Cheers for getting them up promptly Dave, and a fairly smooth-running race - none of the huge queues for uplifts that I've come to expect from Combe Sydenham, and the army truck was a nice touch
Track was a bit short, (due to lack of marshalls I believe?), but I enjoyed it anyway, had all my favourite bits in it (though I did miss the rock garden at the top) and it meant I wasn't too knackered by the time I got to the tricky bit at the bottom!
I expect some people will be bitching about the running-order going to pot in the 2nd run, well personally I was really happy about that. I'm so much less stressed/nervous if I can just go "yep, I'm ready now" and be the next rider down - I really psyche myself out when I've a set time to go and are sat in a queue waiting for it! It reminded me of one of your old stage races at Bratton from circa 1998, when we raced 8-9 courses in 2 days, and it was just a case of "go when you want" at the top of each of them!
yeah i really liked the idea of just going when you are ready too as i also get a bit worked up about having to go and sometimes not being quite ready!! i think it showed in my run aswell as i was more relaxed through it and knocked a bit off my other time. overall it was a good day even though we managed to get lost and i only ended up with one practice run.
i got to admit that the race went smoother when you could just go in any order, and it also stoped a lot of fuss etc!
maybe this could be an improvement or atleast a consideration for improvement in the future.
enjoyed it a lot though, loadz of fun!
I imagine what dave will say here is that you run the risk of quick people catching slow people, with two problems:
1) quick people will get held up and/or knock other riders off the track
2) slow people will be intimidated having someone quicker who might knock them off behind them!
3) either group may complain that their run was ruined for this reason
But a bit of conversing at the top can avoid that, chat to the person who's ready to go, see if you're of a similar ability (30 seconds is a long time after all...) and then slot in if you're both happy with it.
Unfortunately i wasnt racing but from what i saw everything was very well organised (except for the slight delays inbetween runs). I went up on the uplift to do some filming and that seemed very good, also the atmosphere was very good. I also like the idea of going when you feel like, maybe we should do categories like for example: 2m- 2m30s and 2m30s-3m etc etc. the category you belong to means you would go when you wanted in that category, it also means there wouldnt be as big a deal about the hold ups of slower riders as theyd all be relatively similar.
all in all very good, i was surprised to see brendan there too, shame he wasnt racing.
Author
Logged
