99er Cycle Tour 2024

[bleedToWin]

On 2/10/2024 at 4:17 PM, babse said:

I do know said commissaire and she has been around for a while on the WP scene. 

Obviously they will be in a better position to make the call however it did seem very prem from within the group. If the break had stayed away, it would have likely caused a stir.

Having said that, there is no excuse for crossing the line.

Kudos to the bike marshalls for keeping us safe!

You guys got stopped for 90s, opening our gap back out to 2min15 with 30km to go. At this stage the chase must have been hard already (we were drilling it up front into the wind and you guys were closing) so after being stopped it was a serious task to close it. The defending champion burned through his whole team and eventually had to chip in himself to chase it back. He ended up coming 3rd, with two privateers taking 1st and 2nd after (rightly) not contributing to the chase. The break go caught but the results were for sure influenced...

[NicholasH]

16 minutes ago, bleedToWin said:

If you don't mind giving them some more feedback, they were sitting way to close to the front of the $ bunch in the first 30km and for sure interfered with the break formation phase of the race. Not sure which Comm it was, but felt like they were very inexperienced w.r.t the distance required to not offer some slipstream advantage to riders behind you.
I say this as one of the 4 riders who most likely got the biggest benefit from their actions...
 

Hi. Any CONSTRUCTIVE feedback is always welcome! (which is what you have done 🙂 )I *think* you are the 2nd person giving that comment. Shumeez IS experienced as far as I am aware. Her 3rd year doing it under my role as Head Of Ops. Let me see what the race report says when it comes out

Edited February 12 by NicholasH

[bleedToWin]

Just now, NicholasH said:

Hi. Any CONSTRUCTIVE feedback is always welcome! I *think* you are the 2nd person giving that comment. Shumeez IS experienced as far as I am aware. Her 3rd year doing it under my role as Head Of Ops. Let me see what the race report says when it comes out

Not sure if the caps are because you didn't find my feedback constructive? 🤔

Like I said, I don't know if it was Shumeez or another Comm or official vehicle, but a mistake was made that can easily be corrected at future events and I appreciate you keeping an eye out for info on it in the race report on our behalf. 🙂

[NicholasH]

1 minute ago, bleedToWin said:

Not sure if the caps are because you didn't find my feedback constructive? 🤔

Like I said, I don't know if it was Shumeez or another Comm or official vehicle, but a mistake was made that can easily be corrected at future events and I appreciate you keeping an eye out for info on it in the race report on our behalf. 🙂

LOL! No I capitalized to indicate that you ARE giving positive feedback! 🙂 sorry for the confusion...

Def her, I spoke with her afterwards for a bit esp wrt this stoppage. I will give you guys a summary once I have it.

[bleedToWin]

On 2/10/2024 at 4:17 PM, babse said:

Having said that, there is no excuse for crossing the line.

I've been thinking for a while now that we need something akin to the "rider's commission" that they have in Europe and that we as the riders need to come up with a solution that all the teams can agree to...

Something like:
A group gets 2 centre line warnings which will be signalled with a giant yellow flag.
Each transgression afterwards will see one rider flagged down. It's not a DQ, but you have to pull over and come to a complete stop before continuing your race.

The motorbike marshal will do his best attempt to flag a transgressing rider as close to the front of the bunch as possible. Reason being, the riders right at the front are not transgressing so collective punishment is unfair. The riders at the back have to choose between staying left in the wind and closing an impossible 30 bike lengths or risk getting flagged. It's a non-choice as both ends your race immediately so you rather gamble getting flagged. Somewhere near the front there is 2 to 3 riders that had a choice between taking bad slip on the white line or good slip just right of the line, and they are forcing the hand of those behind them.

[NicholasH]

19 minutes ago, bleedToWin said:

You guys got stopped for 90s, opening our gap back out to 2min15 with 30km to go. At this stage the chase must have been hard already (we were drilling it up front into the wind and you guys were closing) so after being stopped it was a serious task to close it. The defending champion burned through his whole team and eventually had to chip in himself to chase it back. He ended up coming 3rd, with two privateers taking 1st and 2nd after (rightly) not contributing to the chase. The break go caught but the results were for sure influenced...

