USN 50 km race.. My 1st 50 km MTB race

[Cola Boy]

Ok, before i get whipped for just pitching up and complaining; this is a new profile, AKA Fast R.

 

Think some of the guys are a bit cautious of airing their views, so from the thread and my experience here are some issues I believe requires adressing;

• Number collection, queing a bit of a mess
  
• Batching in general was not organised, mixed starts
  
• Track was awesome, but marking was not as good as some of the hubbers are alluding to (various groups missing the track)
  
• Timing - not too sure if manual timing is the way of the future
  
• Only USN spike at the end of the race, no water, I was mowing the lawn at 1am Sunday morning.
  
• No goody bags, dont give me the "its about the ride not the GB" crap.
  
• Forgot to add the bloke with the broken ribs and the stolen bike.
  

If I had a USN and a Nissan on the same weekend, it will be the Nissan for sure.

Hope someone of influence will pick this up and use it constructively, cause the track is awesome, organising just needs to be jacked.

Edited June 11, 2013 by Cola Boy

[Gavmeister]

I actually thought Dylan and the guys did a great job in organizing this event and I really like the route. We arrived at 06h20 and just walked in and collected our numbers, quick and easy. Would suggest that the riders arrive a little earlier to collect their race numbers.

[Li Mu Bai]

I actually thought Dylan and the guys did a great job in organizing this event and I really like the route. We arrived at 06h20 and just walked in and collected our numbers, quick and easy. Would suggest that the riders arrive a little earlier to collect their race numbers.

yes if you got there early, number collection was fine. thereafter it was a mess.

 

fun single track, but what ruined it was the seeding. Placing previous USN race riders in batches ahead of faster riders in a prodiminantly single track event is nuts.

Not only is the traffic jams and waiting abominable and frustrating, but I'm sure its no fun for the slow rider having someone breathing down his/her neck and asking them to move aside as they negotiate the single track. again and again.

Whats the point of a national seeding database if it is not going to be used.

Good atmosphere though, and no issues with route marking - the bits of blue tape did the job fine.

[Mikesa9]

Ok, before i get whipped for just pitching up and complaining; this is a new profile, AKA Fast R.

 

Think some of the guys are a bit cautious of airing their views, so from the thread and my experience here are some issues I believe requires adressing;

• Number collection, queing a bit of a mess
  
• Batching in general was not organised, mixed starts
  
• Track was awesome, but marking was not as good as some of the hubbers are alluding to (various groups missing the track)
  
• Timing - not too sure if manual timing is the way of the future
  
• Only USN spike at the end of the race, no water, I was mowing the lawn at 1am Sunday morning.
  
• No goody bags, dont give me the "its about the ride not the GB" crap.
  
• Forgot to add the bloke with the broken ribs and the stolen bike.
  

If I had a USN and a Nissan on the same weekend, it will be the Nissan for sure.

Hope someone of influence will pick this up and use it constructively, cause the track is awesome, organising just needs to be jacked.

Massive queues at the toilets as well. I also agree that the track was awesome.

[Mikesa9]

Please bear with me here-if I did 52.5km on Saturday, did I take a wrong turn, or did I get it right?

[Salty]

I got 52 as well - at the 30/50 split I had 32km, so knew I would be in for 52....or more....

[RocknRolla]

I found the toilets to be busy, but better than the last USN race at the big red barn.

Improvement is always good, whch means the organisers are listening to the riders.

 

I have to agree on the seeding, there is a system (mind boggling as it may seem) in place, and it should be used.

In my correspondence with Great-time, i was told that the results will be submitted to SAS to contribute to my index.

I did a line entry on the day, and knew the start batch would be an issue. I had my mindset right from the start, and was not frustrated by the bottlenecks.

 

Also the nature of this race makes for either creative passing oppertunities or patience.

 

I have to say again, that this route is some of the most fun to be had in JHB on two wheels.

[sdaghers]

Does anybody know what time the Singe Speed guys started?

 

I was about 10km from the finish and one came flying out the bushes (definitely not on any type of track) and their time was almost an hour quicker than mine!

[RocknRolla]

Singlespeed was just a classification, and no special start for the special singlespeed riders

I also saw some singlespeeders seeded in C, starting in A.

 

singlespeed (felt i had to include the word once more in this post)

[FC&P2C]

I did the 30km and only entered that morning. Got a C seeding and expected over crowded paths but to my surprise I had a jol and the traffic was very easy enough to pass most of the time. Only lost maybe 5 minutes due to traffic. However the results has got me as 5 minutes slower than I did. Also didnt dq c batch riders whom started 20 minutes early with A or B.

My daughter did the 10km and she is usually competitive in the 10y category. Was surpriced that she didnt make podium and then saw she isnt on the results.

Last Usn we did was the first one for the year and they got the timing wrong there as well.

So in a nutshell it was much better then I expected it to be but the timing is a mess. Luckily we not really mtbers and only do it for fun!

[Eldron]

Me - I'm over both the USN and NISSAN races.

 

The organisers are great and the courses are good fun but these events have just got too big.

 

I love racing and I do it for fun. Fun for me is not: queue for parking, queue for numbers, scrum at start, queue for toilet, queue for food, queue at end with "riders move through riders move through" being announced over the intercom.

 

It's part of the reason I took up duathlon - normally the numbers are much lower and the experience much better. Events are much less formal and you get to know people much faster.

 

Nothing against the organisers - Fritz'n'Dylan are both passionate guys capable of organising great events and know how to find/make good technical stuff. Maybe I'm getting too old or mtb is getting to popular but I reckon these two series are over subscribed.

[Danger Dassie]

We passed the leading ladies, well Amy and Yolande at about the 20k mark. They were actually the first two that we passed that made us realise that people had turned wrong. And then we just kept passing and passing, but when you pass one guy twice...

 

At the end of the day when we realised that the results weren't going to be accurate, we wrote it off as a good training ride and carried on racing as we were.

What time did you manage in the end?

 

Ya frustrating.

As you say though, good day out on the bike at least. I left quite late to miss traffic and chatted to the car park guys, the one said he saw a youngster during the race walking with some bunting wrapped round his paw.

 

Time was around 2:11, I know exactly who finished in front of me and after as we pretty much crossed the finish line together.

Would like my result to reflect for seeding at least, every bit helps. But hey it's not the defining factor for me

[Active Monkey]

Any one know where to get action photos of this one

[Heel Drop]

Ok, before i get whipped for just pitching up and complaining; this is a new profile, AKA Fast R.

 

Think some of the guys are a bit cautious of airing their views, so from the thread and my experience here are some issues I believe requires adressing;

• Number collection, queing a bit of a mess
  
• Batching in general was not organised, mixed starts
  
• Track was awesome, but marking was not as good as some of the hubbers are alluding to (various groups missing the track)
  
• Timing - not too sure if manual timing is the way of the future
  
• Only USN spike at the end of the race, no water, I was mowing the lawn at 1am Sunday morning.
  
• No goody bags, dont give me the "its about the ride not the GB" crap.
  
• Forgot to add the bloke with the broken ribs and the stolen bike.
  

If I had a USN and a Nissan on the same weekend, it will be the Nissan for sure.

Hope someone of influence will pick this up and use it constructively, cause the track is awesome, organising just needs to be jacked.

 

fully agree unless they sort this I wont do one of the races again - that's all I can do .In a year it went from very good to very bad