OK, thanks to all the organisers who put in so much time so I could fang around some of Canberra's finest dirt with 2500 other strangers. I hope everyone had at least as much fun as me, and if it hurt, (sorry to hear about Kylie) that it builds character for you!
As already stated, the traffic at times was horrendous and its a fine balance between keeping your competitive spirit going and being understanding of the huge gaps in riders ability! Nothing worse then hammering yourself up the climb to loose huge amounts of time on a descent. I dont know how the organisers can address this
Le Matelot seems to have suggested that lowering the rider density a little will help with congestion a lot. I'm inclined to agree - though while the 2006 scott24hr was usually pretty packed, I distinctly remember doing a 2AM lap where I didn't see another rider for 30 minutes!
Now, I have called track from the back of a train of riders winding up singletrack. If you're a patient, faster rider at the back of a train then you mightn't be keen to let someone in front of you just to sit on their wheel for hundreds of metres.
.. and in saying that: Rider 6888, you are a knob. Despite your calling of track on me when I was last in a train of at least a dozen riders, I let you through promptly and without drama. I was disappointed to see you shouting at riders in front of you, expressing your annoyance at them having stopped behind a fallen female solo rider instead of riding around her. I wasn't suprised to see a rider further up the train not wanting to give you track, and I must confess that I was amused when he shut you out when you tried to barge past him. Squeezing his front brake lever as you eventually went past him on the firetrail was childish and petulant. I hope you felt pretty stupid when I (average rider that I am) overtook you and your carbon-fibre dually later in the lap.
Having the portable showers close at 10pm was brutal! nuff said.
No-one was guarding the event centre showers at 4AM, they were working, they weren't signed, taped up, or barricaded off and I was desperate, so I had one. It was possibly my Favourite Shower Ever. Sorry, organisers.
Next year, can CORC add a couple of self-contained (IE doesn't use Stromlo's sewerage) shower trucks please?
The track layout was great, great in every way, I preferred it over the fig 8 of last year.
I loved them both, but they both had their downsides. EG, Last year's singletrack climb to Double Dissolution was craptacular. This year's final climb back out of the campsite to add a couple of K's to the end course was just plain mean - though I must award points for use of the flyover bridge. Also, keep more carpet handy for the boggy areas!
One hard-to ignore upside of the figure-8 was the halving of riders queuing for singletrack on the first lap..
Now, timing at the race:
Upside -
- RFID means high accuracy
- RFID still accurate with bunch finishes
- Less labour ..
Downsides -
- Allegedly made it too hard to run the figure-8 course which has proven popular.
- Castech got paid to do it, instead of Le Matelot's (free) software + (free) volunteer labour. Costs CORC = Costs riders.
- Putting a couple of sensors out at far-points on the course as a labour-free anti-cheating method wasn't done, presumably because adding extra sensor locations costs even more $$$.
- Putting in another sensor 500m before transition to show incoming riders to announcers, supporters, waiting riders etc wasn't done, $$$.
- No nifty large-screen displays in transition, all that other stuff dyon said, etc, $$$
- It took as long as it ever does to get results ready for presentation!
People griped about timing errors, but they happened before, and will probably happen with every system. You let the organisers know, they fix them (sooner or later..)
Lastly, I know presentation always goes forever .. and there's now a policy that if there's 2 teams in a category that only 1st place gets a prize, etcetc. However, I was under the impression that 1st, 2nd and 3rd place getters were put up on the podium regardless of how many in the category ..
I was little disappointed to see only 1st place on the podium when there was more than 1 team in the category. It doesn't cost anything to call them up there (hell, you could give them another water bottle and set of grips anyway) and might encourage more people to give that category a go, which is never a bad thing.