99er Cycle Tour 2024

[MongooseMan]

1 hour ago, NicholasH said:

Chris, another initiative of mine after we lost the King Of the Mountain with the demise of Vissershok.

I came with a TdF style Intermediate Sprint at the 74.5km mark. Simple rule : 1st person over the line wins the jersey/prize. There is a 1km warning, a 200m warning and a 50m warning via road markings and signs. WP cycling has a comm there to adjudicate. However, we do not have a FinishTime device there so we are unable to provide actual timestamps. (It costs us a lot for each additional timing point and we already deploy 6 for the entire event). So, unfortunately we cannot give a list of times. The comm there has a camera and the only the winner is chosen. 

 

Out of interest, where are the other timing points?

[babse]

3 hours ago, NicholasH said:

Can I ask that those of you who were involved in this stoppage can send me YOUR version of what happened and why you think it was right/wrong or whatever. Please mail it to operations@99er.co.za 

I can't promise anything and it won't affect the results but it would be great to get BOTH sides of story. I have heard the COMMs version already. Now it is your turn

From my side, It did seems the stop came very quickly and I felt the bike mashalls had us controlled up until then. I tried my best staying closer to the front half of the bunch and white line crossing seemed minimal.

 

@Bankie99 seemed to be in conversation with said commissaire on the road and may be able to shed some more light!? (sorry for bringing you in here)

[NicholasH]

5 minutes ago, MongooseMan said:

Out of interest, where are the other timing points?

The 100km timing is at the railway track crossing - furthest point. 51km is after the 51/100 split near the silos. And the Trilogy has 2 on the gravel roads 

[NicholasH]

1 minute ago, babse said:

From my side, It did seems the stop came very quickly and I felt the bike mashalls had us controlled up until then. I tried my best staying closer to the front half of the bunch and white line crossing seemed minimal.

 

@Bankie99 seemed to be in conversation with said commissaire on the road and may be able to shed some more light!? (sorry for bringing you in here)

I have already received an email from a rider explaining it from his viewpoint. I am open to others. It won't change standings but it MAY prevent this type of thing happening again...

[Mamil]

As a non-racer and more of a C and D group "fun" rider with a little bit of a competitive streak in me, all the convos about the effect on the racing of the stoppage are interesting.

I have to say I wouldn't like to be the person in charge of making sure that things are safe - imagine not stopping a peleton and suddenly there's a car ploughing into an echelon!!

Cars passed D, sometimes overtaking us behind the bike marshall, sometimes coming towards us and at least three of them showed no interest in slowing down or yielding space - so coming up a blind rise at 20kmph and a car going at 80 plus ..... has to be the first consideration - surely?

[Bankie99]

1 hour ago, babse said:

From my side, It did seems the stop came very quickly and I felt the bike mashalls had us controlled up until then. I tried my best staying closer to the front half of the bunch and white line crossing seemed minimal.

 

@Bankie99 seemed to be in conversation with said commissaire on the road and may be able to shed some more light!? (sorry for bringing you in here)

I have already emailed Nicholas.

[NicholasH]

22 minutes ago, Mamil said:

As a non-racer and more of a C and D group "fun" rider with a little bit of a competitive streak in me, all the convos about the effect on the racing of the stoppage are interesting.

I have to say I wouldn't like to be the person in charge of making sure that things are safe - imagine not stopping a peleton and suddenly there's a car ploughing into an echelon!!

Cars passed D, sometimes overtaking us behind the bike marshall, sometimes coming towards us and at least three of them showed no interest in slowing down or yielding space - so coming up a blind rise at 20kmph and a car going at 80 plus ..... has to be the first consideration - surely?

At my marshal safety meeting I tell all the marshals "The CYCLIST safety is your concern. The driver of a car has a big metal box around him. He will suffer no harm when he hits a bike. Thus you keep the car AWAY from the cyclist in the 1st place"

I was tailing one of the 51km groups at one stage and the ENTIRE group of 60+ cyclists were ON THE  LEFT AND RIGHT ie over the white line. There was a ThinkBike marshal literally in front of my bonnet watching this and making zero attempt to keep the cyclists to the left of the white line. I immediately  got on the phone to the ThinkBike head for the day and reported this. We still have to have a follow up with them. There was some BRILLIANT bike marshaling on the day and some very poor...

[NicholasH]

1 minute ago, Bankie99 said:

I have already emailed Nicholas.

Yes, I recognize the De Rosa 🙂 

[Thornman]

The comm pacing the break was not Shameeq. We tried crossing but could see the break sitting behind the car.  I first called the bike marshall to tell the comm to move. Then he moved in between the the riders and the cars. 

 

I then told Shameeq to tell the comm, older man, so move away. He went and sat behind the break until Shameeq cane back to the main bunch, he then again sat right in front of them.

