Herding cats is a thankless job

[Scattamah]

Seems like some cats are harder to herd than others...

https://www.terraustralisbikepic.com/si ... ismantling

Greetz

S.

[Richard G]

Ha... not the first time I've heard stories like that.

[Bearbonesnorm]

This will likely be something that becomes more common as ITT type events pop their head from below the radar. I'm not sure there's an absolute solution but 'vetting' would be riders while unpopular would help prevent the fallout. Kind of sounds like he was just a bit unlucky in some regards.

I also wonder whether social media plays a part? Riders can easily stay in contact with each other and problems (real or otherwise) can soon be blown out of all proportion and peoples enthusiasm / drive along with it. Tell a tired rider that the next 100k is horrible, some will jump ship, if they've no idea what's ahead, they'll just crack on.

[NewRetroTom]

It seems to me like an extraordinary attack by the organiser on the people who signed up for his event!

please, don’t go about hiding behind ‘authorities’ or blaming the race director because of your own inadequacies

Basically the organiser planned the event, and failed to attract sufficient quantity of the kind of riders who would give racing the route properly a fair go. The riders who have all gone off route are probably largely the kind of riders who will always do this in any event. They shouldn't be blamed for this - they maybe found that the route was harder and less enjoyable than they had imagined before they entered. Once the vast majority of riders had gone off route it makes it look a bit ridiculous because it's no longer a proper race.

If there had been a decent field of racers then noone would have cared what was going on at the back with these other riders.

I think a similar thing happened with the World Cycle Race, where there only ended up being one serious racer. Some commentators started attacking some other remaining participants (Irish guy who was covering 70km a day I seem to remember) for not taking it seriously.

[In Reverse]

Agree with Tom. It's an absolute toys out of the pram display by the organiser.

Didn't get a great deal of take-up, some riders decided to drop out and tour at their own pace (their prerogative), other riders apparently got mixed messages about the route and decided to sack it off, leaving hardly anyone left racing. Organiser has a hissy fit and publishes people's names and private text messages on the internet. What an absolute throbber If that's representative of his conduct it's hardly surprising nobody wanted to ride his event.

[Cheeky Monkey]

Alternatively, bloke puts in a bucket load of effort to organise something, that something goes a bit Pete Tong a bit quick and same-organising-bloke vents a bit of frustration on the event site.

As rants go it's pretty polite (total lack of Dave-language), tries to track the events and issues. Puts some fairly innocuous PM's (about the race) up to flesh things out.

All a bit mleh to me. Sorry to see it didn't go to plan. Impressive as well if his profile is right (and I've understood) that he's 71. At that age I expect to be either dead or certainly not arsed enough to organise a race. If I read it correct he was also riding it.

Hey ho

[pistonbroke]

"sit in a pub long enough and you'll find a solution"
Finally I've found my epitaph!
Had something similar on this year's C2C as 1 guy was unwilling to ride off road, quite what he was doing on the trip is a valid question. I should have let him go another way and seen him in Bilbao but I kept trying to persuade him that the route was fine, then he started trying to persuade others to take road options he'd found but thankfully no-one took the bait for long. It was dispiriting for me to see someone completely disregard the months of planning I'd put into the route, preferring to play russian roulette with lorries rather than ride the track a couple of km away which as DaveB commented, was devoid of traffic and scenically very special.
Can't please all the people I guess.

[Dave Barter]

That reminds me of Mr "I'm going on the road 'cos it will be less hilly" Nordqvist and his face of rage many kilometres later

[rufus748]

[quote="Dave Barter"]That reminds me of Mr "I'm going on the road 'cos it will be less hilly" Nordqvist and his face of rage many kilometres later[/quote

The road less travelled

[Alpinum]

Give a bunch a good challenge they asked for and then get fingers pointed at you for giving them a good challenge? No, I don't get some specimens of my own species

We should be more sadistic.