PPA What can they Do?

[Guest Frail4Life]

MTB Point taken. Now move onto the next point.

[butafly]

the same anal complaints just a different year.  

[mikkelz]

the same anal complaints just a different year. ?

 

 

 

 

mikkelz2010-05-11 03:33:22

[August]

I vote for splitting MTB and Road seeding. But dont over complicate, like deciding how technical a race was and all that crap. If they split the two that problem will be solved anyway.

 

I also think the extra time mats is a cracking Idea!! And if placed strategicly one can even start to compare strong climbers and strong downhill guys.. but thats just a cool idea. Will sort two problems and wont really be that difficult.

 

Ohh, and if they say they do seeding the first wednesday of the month, then they must do it. Just another general complaint.

 

I must also add, Ive have been in contact with PPA about seeding issues and both times they got back to me on the same day, and both times they help me and I got my back numbers at the races very easily, so they are not just bad in everything.

 

Also the race results I feel is always on the site very quickly, so a thumbs up there as well.

August2010-05-10 16:24:07

[Guest Frail4Life]

Thanks for your comments.

 

 

 

Just keep to the Topic. PLS

 

 

 

David

[Guest Frail4Life]

I am still waiting for a reply from PPA, request for an appointment.

 

 

 

David

[mikkelz]

Thanks for your time & effort David.

[Woofie]

Thanks for your time & effort David.

 

 

 

Yep, Thanks David!

 

We need more people in the world like you.

 

 

 

There is very few people that will go out of their way like you do to help people.

 

 

 

I am busy typing a memo of how I think the seeding should be adjusted. I started yesterday, but I am still looking at race results.

 

 

 

I will post it here when I am done so that you guys can pull it apart, but then hopefully we will have a complete draft by the end of it that David can present to the PPA at the meeting.

 

 

 

I recon we should try and get David onto the ppa board (since it is a NPO, I think normal people can get elected)

 

At least then we will have a proper hub link to the ppa and we will have someone representing us that knows how we feel.

 

 

 

Shot for the hard work man!!

[Guest Frail4Life]

PPA quickly replied to my email (3h30) on Thursday.

 

 

 

But!

 

 

 

I am still waiting for a reply to my request for an appointment to discuss issues that was sent on Friday morning.

 

 

 

David

[Woofie]

I totally agree with seperating road and MTB seeding.

 

 

 

 

 

This is my idea of some changes that they could give a try for the seeding structure (for road events)

 

 

 

 

 

I first started to type a letter how there is a bottleneck at groups F through to I.

 

But I then decided to rather look at most of the PPA road races for the last season to make sure that I am getting my facts straight. I didnt use the burger or other races that

 

 

 

use a different seeding to the ppa one. I also only looked at the long routes of races.

 

 

 

I went through 10 races from this last season for this. I used 6 league and 4 normal funrides (10 in total).

 

 

 

(I have this in a excel spreadsheet now, PM me your email address if you want to see it)

 

 

 

What I did is I pulled the number of people who started in each group.

 

EL, SV, MS, WL, SS, A, B, etc. I didnt use tandems as the field could be split up to much and the numbers are very low as well.

 

If there was more than one group that started together I split the numbers up. If the numbers didnt split evenly I would make a guesstimate on how to split the numbers as you

 

 

 

cant have a half a person starting in a group.

 

For the league sections I would split their numbers into the groups where they most probably are indexed at.

 

 

 

I know that this was not totally acurate as people do often start in lower groups to where they are seeded and also I dont know everybodies seeding from league.

 

 

 

But it will give us a pretty good understanding of what the group sizes are, especially if you look at the trend over a few races.

 

 

 

 

 

And this is what I have found. (Biggest to smallest)

 

 

 

Overall sizings (Average of league and normal funrides)

 

B A N K I D H P M L J C G O F E Q R S W T U X V Z Y

 

 

 

League

 

B A D K I N H C G F L E M J P O Q R S W T X U V Z Y

 

 

 

Funrides

 

N P K M I Q O J H L R B G F S C V U A T D W X Y Z E

 

 

 

Remember for the normal funrides, a lot of people that ride league will not attend the normal rides.

 

 

 

 

 

Looking at those results it is pretty clear what ppa was trying to do with the pretty big adjustment of the seeding structure at the beginning of the last season.

 

Groups A,B are very large still.

