Wil6 Posted June 7, 2015 Posted June 7, 2015 Dirt roadies are SA Marathon champs this morning. Both ex roadies.
dillon Posted June 7, 2015 Posted June 7, 2015 Dirt roadies are SA Marathon champs this morning. Both ex roadies.Gawie Combrink took 5 mins on satellite decent, how long did it take you?
Heel Drop Posted June 7, 2015 Posted June 7, 2015 The route was great, but I suffered on that technical downhill with my rigid. My choice to ride this with my Single Speed....not the best but it was fun and had a great day, except for the floating bridge cock up. Started in F batch for the marathon and waited 40min to get across. If it was not for the single track the second part of the route after the floating bridge until the finish, I would have been a very pee off mtbiker And for you dirt roadies, please sell your 60k+ mountain bikes and get the hell of our trails. You messing it up for everyonestupid comment
arendoog Posted June 7, 2015 Posted June 7, 2015 Can it be that Andrew Mclean finished 11 in the marathon with injured shoulder and all .Respect !!
Wil6 Posted June 7, 2015 Posted June 7, 2015 stupid commentWhy? Are you one of them pushing your bike on sections that you should not be pushing? Lack of basic skills comes to mind
kingalton Posted June 7, 2015 Posted June 7, 2015 Ultra was a proper beast, was nice having long sections on our own, no traffic, no waiting.. Last 30km only saw 2 other guys.. Proper broken last night, feeling better today :-)
kingalton Posted June 7, 2015 Posted June 7, 2015 Why? Are you one of them pushing your bike on sections that you should not be pushing? Lack of basic skills comes to mindImprove your seeding it won't be an issue..
ACM Posted June 7, 2015 Posted June 7, 2015 Also in D batch. Had a look and it seems like I waited 36 minutes. That took my finishing time from a respectable 4H30 to 5H06.I know it affected everyone, but looking at the seeding distribution, everyone that were caught at the bridge for long, got a worse seeding, as we were too far off the winning time. Looking at the times, seems that the A and B batches managed OK at the bridge, and then the bottleneck started.If anyone from A,B or C can comment that would be great, would love to know where the bottleneck started in terms of batches and how long you waited.Likewise... Respectable 4:40 to a 5:13Last year I was in E batch and the wait at the bridge was maybe 1 minute or 2 minutes - so not sure what happened yesterday.
ACM Posted June 7, 2015 Posted June 7, 2015 Gawie Combrink took 5 mins on satellite decent, how long did it take you?8:42 and this year I could ride it from top to bottom - only had to stop where guys in front of me fell. Had to stop like 4 times for guys going to slow and taking a tumble. Was MUCH better than last year's walk-ride-walk-ride mess in E batch. So very chuffed that I could ride ALL of it :-)
nonky Posted June 7, 2015 Posted June 7, 2015 Does anyone think that that pisspoor excuse for a bridge was even remotely good enough for a race billed the "SA Mtb Champs"?Or, is it simply a case of, "we'll take the entry fee from the dumb shmucks at the back (it helps balance the books, after all) and who gives a s##t if they wait for half an hour (or longer) at our patently sub-standard, unfit for purpose bridge?What a way to RUIN an otherwise brilliant day of riding. WTF were the route planners / bridge builders thinking?"Sorry" doesn't cut it anymore - it's the same excuse EVERY TIME.
Cav' Posted June 7, 2015 Posted June 7, 2015 Started in A (and waited 15 mins) and the lady that crossed the bridge before stopped in the middle, myself and the oke behind me took a propper dive. To say I was pissed (and cold) is a understatement. Its safe to say that bridge f ckd up my race.
Kyle Petersen Posted June 7, 2015 Posted June 7, 2015 I started in A on the half marathon. I had an amazing ride. Absolutely loved it. First senior home too. Boom. We had no curse of the floating bridge! Made life great by the sounds of it.
rvdm1 Posted June 7, 2015 Posted June 7, 2015 Does anyone think that that pisspoor excuse for a bridge was even remotely good enough for a race billed the "SA Mtb Champs"?Or, is it simply a case of, "we'll take the entry fee from the dumb shmucks at the back (it helps balance the books, after all) and who gives a s##t if they wait for half an hour (or longer) at our patently sub-standard, unfit for purpose bridge?What a way to RUIN an otherwise brilliant day of riding. WTF were the route planners / bridge builders thinking?"Sorry" doesn't cut it anymore - it's the same excuse EVERY TIME. I don't agree with you about the bridge being sub-standard. I confess, there were a few obstacles to the latter part of the route that I did not even attempt to ride (and I did not hold up anybody when crossing them). I am not usually someone to shy away from the technical stuff, but after falling twice in short succession I realised I was mentally and physically too tired to make proper line choices etc. That said, the floating bridge was not one of them, I don't think there was anything wrong with it. It probably came down to people being too scared to ride it and then not carrying enough speed going on to the bridge. Now, don't get me wrong, standing for almost an hour waiting to cross the bridge was not fun and did nothing to help prevent cramping. For races of this size it would make sense to have a second option, a bridge that people can walk over as a chicken run. All in all, in a very masochistic way, I enjoyed the race. I just need to work on my endurance a bit more and definitely riding big rock bed/garden type stuff (rotse in afr).
Joji Posted June 7, 2015 Posted June 7, 2015 Now that's a proper MTB race! Enjoyed it but dumbfounded by the lack of skills even at the top end of the field. I think riders are getting too used to the manicured Sani2c type trails...
ACM Posted June 7, 2015 Posted June 7, 2015 I don't agree with you about the bridge being sub-standard. Agree! The bridge was the same condition as it was last year. And I don't recall huge complaints after last year's race. I kind of recall same issues (as this year) for the 2013 race (although I didn't ride). So maybe it's more about the riders abilities than the bridge. However, last year there were 'support' (guys on paddle boats) in the water and the marshals was adults and lots of adults around there. Not sure if those young kids (marshals) added to the problem in perhaps not getting the gaps correct. Although it is the riders responsibility to get the gap right; we were directed the kids ???? Maybe it's also a case of weight - at 70kg the bridge is really not a problem. Not sure how it behaves when a 90kg rider goes over it.
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