PMB World Cup DH #1

[Headshot]

Can't believe the beer was absent... Maybe CT can pitch for a WC dh track - then it can shift back and forth between KZN and WP. We have a lot of beer in CT...

[Headshot]

My biggest disappointment was Mitch Rop not qualifying - dying to see how the 29er did. What happened to him?

[Grebel]

tried to buy beer on the sat and the sun...nothing to be found..unless I was blind

 

It really is a pity...but this was very poorly organised this year. No visible place to get beer, not heaps of food, no food or drink further up the course. There was opportunity to sell wors rolls/drinks up the dh course, or at key points in the xc

 

add to that poor advertising, and a lazy population in natal and you have poor crowds and a badly organised event

 

Refreshment up the course have been a problem from the beginning and they have been raised year after year. a wors roll stand at the Tables with ice cold drinks would be a winner. Logistically easy to replenish as well. Cloud 9 would also be a good spot but getting stuff there would be a mission....

[Stretch]

Can't believe the beer was absent... Maybe CT can pitch for a WC dh track - then it can shift back and forth between KZN and WP. We have a lot of beer in CT...

 

when all the dust has settled, I am wanting to propose to Nigel a question

 

If you had a choice to design a world cup course anywhere in the country, where would you do it?.

 

I am not 100% familiar with whats available in Cape town, but from what I understand the ones for nationals this year is too short?

 

Also, you have to take logistics into account - it has to be a near a reasonably major centre. For example, I think you could bang a much better XC and DH course together in Karkloof - but its simply too far away from general populas to attract uniformed passer by's

 

It has to have the drop and the overall distance

 

It has to have a place to have a race village

 

It has to have space to be able to build a XC course

 

It has to have sufficient network coverage (hence the need to be close to a reasonably big centre)

[Waynehans]

I had a good day, drove up from the Vaal for the day with my wife! Got there early, and walked the pits, the guys are really friendly, GM has always got a smile on his face, in all my photos. Got a good spot at the finish line. Took over 400 photos for the day. Good to see Nigel in the flesh, after speaking on the Hub.

Yes pity there wasnt any Beer, but then again, I got back in my car after prize giving and hit the road home again.... And u don't mess with the KZN Cops!!

 

All in all, I had a great day. Will go again, but this time better prepared, and stay over in PMB!!

[Skylark]

Who organized the event? What twit doesn't provide for ample food and beer for the crowd? If it's well put on and advertised it's a pretty decent opportunity to make a good return on the investment, well at least better than nothing, considering the basic race infrastructure has to be put on no matter what. often the food and beverages /entertainments is put out to tender?

Was last year maybe a bit of a disappointment in terms of the crowds and the organizers a bit shy of putting in any effort?

[Tumbleweed]

Sadly no beer yes.

 

Maybe they heard I wouldn't make it…

[Stretch]

Who organized the event? What twit doesn't provide for ample food and beer for the crowd? If it's well put on and advertised it's a pretty decent opportunity to make a good return on the investment, well at least better than nothing, considering the basic race infrastructure has to be put on no matter what. often the food and beverages /entertainments is put out to tender?

Was last year maybe a bit of a disappointment in terms of the crowds and the organizers a bit shy of putting in any effort?

 

I dunno - last year the crowds were actually ok...BUT...if you wanted good crowds then you need to go back to the first year - the place was packed from the amphitheatre all the way to the bottom - and then there were still supporters all the way up to cloud 9. First year there was xc, 4x and dh - and all three days were well supported...Why? there was no entrance fee..sad to say it but maritzburgers are tight with their money..and with a tougher economic climate they are even tighter. I raised this after world champs when I noticed avid mtb supporter friends of mine were not attending because they didnt want to fork out the R200 for the family for the day - but no one listened and the net result was a feeble weekend of support

 

My answer to the problem...make it free (or like R10) to enter and charge for things like:

shuttles to the top - and have plenty going all the time

food - and have stands everywhere with drinks and food

beer stops - have beer stops at the bottom and at the table tops and somewhere near red lipped

