Monte Classico - Route Safety Concerns

[Bike Dewing]

Just finished up and got home from this.. not once did I feel unsafe.. at all.. I did wonder if montecasino is struggling though.. 🤣🤣 no name brand cola and the medals aren’t very nice..🤷🏼‍♂️

but whatever, that was a Good ride💪🏼🥳🤘🏻

[Sandro]

1 hour ago, Bichael Dewing said:

Just finished up and got home from this.. not once did I feel unsafe.. at all.. I did wonder if montecasino is struggling though.. 🤣🤣 no name brand cola and the medals aren’t very nice..🤷🏼‍♂️

but whatever, that was a Good ride💪🏼🥳🤘🏻

Agreed, thought it was well marshaled considering the nightmare that is Fourways roads. 

[Bike Dewing]

5 minutes ago, Sandro said:

Agreed, thought it was well marshaled considering the nightmare that is Fourways roads. 

Absolutely, the route safety was not a concern.. even though witkoppen was advertised as full road closure but was only lane closure on the day🤷🏼‍♂️.. 

Things that did annoy me was the starting batches were not at all separated before and lead into the start area systematically like 947, everyone was just funneled into the start area, causing me to start with BL and not AL, as I couldn’t be bothered to fight my way forward..(and apparently it doesn’t matter if I started later anyways🤷🏼‍♂️).. 

And the 25 minute delay to start.. 

otherwise, f$&kit, great morning out.. 

[Popit]

Enjoyed the race . Felt safe at all times ..

Is it just me or a Finishtime useless ... have me 30 minutes slower than what I did , and I see quite a few errors . 

[Bike Dewing]

9 minutes ago, Popit said:

Enjoyed the race . Felt safe at all times ..

Is it just me or a Finishtime useless ... have me 30 minutes slower than what I did , and I see quite a few errors . 

How did you receive your time.? Email, sms etc.?

I haven’t received my official time yet.? 
 

EDIT: just searched on finish time website.. apparently I did it in 1:56..!!!🤣🤣🤣🤣

yeah completely useless.. 🤦‍♂️👎🏻

Edited February 11 by Bichael Dewing
Searched my time

[Sandro]

48 minutes ago, Popit said:

Enjoyed the race . Felt safe at all times ..

Is it just me or a Finishtime useless ... have me 30 minutes slower than what I did , and I see quite a few errors . 

My chip fell off and is somewhere in the cradle, cheap rubbish. Their whole reporting system looks very amateur. 

[Bike Dewing]

11 minutes ago, Sandro said:

My chip fell off and is somewhere in the cradle, cheap rubbish. Their whole reporting system looks very amateur. 

I think there’s an elite cyclist out there that’s super pissed with their(mine🤦‍♂️🤣) 3:29 result..

if they just duffed the timing board assignments.. 

otherwise something else went terribly wrong..🤷🏼‍♂️🤣🤣🤣

[The Ouzo]

1 hour ago, Bichael Dewing said:

I think there’s an elite cyclist out there that’s super pissed with their(mine🤦‍♂️🤣) 3:29 result..

if they just duffed the timing board assignments.. 

otherwise something else went terribly wrong..🤷🏼‍♂️🤣🤣🤣

It’s finish time. The duffed everything. 
I can’t understand how it’s so bloody difficult to get something right that others have been doing for 20 years. 
 

 

oh and again, they must have not had much awareness around road closures etc. for this race, my sister stays just off of Cedar, when we met for lunch today she asked what was happening, she had no idea there was a race on. 

[Bike Dewing]

4 minutes ago, The Ouzo said:

It’s finish time. The duffed everything. 
I can’t understand how it’s so bloody difficult to get something right that others have been doing for 20 years. 
 

 

oh and again, they must have not had much awareness around road closures etc. for this race, my sister stays just off of Cedar, when we met for lunch today she asked what was happening, she had no idea there was a race on. 

Yeah now that you mention it there was no awareness created before time.. I live in paulshof, just passed the Porsche dealership and there was not even one sign up.. ten minute cycle to monte this morning.. 

So they’ll scrap the results then for any sort of seeding etc surely.?

[Spinnekop]

Safety was no issue.  Good hard race and I really enjoyed it.

I have decided to not do this race again for the following reasons.

• Race number pickup bull ****.  I sat 4 hour in traffic on Thursday just to pick up a piece of useless paper.
  When are these organisers going to be held accountable for wasting peoples time and money???  And VERY important, where is the environmental responsibility......???? I would love to know how much EXSTRA fossil fuels were burnt just to pick up a number that I can print at home???  Give me a QR code that I can scan at the starting block to gain entry to the event.  I can print my number for 50c in color.  I spent R200 fuel plus half day leave at work just to get a number.  Boils my blood.
• Seeding was CRAP.  South Africa cycling does not have a seeding system anymore.  We are forced to pay CSA (racing license) to get a better start time.  
• Timing system can improve.  The chip is horrible.  The mounting system is cheap and can be improved a lot. Give me a permanent chip and number (while you are at it) like 94.7 that I can use every year for your series of races. 
  The results were not correct for the A batch and I can only imagine for the rest of the groups.  
   