 

The stop was a joke. I was one of the guys pacing, we were about 10 guys pacing, sitting on the left yellow. The guys at the back crossed the white line, to be expected with 150 riders in that narrow road. To stop the riders doing nothing wrong was just crazy.

In the old days the bike marshalls warned the guys once if the crossed the white line with a yellow card. The 2nd time you got a red card and the marshall took you out the back. You had to unpin your  number. Race over. The white line was like the end of the road.

 

The way Shameeq stopped to race was dangerous. On a drag, going full gas. Get to the top, bakkie parked across the road. Crazy. No warning. Nothing

[NicholasH]

2 minutes ago, Thornman said:

The comm pacing the break was not Shameeq. We tried crossing but could see the break sitting behind the car.  I first called the bike marshall to tell the comm to move. Then he moved in between the the riders and the cars. 

 

I then told Shameeq to tell the comm, older man, so move away. He went and sat behind the break until Shameeq cane back to the main bunch, he then again sat right in front of them.

 

The stop was a joke. I was one of the guys pacing, we were about 10 guys pacing, sitting on the left yellow. The guys at the back crossed the white line, to be expected with 150 riders in that narrow road. To stop the riders doing nothing wrong was just crazy.

In the old days the bike marshalls warned the guys once if the crossed the white line with a yellow card. The 2nd time you got a red card and the marshall took you out the back. You had to unpin your  number. Race over. The white line was like the end of the road.

 

The way Shameeq stopped to race was dangerous. On a drag, going full gas. Get to the top, bakkie parked across the road. Crazy. No warning. Nothing

Hi

I have contacted WP Cycling and am waiting for their feedback...

As I have said, we are their hands and have zero control as you know. Best we can do is engage with them in a positive way to ensure this does not happen again 🙏

[JeffK]

10 hours ago, JM_NEL said:

Boxplot of the finishing times per "Wave"

Will the seeding system one day take into consideration the amount of effort it takes to ride a good time starting in the later groups? Asking for a friend

[Akon]

On 2/12/2024 at 4:55 PM, NicholasH said:

zero attempt to keep the cyclists to the left of the white line.

Fool's errand --> you rather have to do something as suggested by @bleedToWin.

(IMHO C's marshal did a brilliant job, within the current setup: not once did they attempt to "force" riders to the left of the line...)

[Wannabe]

A few years back (can't remember the race} we were against a stiff SE on a rolling course (from Wellington to Klapmuts direction), and obviously the guys was starting to spread all over the road to get some shelter, but the Thinkbike Marshal (AZ was on his colours, I think) was having none of it. As soon as someone went over the white line, AZ pulled up next to him, and he was shown in no uncertain terms to get back in line and got shown a "1st warning finger". Should the same person transgress again, AZ pulled up next to him and showed/told him to fall to the back of the group. Third transgression, he got pulled over immediately and told to remove his race number and hand it over. It only happened a few times, and the rest of the group behaved themselves impeccably after that. All it needed was a short beep from AZ on his Hyabusa's horn, and order was restored. The roads was quite busy with vehicles racing to get to their destinations, but our group was controlled well and kept in check..

Admittedly this was in one of the alphabet groups (B or C if I recall) and not the racing groups. 

Edited February 14 by Wannabe
Spelling

[NicholasH]

On 2/12/2024 at 4:55 PM, NicholasH said:

At my marshal safety meeting I tell all the marshals "The CYCLIST safety is your concern. The driver of a car has a big metal box around him. He will suffer no harm when he hits a bike. Thus you keep the car AWAY from the cyclist in the 1st place"

I was tailing one of the 51km groups at one stage and the ENTIRE group of 60+ cyclists were ON THE  LEFT AND RIGHT ie over the white line. There was a ThinkBike marshal literally in front of my bonnet watching this and making zero attempt to keep the cyclists to the left of the white line. I immediately  got on the phone to the ThinkBike head for the day and reported this. We still have to have a follow up with them. There was some BRILLIANT bike marshaling on the day and some very poor...

@-Az-, as explained in my e-mail to you this LOOKED LIKE the 2 following marshals were not controlling this group thus my comment 'poor marshaling' - Your email to me does explain but I still stick to the opinion that these guys should have kept these cyclists to the left. No offence intended, BTW, this is all constructive observations 

[DieselnDust]

On 2/12/2024 at 6:15 PM, JeffK said:

Will the seeding system one day take into consideration the amount of effort it takes to ride a good time starting in the later groups? Asking for a friend

….solo…. You forget they did it Solo….

[Gruffalo]

I see that the seeding indices on https://pedalpower.org.za/seeding/ have been updated with 99er race results.

The winner’s time is listed as 2h20m00s although JP Lloyd won in 2h26m51s.

Is the adjustment in the winning time for the calculation of the index due to the race commissaire stopping the elite bunch?

Edited February 18 by Gruffalo