 

what else would i do

 

have a screen at the tabletops or at least at the ampitheatre - and broadcast the announcement there

have giveaways and prizes throughout the weekend - at cairns in 2 weeks if you bought a ticket before 1 April you stand in line to win a race shirt signed by all the winners

have small entertainments in dead spots between events - like a kiddies race on the pump track - or even an adults race

 

and thats just off the top of my head - I think they have lost interest to be honest

[Captain Fastbastard Mayhem]

I dunno - last year the crowds were actually ok...BUT...if you wanted good crowds then you need to go back to the first year - the place was packed from the amphitheatre all the way to the bottom - and then there were still supporters all the way up to cloud 9. First year there was xc, 4x and dh - and all three days were well supported...Why? there was no entrance fee..sad to say it but maritzburgers are tight with their money..and with a tougher economic climate they are even tighter. I raised this after world champs when I noticed avid mtb supporter friends of mine were not attending because they didnt want to fork out the R200 for the family for the day - but no one listened and the net result was a feeble weekend of support

 

My answer to the problem...make it free (or like R10) to enter and charge for things like:

shuttles to the top - and have plenty going all the time

food - and have stands everywhere with drinks and food

beer stops - have beer stops at the bottom and at the table tops and somewhere near red lipped

 

what else would i do

 

have a screen at the tabletops or at least at the ampitheatre - and broadcast the announcement there

have giveaways and prizes throughout the weekend - at cairns in 2 weeks if you bought a ticket before 1 April you stand in line to win a race shirt signed by all the winners

have small entertainments in dead spots between events - like a kiddies race on the pump track - or even an adults race

 

and thats just off the top of my head - I think they have lost interest to be honest

 

100% there bro... 100%.

[cspurdens81]

If you had a choice to design a world cup course anywhere in the country, where would you do it?.

 

I am not 100% familiar with whats available in Cape town, but from what I understand the ones for nationals this year is too short?

 

Imagine a purpose built DH track running from Tafelberg Rd (lower cable station road) on Table Mountain down towards Vredehoek/Oranjezicht. Shuttles would be easy. And it would probably be the most epic, iconic DH race in the world.

[Grebel]

So much can be done. A simple shuttle service from the car park up to the tables up English Road. I'd pay R10 for that.

 

Make that area a hive of activity with a commentator that actually knows what they are talking about (Just not that girl from Monster a few years back.... Please NOOOO) They could be in contact with the finish line to update on times, positions etc. You could easily get food and drinks up there. Trim the trees back a bit along the pedally section and you might get more people up there. You'd be surprised how much difference it makes when people are shouting your name on the way down!

 

Edit: The walk up to Cloud 9 and even the start wouldn't be that bad from there either. Would encourage people to spread out along the course as well.

Edited April 15, 2014 by Grebel

[Headshot]

when all the dust has settled, I am wanting to propose to Nigel a question

 

If you had a choice to design a world cup course anywhere in the country, where would you do it?.

 

I am not 100% familiar with whats available in Cape town, but from what I understand the ones for nationals this year is too short?

 

Also, you have to take logistics into account - it has to be a near a reasonably major centre. For example, I think you could bang a much better XC and DH course together in Karkloof - but its simply too far away from general populas to attract uniformed passer by's

 

It has to have the drop and the overall distance

 

It has to have a place to have a race village

 

It has to have space to be able to build a XC course

 

It has to have sufficient network coverage (hence the need to be close to a reasonably big centre)

 

Stellenbosch springs to mind - we had a few WC's there back in the day - Missy Giove and all! You could build a seriously steep course and some of the existing tracks could be woven into an XC loop - Jonkershoek is magic and Stellies is a great party place.

[nigelhicks]

ok so to define the beers issues etc.

 

Spectator numbers have steadily decreased every year we have had the event ... 2009 and 2011 we had over 20000 spectators over the weekend.