Edited February 12 by Spinnekop

[Sandro]

47 minutes ago, Spinnekop said:

Safety was no issue.  Good hard race and I really enjoyed it.

I have decided to not do this race again for the following reasons.

• Race number pickup bull ****.  I sat 4 hour in traffic on Thursday just to pick up a piece of useless paper.
  When are these organisers going to be held accountable for wasting peoples time and money???  And VERY important, where is the environmental responsibility......???? I would love to know how much EXSTRA fossil fuels were burnt just to pick up a number that I can print at home???  Give me a QR code that I can scan at the starting block to gain entry to the event.  I can print my number for 50c in color.  I spent R200 fuel plus half day leave at work just to get a number.  Boils my blood.
• Seeding was CRAP.  South Africa cycling does not have a seeding system anymore.  We are forced to pay CSA (racing license) to get a better start time.  
• Timing system can improve.  The chip is horrible.  The mounting system is cheap and can be improved a lot. Give me a permanent chip and number (while you are at it) like 94.7 that I can use every year for your series of races. 
  The results were not correct for the A batch and I can only imagine for the rest of the groups.  
   

For me it was the generous 5 toilets for I don't know how many people as well as the late start. The announcer preferred to focus on making jokes and talking *** instead of actully clearly announcing who was starting and where to go. I must say the cost of these races is becoming a bit obscene and I won't be doing as many as I'd like to. It was well marshaled though so big ups to those involved there and I do realise thats where most of the cost goes, it definitely wasn't for the medals. 

[Mattman]

Enjoyed the race overall and despite only partial road closure, felt pretty safe 90% of the ride. 
 

The start is a mess though. Started at the back of A with hopes to stay with the lead group, but by the time you get onto witkoppen you have already been dropped 🙈 had to burn A LOT of matches to try get up with any sort of decent group after that. Why not lead out the batches 1 by 1 and have the start as a bunch on witkoppen? Or get the seeding right and have more, smaller batches. 
 

also, where exactly was the official end? I was in a sprint finish but I think we had both already passed the finish line 🤣

[Bike Dewing]

2 hours ago, Spinnekop said:

Safety was no issue.  Good hard race and I really enjoyed it.

I have decided to not do this race again for the following reasons.

• Race number pickup bull ****.  I sat 4 hour in traffic on Thursday just to pick up a piece of useless paper.
  When are these organisers going to be held accountable for wasting peoples time and money???  And VERY important, where is the environmental responsibility......???? I would love to know how much EXSTRA fossil fuels were burnt just to pick up a number that I can print at home???  Give me a QR code that I can scan at the starting block to gain entry to the event.  I can print my number for 50c in color.  I spent R200 fuel plus half day leave at work just to get a number.  Boils my blood.
• Seeding was CRAP.  South Africa cycling does not have a seeding system anymore.  We are forced to pay CSA (racing license) to get a better start time.  
• Timing system can improve.  The chip is horrible.  The mounting system is cheap and can be improved a lot. Give me a permanent chip and number (while you are at it) like 94.7 that I can use every year for your series of races. 
  The results were not correct for the A batch and I can only imagine for the rest of the groups.  
   

Don’t forget R20 parking.!

[Bike Dewing]

1 hour ago, Mattman said:

Enjoyed the race overall and despite only partial road closure, felt pretty safe 90% of the ride. 
 

The start is a mess though. Started at the back of A with hopes to stay with the lead group, but by the time you get onto witkoppen you have already been dropped 🙈 had to burn A LOT of matches to try get up with any sort of decent group after that. Why not lead out the batches 1 by 1 and have the start as a bunch on witkoppen? Or get the seeding right and have more, smaller batches. 
 

also, where exactly was the official end? I was in a sprint finish but I think we had both already passed the finish line 🤣

Yeah I had no idea either.. my time now reflects my garmin time - 4 seconds.. which is weird, it definitely took a minute or two to get on to witkoppen which is where I beleive timing started..

The toilets also made me giggle, yeah 5 I think there were.. and a lot of men peeing in the bushes down the hill🤣🤣.. 

that whole area could have been utilized so much better, food vendors, entertainment, whatever.. it was all very empty and with no effort put in.. feel like the race organization on the road was very good but montecasino did fokkol really..

[The Ouzo]

re: FinishTime

They seem to be a problem every race they do the timing for.

So how do we, as the end user, vote for change ? Ordinarily you'd vote with your wallet, but if we want to do the races thats not really an option.

Mass emails to the event organisers ?

Mass emails to FinishTime ?

[Bike Dewing]

10 minutes ago, The Ouzo said:

re: FinishTime

They seem to be a problem every race they do the timing for.

So how do we, as the end user, vote for change ? Ordinarily you'd vote with your wallet, but if we want to do the races thats not really an option.

Mass emails to the event organisers ?

Mass emails to FinishTime ?

I was saying to my wife yesterday afternoon that I feel sorry for their person that is responsible for that email account.. that inbox is going to be a s$&t show this morning..😳🤣