Urban Assault-Pro Teams stripped of prov. position

[Daxiet]

 

In amongst all the other things that could be discussed about Urban Assualt, of most interest is why were the likes of Melt Swanepoel, Mark Bassingthwaiht, Bryce Munro and friends demoted form 1st, 2nd 3rd to 7th, 8th, 9th, etc?

 

Saw Mark in the parking lot expressing some serious unhappiness wasn't sure what it was about until I saw the final published results.

 

I can only assume they made a wrong turn turning the course into a shortened one. Provisional winning time for Melt was 2:08, his official time is now 2:35:59. Odd, if they were normal riders that would be listed as DQ, but obviously exceptions are made for important people. Would just like to understand how a special time is calculated for them? If I am correct as sad as it may be they really should get DQ's and if it was a fault of the organisers which is quite likely, they should get DNF's. You can't speculate what their times would be if they missed a huge section of the course and I suspect it was the 12km section of lap 1 that took us into the plots, etc.

 

The more I think about it the more it ticks me off, you can't calculate a special time for them, even if as an organiser you slipped up.

 

Daxiet2009-08-16 10:31:42

[Jules]

Damn mountain bikers. Always complaining :-)

[Guest colonel]

Maybe they werent in single file?

[NotSoBigBen]

Damn mountain bikers. Always complaining :-)

 

 

[Fritz Pienaar]

 

 

See Ben-Melt's report below. I feel sorry for the organiser, because I know what goes into organising an event, and an small mistake by a lead bike can screw it up.

Riders should also rather keep riding despite going wrong and appeal afterwards, because it is impossible to rectify if they've turned back.

 

 

After a hasty

trip back home on Saturday afternoon I washed my bike, helmet and shoes and

prepared the rest of my equipment for Sunday?s race.

 

It turned out

to be a wasted effort!

 

 

 

A decent

field turned up for the Urban Assault race held at Ruimsig Stadium in

Roodepoort (Johannesburg).

We had a fast start with Alex Pavlov and Marc Bassingthwaighte (Garmin/Adidas)

pushing the pace from the gun. Marc went so fast on the first downhill that the

lead bike had to get out of the way and stop on the side of the trail.

 

I picked up

where Marc left off and opened a nice gap on the other riders when I attacked

up a short steep climb.

 

 

 

The route

ducked and dived in and out of singletrack, tar roads and through squatter

camps. About 8km?s from the finish the lead bike stopped and told me to turn

around as he had lead me astray. Backtracking we picked up Marc, Bryce Munro

(DCM) and the next 4 riders until we ran into the race organizer back at the

stadium. He said we WERE on the correct route and had to go back the way we

came and complete the race. Nobody knew what was going on so we returned to the

stadium via the most direct route.

 

 

 

Apparently we

were at fault for following the lead bike and the instructions given to it by

the race organizer so we were all disqualified.

 

Out of

principle I just wanted my entry money returned, but it still doesn?t make up

for a mistake by the race organizers that ended up costing the 7 leading riders

dearly.

 

 

 

As a rider my

job is to prepare myself and my equipment to the best of my abilities so that I

can be competitive at races. I did all of that, got up early, travelled to the

race, entered and followed the race route as marked, but when the lead bike

tells you to turn around what more can you do but obey. He is, after all, the

mobile race marshal.

 

 

 

I repeat what

I said a few weeks ago ? race organizers MUST start taking more responsibility

and be held accountable if they don?t deliver on their end of the bargain.

 

 

 

Until next

time, happy trails!

 

Melt

 

 

Fritz Pienaar2009-08-18 00:34:38

[RABUBI]

I still dont know what the official distance was, race briefing says 58km, my polar says 66km, results says 60km.

 

Wonder if the pro's were allowed more than one cup of fake coke at the finish by the old cow.

[Daxiet]

 

What a stuff up, glad to get some feedback, but the results do show the 7 riders as finishers with ammended times (why I still don't know).

 

Yes last year the route was said to be 70kms it turned out to be ~63-64kms. This year the route seemed to be longer, but my Garmin reported just over 64kms (normally 1km short of actual distance, so the race was probably 65kms).

 

So these organisers seemingly do not ride the route before the race to measure it, the guestimate, probably a rough measurement from Google Earth.

 

Anyway 2 years running now these guys have been ~6-7kms out of true distance either way. They either need to up there game or lose entrants. Why they couldn't supply a route map weeks before the race and perhaps a profile, who knows. But on the day there was a Google plotted map at registration.

 

Oh, I snagged 2 cups of something, tasted almost like Fanta Grape. Had they complained I would have thrown my toys out the cot

 

Daxiet2009-08-18 01:42:43