MTB Events/Races - Etiquette?

[martinsnyman]

@ joe: the flip side: its a race, if you are not prepared to get off your bike and run around an obstacle or bottleneck, but would rather wait your turn to cross at the designated point, then why complain about it? do what you have to do, or just go for the fun ride and stop worrying about throwing things at people. Why get all worked up if some others out there are prepared to do what it takes to keep racing? Sure it may not be for a podium but people take part in these events for all sorts of reasons. If the organisers poorly plan a route that results in silly bottle necks, its their fault, not the riders. (94.7 mtb race is a classic example of a rediculous mtb race that is poorly planned, the bottlenecks are abominable.

 

@ Martin: punctures or mechanicals - just get off the track as best as possible not to hinder those following you. pushing up hills: move to the side so that those who are able to ride the hill, or want to challenge themselves can get a fair and unhindered crack at it. When you are ready, ease back into the track once its clear or you will cause a tangle.

 

You hate taxi drivers, yet you suggest that one should rides ones MTB like a taxi driver?

[River Rat]

 

 

Exactly. The people who were behind me when I got to the edge of the forest finally ended up ahead of me because they were told to use the tar road. How's your wife? Hope she's recovering well!

 

Plenty of pain and her confidence is shattered I guess time will reveal all, thanks for asking!

[Pieter1]

To enter a marathon surely you should have put in some t.i.t.s thus you should surely have the skills to ride down a little wooden brige, over a little ditch, a tight turn and down a rocky decent. I'm no Greg Minaar but really it gets to me.

[rouxtjie]

To enter a marathon surely you should have put in some t.i.t.s thus you should surely have the skills to ride down a little wooden brige, over a little ditch, a tight turn and down a rocky decent. I'm no Greg Minaar but really it gets to me.

You are right but here it's where it went pear shaped in the race....45 and 70km guys have already joined resulting in mixed levels of skills and fitness. The bridge was broken, even if you were minaar, you would not have cleared it and there was no alternative but to wade to the other side and climb a steep bank of mud....2 guys get out, 6 guys join at the back.....hey presto bottleneck. Joe...good meeting you yesterday and yes you are fully within your right to chirp the poepholes jumping the line, normally you will catch them at the next hill pushing. It's exactly like traffic jam situation....you wait your turn, you don't have a special no board, get in the back of the queue.

Edited September 3, 2012 by rouxtjie

[Heel Drop]

Q's are for the bank

[mazambaan]

100% on getting off the track if you dismount in a rideable section; particularly on a downhill!

 

I'm no Greg Minnaar but also come from off road motorcycle background and have a reasonable feeling for what is quite fast (for me anyway) on downhills. A recent race was quite funny as near the start a youth whistled past and I thought "whew, he's smoken; I'm getting slooow". Seconds later, said youth is cutting a furrow in the pine needles with his face. A little later some big lad out braked me to a turn from jeep track to single track. Again I thought that there were some sick skills in the back of the pack with me. Well the lad out braked himself and went whistling into the timber at a cracking pace to overtake later and inevitably on an uphill with camouflaging grass and a shrubbery still being shed from his helmet.

 

Another back of pack gent with a GoPro attached also obligingly ploughed the single track just ahead of me. I hope he got the footage.

 

Morale of the storey - please crash where other riders can see you - it's a welcome distraction from their suffering.

[Pieter1]

 

You are right but here it's where it went pear shaped in the race....45 and 70km guys have already joined resulting in mixed levels of skills and fitness. The bridge was broken, even if you were minaar, you would have cleared it and there was no alternative but to wade to the other side and climb a steep bank of mud....2 guys get out, 6 guys join at the back.....hey presto bottleneck. Joe...good meeting you yesterday and yes you are fully within your right to chirp the poepholes jumping the line, normally you will catch them at the next hill pushing. It's exactly like traffic jam situation....you wait your turn, you don't have a special no board, get in he back of the queue.

Thanks to the bottlenecks we were redirected around that little mishap... Any way that Jager and beer at the end was well worth it.