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

[DieselnDust]

4 minutes ago, bleedToWin said:

I've been thinking for a while now that we need something akin to the "rider's commission" that they have in Europe and that we as the riders need to come up with a solution that all the teams can agree to...

Something like:
A group gets 2 centre line warnings which will be signalled with a giant yellow flag.
Each transgression afterwards will see one rider flagged down. It's not a DQ, but you have to pull over and come to a complete stop before continuing your race.

The motorbike marshal will do his best attempt to flag a transgressing rider as close to the front of the bunch as possible. Reason being, the riders right at the front are not transgressing so collective punishment is unfair. The riders at the back have to choose between staying left in the wind and closing an impossible 30 bike lengths or risk getting flagged. It's a non-choice as both ends your race immediately so you rather gamble getting flagged. Somewhere near the front there is 2 to 3 riders that had a choice between taking bad slip on the white line or good slip just right of the line, and they are forcing the hand of those behind them.

Hmmmmm some tactics can play out here. What stops a team soft pedalling on the front to allow their flagged rider to catch back up?

[bleedToWin]

3 minutes ago, DieselnDust said:

Hmmmmm some tactics can play out here. What stops a team soft pedalling on the front to allow their flagged rider to catch back up?

Normally the team drilling it at the front will have all their riders safely left of the line (I believe this was the case yesterday) so they won't even notice the motorbike coming up and pulling one opponent out 5 wheels behind their last man, they will just keep pushing as they have a positional advantage they want to capitalise on.

Edited February 12 by bleedToWin

[bleedToWin]

One can tweak the idea, but it needs to come down to a solution that the riders proposed and all agreed to so when you are pulled back you can't really complain.

[bleedToWin]

13 minutes ago, DieselnDust said:

Hmmmmm some tactics can play out here.

I've never seen it play out this way, but with the current collective punishment approach a team with a rider in the break could theoretically keep crossing the line and get the chasing group stopped in spite of the team(s) chasing not doing anything wrong...

[DieselnDust]

26 minutes ago, bleedToWin said:

I've never seen it play out this way, but with the current collective punishment approach a team with a rider in the break could theoretically keep crossing the line and get the chasing group stopped in spite of the team(s) chasing not doing anything wrong...

I like your idea with maybe a few tweaks. 
 

[Wannabe]

Many moons back when riding / racing upcountry, Winning Time was almost always referred to as Losing Time. 

Seems like nothing has changed in all these years.

 

[ChrisF]

@NicholasH please tell us more about the "sprint section" from Karwyderskraal.

 

Where can we see these times ?

[NicholasH]

Just now, ChrisF said:

@NicholasH please tell us more about the "sprint section" from Karwyderskraal.

 

Where can we see these times ?

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. 

 

[ChrisF]

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. 

 

 

Aaaahhh .... I actually thought the green mark over the road might have been a timing "matt".

 

That must have been a brutal little sprint !!!  Nice little climb leading up to it, and that WIND ....

Edited February 12 by ChrisF

[babse]

3 hours ago, bleedToWin said:

You guys got stopped for 90s, opening our gap back out to 2min15 with 30km to go. At this stage the chase must have been hard already (we were drilling it up front into the wind and you guys were closing) so after being stopped it was a serious task to close it. The defending champion burned through his whole team and eventually had to chip in himself to chase it back. He ended up coming 3rd, with two privateers taking 1st and 2nd after (rightly) not contributing to the chase. The break go caught but the results were for sure influenced...

at the time we were stopped the hammer was fully down and the gap was closing quickly... we had you okes in sight. Obvsiously the stop had quite a few guys (mainly teams that missed the break and worked in closing the gap) disgruntled for this may have been caused by a few guys and to punish the entire group and ultimately affect the race outcome, was unfair.

 

The chase was ultimately down to 3 of bigger teams going full gas together. I do believe said privateers were always going to be up there in a mass finish.