This year was about 8000 for the 2 days (BUT - at many world cups if you have 4000 over a weekend thats good going - so we werent too bad - but its just that people have been last year so dont think it worth it the next year)

 

The Beer - the beer garden had an issue with the liquor act so that put paid to the beer on site.

The same vendor had had stands at the tables the past 2 years and he said that it wasnt worth his while to have them again as he didnt make any money off them.

 

We had previously offered a shuttle sevice to the tables in years gone by but it ended up being a logistical nightmare and okes complained about paying R15 to be taken up to the tabletops.

 

The advertising in my mind has always been shoddy since the first one - but this year was exceptionally bad. But again with all the voting posters up on lamp poles the moment no one would read a banner on a pole anyway.

 

So it is not finalised but it appears that DH is no longer in PMB - we may get the world cup again sometime but there are lots of speculations so lets wait and see what happens.

 

Basically the Teams are saying its too expensive to have 2 "exotic" destinations in one year - so with Cairns having Worlds in 2017 - they would rather go there and build up to that like they did here.

In my mind this is a good idea as a couple of years quiescence may stimulate spectator numbers again if we get it back.

 

But we also have marathon worlds and the potential of BMX world cup again?

So lets see what Alec has up his sleeve

[nigelhicks]

when all the dust has settled, I am wanting to propose to Nigel a question

 

If you had a choice to design a world cup course anywhere in the country, where would you do it?.

- If it had to be in SA - probably Stelenbosch area

But in all honesty i dont think SA has the elevation to host a true DH event - XC yes - as this can be done almost anywhere - but DH ... no

 

 

I am not 100% familiar with whats available in Cape town, but from what I understand the ones for nationals this year is too short?

- Track has to be the following:

XC - 4 to 5km lap - total race time of 1:30min

DH - Course length 1500m to 3500m Duration of the event 2 to 5min

 

Most of our tracks are too short - need an average elevation drop of ~400 to 600m

 

Also, you have to take logistics into account - it has to be a near a reasonably major centre. For example, I think you could bang a much better XC and DH course together in Karkloof - but its simply too far away from general popular to attract uniformed passer by's

- NO - this is incorrect. Many of the venues are 2 hours or so away from major hubs ... the biggest logistical issue is if the event is a double or triple event or just a single.

If its a single its no issue - but if its a 2 or 3 event then the venue needs to be able to cater for ALL the events in one spot. So Karkloof would not work as the DH would be way seperate from the XC - also the big trails at karkloof are at min 5km away from the Club in one direction (remember that the XC is max 5km long - and needs proper climbing in it).

So Karkloof (although having cool trails would be a terrible venue as the courses would be too far removed from the event venue.

That is why Ski resorts work well as everything can be centralised around a race village

 

It has to have the drop and the overall distance

- Yes - see above

 

It has to have a place to have a race village

- Yes - see above - this is KEY!

 

It has to have space to be able to build a XC course

- Yes and no - can be really compact course that actually doesnt take up too much area

 

It has to have sufficient network coverage (hence the need to be close to a reasonably big centre)

- Yes and no - the event organisers often bring in their own upload links and facilities with dedicated satellite feeds as the reception in the mountains of Europe is often not the best.

Edited April 16, 2014 by nigelhicks

[Grebel]

Not as easy as it seems then.... A lot of trade offs have to be made at the end of the day. I for one am super glad that I got to watch a few World Cup DH and XCO races as well as attend a World Championships where our local legend took the rainbow stripes and in addition to that I had the privilege of being able to participate in a Master's World Championships. All within an hour's drive of home. Not many people get ALL those opportunities!

 

All of this was possible as a result of a few dedicated people like Nige, Nick, Alec to name but a few.

 

Thanks guys!

[Stretch]

Thanks Nige for all the feedback.

 

and WE ALL really APPRECIATE the effort you guys doing the tracks have done. Big kudos to you

 

what we really need is the world cup circuit on regular TV...so they showed Pmb..lets see supersport showing cairns...and then Czeck...then Germany...etc etc etc....maybe...just maybe