[rouxtjie]

Thanks to the bottlenecks we were redirected around that little mishap... Any way that Jager and beer at the end was well worth it.

The spykerbomb was the highlight of my race

[Joe_Cogs]

100% on getting off the track if you dismount in a rideable section; particularly on a downhill!

 

I'm no Greg Minnaar but also come from off road motorcycle background and have a reasonable feeling for what is quite fast (for me anyway) on downhills. A recent race was quite funny as near the start a youth whistled past and I thought "whew, he's smoken; I'm getting slooow". Seconds later, said youth is cutting a furrow in the pine needles with his face. A little later some big lad out braked me to a turn from jeep track to single track. Again I thought that there were some sick skills in the back of the pack with me. Well the lad out braked himself and went whistling into the timber at a cracking pace to overtake later and inevitably on an uphill with camouflaging grass and a shrubbery still being shed from his helmet.

 

Another back of pack gent with a GoPro attached also obligingly ploughed the single track just ahead of me. I hope he got the footage.

 

Morale of the storey - please crash where other riders can see you - it's a welcome distraction from their suffering.

 

Brilliant

 

Don't feel too bad - it was that camouflage that allowed him to get ahead of you

[Eldron]

Ahh ye olde bottleneck queue jumping issue. Me - I don't take kindly to it. Some w@nker tired it just after we exited the school at the start (down the concrete strips) where we headed through the gate onto the dirt. He poppped round the outside and tried to push him - two okes chirped him and he ignored them and pushed anyway so I kicked him and his bike into the fence. It was most graitfying and I learnt a few new swear words.

 

Otherwise you have it spot on martin.

 

One thing to look out for is changing lanes when the races merge - had some numpty switch me off the right hand track as he cut across. I had a few choice words and his response was "I was boxed in man - what do you want me to do?". Uhhhh check that there isn't anyone in on the right track before you try and ride through them?

 

Bizarre - normally I have the most chilled races but this was seemed to be full of muppits. Maybe the dust stole their collective senses of humour....

[martinsnyman]

Ahh ye olde bottleneck queue jumping issue. Me - I don't take kindly to it. Some w@nker tired it just after we exited the school at the start (down the concrete strips) where we headed through the gate onto the dirt. He poppped round the outside and tried to push him - two okes chirped him and he ignored them and pushed anyway so I kicked him and his bike into the fence. It was most graitfying and I learnt a few new swear words.

 

Otherwise you have it spot on martin.

 

One thing to look out for is changing lanes when the races merge - had some numpty switch me off the right hand track as he cut across. I had a few choice words and his response was "I was boxed in man - what do you want me to do?". Uhhhh check that there isn't anyone in on the right track before you try and ride through them?

 

Bizarre - normally I have the most chilled races but this was seemed to be full of muppits. Maybe the dust stole their collective senses of humour....

 

I'm liking this purely because there isn't a fu%$*ng love it !!!!!!!!! button - pity you did not kick him into that electrical fence we were hugging for a while!!!!Priceless dude, well done!!!!!! Forget Superman - you my new hero.

[jagwil]

Survival of the fittest????

[Li Mu Bai]

You hate taxi drivers, yet you suggest that one should rides ones MTB like a taxi driver?

 

Umm, you were the one talking about taxi's.

My question was the whining that seems to happen when there are bottlenecks etc directed at other riders rather than the race organisers.

As rouxtjie correctly said when race organisers merge marathon with half marathon races towards the end, you end up with various skills and fitness levels mixed up and congestion. This after most marathon riders have worked their butts off to break free of the congestion that one experiences at the start of a race (and dust). Then all you need is for the route to have one last single track, and it becomes even more of a stuff up. And made even worse if a bridge breaks like what happened on saturday - (Who in their right mind builds a bridge out of flimsy plastic bottle crates and cable ties anyway. I got there just after it broke, and guys had their legs right jammed through that twisted plastic carnage, it really looked painful).