 

 

 

 

 

The frustration that I am feeling back in group G when we meet up with another group and we have 100 riders fighting for the 3 meters of tarmat must be so much worse up in

 

 

 

league as I can see that their starting group numbers can range from 70 to 90 people at the start of the race.

 

NO WONDER people are getting disqualified at every league funride.

 

How on earth can you expect to fit that many people into one small section of road?

 

 

 

I dont know how it is to race league so we would need some feedback from other people that do ride it here on this topic. I dont know if it would be better to seperate it into

 

 

 

two different EL groups or what. Maybe they need more age seperators in there. (well if they want to change how it works)

 

The only thing that I can see from the numbers is that it may be good to join the MS with the WL as both have fairly low numbers (less than 20). They normally have fairly

 

 

 

similar race times so I think that they could work well together. They could still race as two cats, but they should be allowed to help each other and it will also help freeing

 

 

 

up 5 minutes on the start.

 

 

 

From what I can see here, is they probably need to do even more splitting up and I would say that they should seed people all the way down to Y rather. So we can get a better

 

 

 

spread. The can have Z1,2,3,4 or something as new cats.

 

Rather have more, smaller starting groups.

 

 

 

 

 

They currently have two base events that they use as 0 seeding events (unadjusted winning times for winners)

 

That is the Argus and 94.7.

 

 

 

They should as a minimum use all of the events on the Alpha Pharm Seeding Series as base events and if a person has completed more than one of these events then his index should

 

 

 

be averaged across them. (All of these events are pro events and prize money etc, meaning that all the top pros ride all of these)

 

 

 

We need to even take it a step further.

 

Lets say that if an event has had 500+ finishers and if the winners of the race are in the "A+ group" of the averaged out seeding then surely no rider would have been able to

 

 

 

have ridden a better race. Hense the winning time should not be adjusted. ie. You get Malcolm Lange winning the westcoast express, where there is 500+ riders and pro teams. No

 

 

 

rider in the country would have made a better time over the distance so why change the time.

 

 

 

If we go to a small race ie. The westcoast national park (Langebaan).

 

It is unlikely that a pro teams would ride the race and normally at a small non-league event the numbers are going to be fairly low.

 

You will then need to look at the winners and take a look at their averaged out seeding (which would probably only be a "lower grade A or B) and hense adjust the race time back

 

 

 

to where you can see a A+ rider finishing it in correlation to the base seeding.

 

 

 

In this kind of model we would most probably see that league events are not adjusted at all.

 

 

 

Yes, this will have a knock on effect that most riders will have a slightly better seeding than they should. The bigger guys will benifit more from the rolling hills while the

 

 

 

skinny boys will pick up their better times from the hard hill's.

 

 

 

What will then be needed is to make all of the groups smaller. Even if it is cut back quite drastically, people will at least be able to move back into their correct seedings

 

 

 

because there is no longer any (or much) adjusting happening.

 

 

 

 

 

We do have another problem though. You get three kind of people riding races.

 

1. The kind that are moving up.

 

2. The kind that are just staying where they are

 

3. The kind that are unfit and should be moving down.

 

 

 

As people can upgrade their seedings they will move into a group which better suites their speed.

 

But there are also people in that group that preformed really well last or two seasons ago that are now not up to form and they are just there in the group taking up space.

 

They will probably get dropped halfway in the race anyway.

 

 

 

We need a system that can reseed the entire field maybe 4 times a year or something so that we dont get 10's of extra people squashing into a group where there are slackers that

 

 

 

need to get moved down a few again.

 

Each race from a two season's ago would get the normal 5% penalty.

 

People will still be able to upgrade, but at least the slackers will get moved down quicker.

 

 

 

How are we going to manage that?

 

I dont know, maybe we need a membership structure where you only join for the season.

 

They can chop the membership fees down then as well because it will be for 3 months or so at a time.

 

It surely doesnt cost alot to print numbers, so this will be possible. (And we will be paying for it anyway)

 

 

 

 

 

This is just a wack idea, but tell me what you guys think.

 

There is always problems with running a league event and a funride event on the same course at the same time and treating it as the same event.

 

It works better for the normal funrides where you have your A-Z cats only as it probably makes things simpler logistically.

 

 

 

What if they had to do away with the league cats and make the long route of funrides the league race.

 

Hense, the league rides have to start in the ABC's groups.

