[Event] 99er Cycle Tour

[Thomo]

13 hours ago, Newest said:

Crankbros

He said youngsters from P ... 🤭

[WW87]

Chapeau to the organizers. Yet another successfully executed 99er race. 

I had a lovely coffee ride in % compared to the racing in A & B 😄

Will be back next year 👍🏼

[Roadie_]

Hi Nicholas. Great event as always, from all involved - from registration to prize giving. Volunteers were cheerful at all points from start to finish. The only improvement suggestion I would have, is the post ride food trucks (3 is not enough) - options were Indian curry, Deep fried wings and Burgers. The Wings an Curry trucks hardly had a queue, but the Burger queue was long and slow. Frustrating for many people and I eventually walked away. In comparison, the Winelands event 2 weeks ago had more food trucks - and this event had much fewer entrants. Perhaps you could get even just 1 more next year - burgers and boerrie rolls seems to be the crowd favourite usually. Thanks again for a well organized and run event, and your constant feedback to questions and comments from the okes on this forum.

[DieselnDust]

14 minutes ago, WW87 said:

Chapeau to the organizers. Yet another successfully executed 99er race. 

I had a lovely coffee ride in % compared to the racing in A & B 😄

Will be back next year 👍🏼

Well it certainly looked like a coffee ride when A caught you just after the Adderley Road turn. 

I must say there were a couple of chaps in your group that should perhaps stick to Zwift or spinning bikes in the gym. One culprit i recognised from previous switching encounters was up to his usual tricks or rather inability to ride his bike in anything closely resembling a straight line never mind a gentle meander. We made several attempts to ride past him as we came through the % group But it appeared he was riding a tricycle about 5m wide. Blue top, SW helmet, hairy legs ankle socks, poor bike fit with a stem that swallowed too much viagra.

% then seemed to wake up big time, coffee time was over for the next 8 km to the finish

[BuffsVintageBikes]

2 hours ago, NicholasH said:

Yep, being in the position I am in, I get it from both sides : gravel guys asking MTBs to not ride the race. MTBs moaning about gravel guys on the drops. And then of course eBikes in the Trilogy

As I said in a previous, "can't keep everyone happy" but I think on the whole the positives were way more than the negatives.

I even had a request that the Trilogy be a stand-alone event at another time of the year....

I vote for keeping the existing one and adding another one to the calendar  😊👍

I'd still love to see a local Team Triathlon/Trilogy featuring Road/Gravel/MTB where each discipline has it's own specialist rider. I recon that would make for a great day out and each discipline could be made slightly longer & tougher.

[MSA]

@NicholasH many congrats to you and your team for yet another fantastic event. May it continue for many more years 🙏

 

Starting in the later groups i didnt expect to ride any PB times. The ride was going along nicely, until got caught up in the P group as they past and we latched on. Those youngsters in the GrannyGear kit as well guys in the Navyish kits did solid effort to pull upfront catching quite few bunches. Eventually i was dropped but still finished in a respectable time.

 

All in all a great day out.

 

 

[CTLonewolf]

Started in E bunch, and the pace was HOT from the gun. We caught D bunch in no time, but when it came to passing, it felt like a few bruised egos came into play—D bunch clearly wasn’t keen on letting E group through. That’s when things went sideways. A crash over the railway line in Kalbaskraal, followed by another just before the left turn onto Philadelphia Road, got caught up and lost the bunch. Adderley wasn't to bad worked nicely with about 4 other guys and girl.

Despite the drama, the 99er was brilliantly organised, and I’ll definitely be back in 2027. 

Nothing like a double brandy and coke at 9am after some hard riding. 

[Patchelicious]

4 hours ago, NicholasH said:

What I loved about this year's Trilogy was that mielie field bit. I think it caught many people out (locals were familiar with it) esp those on gravel bikes....

That's because you didn't have to ride it

Going through that at "speed", not seeing what's underneath the grass, on gravel tyres, with barbed wire on the right, was hair raising. 
 

Edited February 9 by Patchelicious

[Patchelicious]

3 hours ago, NicholasH said:

Yep, being in the position I am in, I get it from both sides : gravel guys asking MTBs to not ride the race. MTBs moaning about gravel guys on the drops. And then of course eBikes in the Trilogy

As I said in a previous, "can't keep everyone happy" but I think on the whole the positives were way more than the negatives.

I even had a request that the Trilogy be a stand-alone event at another time of the year....

Having to pick between MTBs or Gravel bikes, is part of the fun. 
They both have advatages and disadvantages on this route. Gravel gains an advantage on the tar and some gravel roads, MTB gain it back on the single track and corrugations. Gravel bikes lose a lot on those short technical or bumpy bits.

What was more annoying was the number of E-Bikes, they have little to no downside.

As fast as the gravel bikes on the road and as fast as the MTB on the more technical stuff.
 

Perhaps have the E-Bikes in a separate category and start batch?

Edited February 9 by Patchelicious

[NicholasH]

2 hours ago, Patchelicious said:

That's because you didn't have to ride it

Going through that at "speed", not seeing what's underneath the grass, on gravel tyres, with barbed wire on the right, was hair raising. 
 

Lol...Humbly I say that you maybe forgot that I "designed" the Trilogy route?

