2022 Virgin Active Ride Joburg

[Fork-it]

It just occurred to me that I never saw the 35 km turn off... Good thing I entered for the long race, else I would have missed the turn-off completely..

[W@nted]

Great event. Also not too impressed with the coke zero at the finish line. 
 

challenging route, that second half is brutal. Was flying till Kyalami in the massive A bunch (about 46 km/h average). Frustrating having to pass slower riders and bunches. Amazing to see all the wheel suckers in such a big bunch😂 Literally saw some guys in the bunch for the first time after 70km.

 

Road surface was interesting, some rough patches and had to be awake the whole time (manholes etc), thankfully the tubeless setup made the experience much smoother than previously.

 

overall a great hard day. Just neet to sort out my result, as I was reseeded and then they used the first batch starting my time.

[117]

Bitch session:

Those "car guards" were an absolute f*cking pain, nearly drove over 3 of them just to get to a parking spot. Its sad the organisers don't have their own people on the ground to control these free lance people. 

The start pen area last year was fantastic, and they had about 50 porta loo's on the ready in the pen area. This year.... 2

And the folks spraying riders with water as they come past the water points - please dont. Rather set up a gantry so riders can choose to use it or not. 

The coke zero sucked and the food and beer area upstairs was not really any better - the music was an absolute noise

Compliment session:

Other than that, the race and route was great. It was good fun bussing down the highway, on knobblies, with the roadies.

The safety, rescue and medical teams were in abundance, which is great to know you always have support close by, if you need. I hope that group that fell on the highway in the Sandton area were ok, there were a lot of sore people being attended to by the medics when we flew past

Edited November 21, 2022 by 117

[Frosty]

18 minutes ago, eala said:

The last 30 km is really hard and I am a cyclist . I feel sorry for the last bunches. It seems OK until Bryanston, then the climbs start.

Best way to endure the hills is to train for them, or at least the duration of the hill at a pace you want to "climb" at. Example, most of the climbs from Lonehill to Jan Smuts (zoo) take about the same time/effort to complete, with a recovery in between that is almost the same time. This means you can do 4-5 intervals (say 8 minutes). Each week ride a bit harder, and you'll you'll see how "easier" it becomes.

It's not as easy as that, but the concept is close enough.
 

[Frosty]

22 minutes ago, Fork-it said:

It just occurred to me that I never saw the 35 km turn off... Good thing I entered for the long race, else I would have missed the turn-off completely..

It was the Jan Smuts on-ramp on the M1, just before the St Andrews road climb

[JJDT]

25 minutes ago, Fork-it said:

It just occurred to me that I never saw the 35 km turn off... Good thing I entered for the long race, else I would have missed the turn-off completely..

The 35km route was not clearly marked. My wife did the 35km route and I showed her the route on Saturday which was good because she indicated that there was basically two guys with flags, no other indication that it is actually the 35km route.

The merging with the long route was also somewhat problematic and not a nice flowing merger.

That is an area which needs better marking with better flow to join the main race.

[gerrit_c]

I think it was well organised overall, had a good race and met some great people. 

Does anyone know how to sort the results by start groups? I would like to see the size of the batches.

[The Ouzo]

30 minutes ago, 117 said:

I hope that group that fell on the highway in the Sandton area were ok

We came flying past and high speed, but there were a number of guys down. I took a close look since I knew Frosty was up ahead of me before that, so was checking to see if he might have been caught up.

[The Ouzo]

32 minutes ago, Frosty said:

Best way to endure the hills is to train for them, or at least the duration of the hill at a pace you want to "climb" at. Example, most of the climbs from Lonehill to Jan Smuts (zoo) take about the same time/effort to complete, with a recovery in between that is almost the same time. This means you can do 4-5 intervals (say 8 minutes). Each week ride a bit harder, and you'll you'll see how "easier" it becomes.

It's not as easy as that, but the concept is close enough.
 

Have to agree with Frosty on this.

Even though I was having a *** day physically and mentally, the hills did not bother me as much as I thought they would, although I did go much slower than I wanted to

[The Ouzo]

nothing to do with the event organisers, but a Garmin bitch

 

I have live tracking activated. Mainly for safety tracking during training, but for races I then add a few family members to the list so they can track me.

Yesterday I assumed it started, I was to busy concentrating on navigating the so called neutral zone to worry about checking.

It never started.

3 hours later, my Garmin beeps to tell me "Live Track Started". WTF?

[Cyclewizz]

28 minutes ago, gerrit_c said:

I think it was well organised overall, had a good race and met some great people. 

Does anyone know how to sort the results by start groups? I would like to see the size of the batches.

This timing company's format is terrible.
There's also lots of irrelevant times, saw some guy with a time of 46min for the 97km route. 

[Spinnekop]

3 minutes ago, Cyclewizz said:

This timing company's format is terrible.
There's also lots of irrelevant times, saw some guy with a time of 46min for the 97km route. 

Have to agree.
Spoke to the guy manning the main computer at the finishline.  The interaction was not great.
Same with the website.

[Spinnekop]

Pros:
Great race.  Goeie gees
Route was safe and fun and challenging.  
Nice Medal
Good waterpoints.  
Race organisation in general was good.
Race number pickups on the morning before the race.

Cons:
Traffic control into the venue was a joke.  N17 was closed at 4:45 already when we arrived forcing all the Pta traffic through the South entrance (If I did not have a GPS handy I would have been ($#$#%*))
4 lanes turning into a single lane.  Fun
Seeding was poorly done
Race start was late
Prize giving was late
Diet Coke at the finish.  🤮
The timing company can do better software.

All in all an awesome day out on the bike. 
Bring on #23

[Skubarra]

3 minutes ago, Spinnekop said:

Pros:
Great race.  Goeie gees
Route was safe and fun and challenging.  
Nice Medal
Good waterpoints.  
Race organisation in general was good.
Race number pickups on the morning before the race.

Cons:
Traffic control into the venue was a joke.  N17 was closed at 4:45 already when we arrived forcing all the Pta traffic through the South entrance (If I did not have a GPS handy I would have been ($#$#%*))
4 lanes turning into a single lane.  Fun
Seeding was poorly done
Race start was late
Prize giving was late
Diet Coke at the finish.  🤮
The timing company can do better software.

All in all an awesome day out on the bike. 
Bring on #23

And well done with your second place in A bunch! Low-level flying!

[Spinnekop]

8 minutes ago, Skubarra said:

And well done with your second place in A bunch! Low-level flying!

Thank you sir.  ☺️
Very proud of the time.  Beat almost all the Vets batches.   😎

[Jbr]

Very surprised this is not on racetec, does that mean that it's not a seeding for the CT world champs ?

Looking at the results gives me the feeling that the level in $ is actually higher than CTCT?