 

Then, there will also be no late entries for the long routes.

 

Everybody that wants to ride the long routes will need to enter league and you will then have your entry into the races for the season. Even if you are a P rider there must

 

 

 

still be cats from A to Z.

 

They can even give a big discount as having the people pre-entering will secure race and prize money for the different races.

 

 

 

For the people that dont want to pre-enter ahead will need to ride the short routes or they will need to pay a prorata rate for the rest of the races in the season.

 

 

 

Alot of riders ride most of the races in a season, so this could save them some money as well.

 

 

 

 

 

Oh yes, before I forget.

 

They must have a seeding system for the road and mtb.

 

But lets say you only have the one (road) and you go do a mtb race, then you should get a 10% penalty on your mtb seeding until you do another mtb race to seed you correctly.

 

It should also work like that the other way around as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyway, thats a big chunk to set your teeth into.

 

Post your comments guys!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[August]

How are we going to manage that?
I dont know' date=' maybe we need a membership structure where you only join for the season.
They can chop the membership fees down then as well because it will be for 3 months or so at a time.
It surely doesnt cost alot to print numbers, so this will be possible. (And we will be paying for it anyway) [/quote']

You can still keep the membership a yearly thing, just makes it easier on everybody.

Just put a BIG expiry date on your back number (seeded number). Then you have to get a new number say every 3 months, hence you get your seeding which you deserve. If your back numbers expiry date has passed you must start with the temp numbers guys.

Its easy enough to pick up new numbers at a race, if you know your expiry date is coming up and you just email them before hand.

 

Just an idea

[Woofie]

How are we going to manage that? I dont know' date=' maybe we need a membership structure where you only join for the season. They can chop the membership fees down then as well because it will be for 3 months or so at a time. It surely doesnt cost alot to print numbers, so this will be possible. (And we will be paying for it anyway) [/quote']

 

 

 

You can still keep the membership a yearly thing, just makes it easier on everybody.

 

Just put a BIG expiry date on your back number (seeded number). Then you have to get a new number say every 3 months, hence you get your seeding which you deserve. If your back numbers expiry date has passed you must start with the temp numbers guys.

 

Its easy enough to pick up new numbers at a race, if you know your expiry date is coming up and you just email them before hand.

 

?

 

Just an idea

 

Thats a good idea.

 

& if they dont have enough correct seeding numbers they can give you a temp one and just write the seeding onto it, like we often see.

 

 

[rpedro]

Another idea is for PPA to extend the Fun Rides to include specific longer/difficult routes 150km+ catering for the top seeded groups. Please refer to link:

https://www.bikehub.co.za/forum_posts.asp?TID=84726&PID=1171571#1171571

 

Surely PPA together with CSA can work on this and this will improve the quality of the PRO riders here in SA.

 

pritty please don't shoot me :-)

 

[Woofie]

Another idea is for PPA to extend the Fun Rides to include specific longer/difficult routes 150km+ catering for the top seeded groups. Please refer to link:

 

https://www.bikehub.co.za/forum_posts.asp?TID=84726&PID=1171571#1171571

 

?

 

Surely PPA together with CSA can work on this and this will improve the quality of the PRO riders here in SA.

 

?

 

pritty please don't shoot me :-)

 

?

 

 

 

BANG......

 

 

 

 

It would be nice for the ppa to add in some longer distances.

 

 

 

The kind of race that Malcolm is asking for over that distance, only a handful of our pros would be able to ride it at the required pace.

 

But with that being said, maybe they should experiment with taking the cream off the top of the league bunches and offer them a even longer route on funride days. (Maybe they do the loop twice or something)

 

But also along with that, If Malcolm goes ahead and wins a 240KM race, he is not really going to be happy with the 1K that he is probably going to get from the ppa anyway.

 

Oh well.

 

I still think that Lance's exposure to SA was good. But now we need him to come back and ride the Giro or something before we start to get momentum going.

 

 

[Guest Frail4Life]

Ok.

 

I received a reply stating they want everything in writing first. To communicate via email before they will consider a personal (face to face) meeting.

[Woofie]

Ok.

 

I received a reply stating they want everything in writing first. To communicate via email before they will consider a personal (face to face) meeting.

 

 

 

Ok.

 

 

 

Are you going to put our comments together for them?

 

 

 

Man.... Wouldnt it just be easier if they were on the hub so that we could have a open forum with them?