Ridden it more times than anybody else while checking its suitability. 😁

And the single track is my backyard. I know exactly what you referring to. 

To be fair, that was on my hardtail MTB so I cannot comment on how it was on a gravel bike.

All comments said in jest 😃

Edited February 9 by NicholasH

[Patchelicious]

22 minutes ago, NicholasH said:

Lol...Humbly I say that you maybe forgot that I "designed" the Trilogy route?

Ridden it more times than anybody else while checking it's suitably? 😁

And the single track is my backyard. I know exactly what you referring to. 

To be fair, that was on my hardtail MTB so I cannot comment on how it was on a gravel bike.

All comments said in jest 😃

*race it

Ps:  these are not moans, it was fun and looking back it was very cool, but not so much at the time. No need to change the route, except for that last corrugated road, that was when I wished I had a dualie.

Edited February 9 by Patchelicious

[NicholasH]

16 minutes ago, Patchelicious said:

*race it

Ps:  this are not moans, it was fun and looking back it was very cool, but not so much at the time. No need to change the route, except for that last corrugated road, that was when I wished I had a dualie.

Absolutely, I hear your sentiment 

I've just come back from a ride and you won't believe it : the council is grading the last gravel stretch 🤦‍♂️

Only 2 days late.... lol

[Jacques9874]

1 hour ago, CTLonewolf said:

Started in E bunch, and the pace was HOT from the gun. We caught D bunch in no time, but when it came to passing, it felt like a few bruised egos came into play—D bunch clearly wasn’t keen on letting E group through. That’s when things went sideways. A crash over the railway line in Kalbaskraal, followed by another just before the left turn onto Philadelphia Road, got caught up and lost the bunch. Adderley wasn't to bad worked nicely with about 4 other guys and girl.

Despite the drama, the 99er was brilliantly organised, and I’ll definitely be back in 2027. 

Nothing like a double brandy and coke at 9am after some hard riding. 

Hahah, I may or may not have been the instigator of the high pace in E bunch. I was on a serious mission!
Spoke to a buddy of mine at the finish who'd started in D and he mentioned they were riding frustratingly slowly so they had no right to complain when we caught them. Have to agree with you though, they were not happy and made that merge unnecessarily dangerous.

[NicholasH]

1 hour ago, Patchelicious said:

Having to pick between MTBs or Gravel bikes, is part of the fun. 
They both have advatages and disadvantages on this route. Gravel gains an advantage on the tar and some gravel roads, MTB gain it back on the single track and corrugations. Gravel bikes lose a lot on those short technical or bumpy bits.

What was more annoying was the number of E-Bikes, they have little to no downside.

As fast as the gravel bikes on the road and as fast as the MTB on the more technical stuff.
 

Perhaps have the E-Bikes in a separate category and start batch?

I tried to have the eBikes moved to AFTER the 45km start (spoke with RaceTec/etc in November already) but we were suddenly rushed to get our final number estimates in and then they just ignored that eBike request.... unfortunately that is ONE thing we have ZERO control over, even though it is *OUR* race....🤦‍♂️

[Jacques9874]

3 minutes ago, NicholasH said:

I tried to have the eBikes moved to AFTER the 45km start (spoke with RaceTec/etc in November already) but we were suddenly rushed to get our final number estimates in and then they just ignored that eBike request.... unfortunately that is ONE thing we have ZERO control over, even though it is *OUR* race....🤦‍♂️

What are the rules surrounding E-Bikes in the road groups? We had a couple of guys on E-bikes in E bunch which I personally just found a little odd. I think at CTCT they have to start further back and they have to ride slower than a certain minimum time.
Personally, I didn't have a problem them in the bunch. It makes no difference to me what bikes guys are riding, provided they hold their lines. There were a couple of folks who realised that these guys were on E-bikes about 70km into the route and subsequently started complaining to the traffic marshal, shouting profanities at the e-bikers, etc. I just heard all the commotion behind me and wondered what the actual rules are? 

[NicholasH]

12 minutes ago, Jacques9874 said:

What are the rules surrounding E-Bikes in the road groups? We had a couple of guys on E-bikes in E bunch which I personally just found a little odd. I think at CTCT they have to start further back and they have to ride slower than a certain minimum time.
Personally, I didn't have a problem them in the bunch. It makes no difference to me what bikes guys are riding, provided they hold their lines. There were a couple of folks who realised that these guys were on E-bikes about 70km into the route and subsequently started complaining to the traffic marshal, shouting profanities at the e-bikers, etc. I just heard all the commotion behind me and wondered what the actual rules are? 

there are no rules as such. An event organizer has the "right"(?) to make them up. CTCT for example, does not allow eBikes to complete faster than 3h:40 else you get a DQ. We have not instituted any ruling as such yet. However, NO eBike in ANY category is eligible for a prize. The other problem is that you have to enter into an eBike category when registering. Many people don't. And modern eBikes (esp road) are so stealth an untrained volunteer on race day can't tell the difference. However, they do bring revenue and we need to make space for all people where we can so we can't just "ban" them - that would be wrong. Best is to try and work out a starting place for eBikes that is acceptable to "both sides".

it will be a priority for next year