This imo, is one of the biggest mistakes race organisers make.

Riders then take out their frustration that comes with their own decision of displaying manners by 'doing the right thing' and wait for their turn to get through, on other riders who aren't interested in waiting for many reasons (making up time for falls and/or punctures, half marathon race leaders wanting to get through, exhuberance of youth, impatience, bad manners, whatever)

The guys in front of me waded around the bottle neck. I took my chances with the slippery rocks and dark knee deep water and waded across too. Decision made. There was no sign saying wait for green. At the time, everyone just got on with it, without assaulting eachother.

Getting pissed off with the other riders who later on were directed onto the tar road by race officials, to bypass the 'unforseen broken bridge' bottleneck just makes no sense.

Express your frustration and anger to the race organisers.

Edited September 3, 2012 by Li Mu Bai

[martinsnyman]

Umm, you were the one talking about taxi's.

My question was the whining that seems to happen when there are bottlenecks etc directed at other riders rather than the race organisers. - Point taken

As rouxtjie correctly said when race organisers merge marathon with half marathon races towards the end, you end up with various skills and fitness levels mixed up and congestion. This after most marathon riders have worked their butts off to break free of the congestion that one experiences at the start of a race (and dust). Then all you need is for the route to have one last single track, and it becomes even more of a stuff up. And made even worse if a bridge breaks like what happened on saturday - (Who in their right mind builds a bridge out of flimsy plastic bottle crates and cable ties anyway. I got there just after it broke, and guys had their legs right jammed through that twisted plastic carnage, it really looked painful). - I agree, this should not have happened

This imo, is one of the biggest mistakes race organisers make.

Riders then take out their frustration that comes with their own decision of displaying manners by 'doing the right thing' and wait for their turn to get through, on other riders who aren't interested in waiting for many reasons (making up time for falls and/or punctures, half marathon race leaders wanting to get through, exhuberance of youth, impatience, bad manners, whatever)

The guys in front of me waded around the bottle neck. I took my chances with the slippery rocks and dark knee deep water and waded across too. Decision made. There was no sign saying wait for green. At the time, everyone just got on with it, without assaulting eachother.I see your point, i just feel that common sense and good manners will go a long way!

Getting pissed off with the other riders who later on were directed onto the tar road by race officials, to bypass the 'unforseen broken bridge' bottleneck just makes no sense.I was part of the group that got re directed, at the time we did not know why we were being re directed, so what were we to do? Follow the new route or stop and find out how this will affect the other riders?

Express your frustration and anger to the race organisers.True that - but I don't think there was a solution to this issue at the time, I guess if you wanted to be fair you could stop all the other riders coming down the tar road to first make way for all the riders returning from the river crossing to have right of way? But would that have been fair? Let's just hope the next one is better organised! We should all voice our concerns on the organisers facebook page, lets try and be constructive and help them improve!

[Eldron]

 

 

Interesting that you seem to place yourself above most of the others. Muppets, really? and Assaulting someone because he made a decision to jump into the rough stuff and go around the problem, rather than wait for it to clear. Is this because you were frustrated at not thinking about doing this yourself first? If you were prepared to display correct good manners and wait for your turn, what difference does it make if someone gets into the rough stuff and goes around you?Did he elbow or bump you off the clear singletrack path you were waiting on?. You did say he tried to push in, was he abusive about it? That certainly would have justified being kicked into a fence and being sworn at.

At least it made you feel better. Hopefully you dont do this to somebody who bites back.

 

Call me old school but I'm a fair is fair and right is right kinda guy. In a staight fight it's gloves firmly on but when the field is expected to fit through a narrow gate then the right thing to do is go through the gate in the order that you got to the gate. If people start going round the queue then it becomes a scrum/free for all at the gate. If you choose to take the gloves off then expect a dirty fight.

 

If someone overtakes me in the rough stuff (on the designated course!) then good for them - I normally keep left and if stronger riders can go past then I'll happily make it easier for them.

[Wyatt Earp]

The good old hub.