? You have ADSL, why no email?

[mallo]

Welcome back PPA hopefully you guys will start up in all provinces again. Len get ready to start GPPA again back to the good old days of proper inter-club racing at affordable prices.

[DJR]

By entering a race surely you have PAID for the result?

By belonging to the PPA you have paid to see the results that the PPA have paid for out of membership fees. Perhaps it would be possible for them to add an option when entering a race online, where you can choose to pay, say R30, extra to have your time for that race displayed. Come on PPA, think about the extra revenue. There are clearly people out there who would like to be timed but not as members of the PPA.

[D-Mike]

[

I understand that, but why do you have to be a member of PPA to see your time online once you have a chip and paid for the race?

Well, since PPA facilitates the events and co-ordinates the timing of events it is surely their choice whether or not they make the information available to non-members or not. If you have a problem with this, become a member and at the AGM raise an item on the agenda to have this altered. PPA could choose the make the results available to non-members at a cost or no cost at their own discretion. Personally I think the cost to joining the PPA is so smal, that it really should be a non-issue.

[Stretch]

THey seem a bit like ROAG here in KZN. ROAG are a company that organise races and have their own seeding system. They generate their income from the Race Host, advertising etc. They also have a "virtual club" for which the cost is nominal, abt R50.00, through which you buy your CSA license no.

not quite - ROAG doesnt organise the race, they facilitate the administration process - entries, late entries, on the day admin, ,seeding, communication, post race communications etc. Race Organisers Admin Group

[Stretch]

To be fair, I have had no major interaction with PPA. at one point trying to get member information from them for CSA license validation proved a little troublesome - other than that as I am not based in w Cape i cant comment.

 

I still see this as a positive as long as we progress towards a single numbering/seeding system for all disciplines, and to be fair i think we are closer to that than we think

[The Drongo]

Welcome back PPA hopefully you guys will start up in all provinces again. Len get ready to start GPPA again back to the good old days of proper inter-club racing at affordable prices.

 

They start looking sideways at ROAG and I will take 'em out !!!!

 

Keep these winging bunches of politicians out of KZN.

 

ROAG have got it wrapped thanks very much. We don't need any idiot interference here, thanks for the offer.

[Frosty]

Will be fantastic to have some transparency around the funds generated by the Argus.

the Argus can do whatever the like with the funds - that's not what I'm refering to about the "monopoly".

 

What I don't like is the limiting of seeding races which are only Racetec timed. The 94.7 did the same last year, but declaring only races using Racetec timing would be used. Take a look at http://co.za/whois.shtml and you'll see that the Cycle Tour Trust is the registrant for:

 

www.cycletour.co.za

www.racetec.co.za

 

IMO it smells of corruption and abuse of market share to me - and against competitive behavior. But maybe I'm wrong, who knows.

 

If a cyclist wants a seeding for these two races, they have to do one of the qualifying races. Racetec can technically charge whatever they want and the race organiser has to pay the fee, if they want to be a "seeding" race, even if another timing company's quote is cheaper.

[Skubarra]

 

What I don't like is the limiting of seeding races which are only Racetec timed. The 94.7 did the same last year, but declaring only races using Racetec timing would be used. Take a look at http://co.za/whois.shtml and you'll see that the Cycle Tour Trust is the registrant for:

 

 

Geraldm24, I'm curious, given that they only use the bigger events with a minimum number of entrants for seeding purposes (i.e. a lot of smaller Racetec timed events are also excluded), what big races are currently excluded that you would like to see being used for seeding? I don't see an obvious exclusion?