I rode the Etape yesterday and like most of the posters here came away disappointed that such a showcase event was badly let down by dreadful organisation. Many riders I chatted with felt the same and dwelled more on the negative than the positive.
I won't list the failures; that’s been done already. However, one area that has not received much comment is the lack of engagement with local communities affected by the road closures. I heard from a friend in the Llangollen area, that farmers had deliberately cut the road side hedges before the event and had no intention of obeying the road signs as they needed access to their livestock. What did the organisers actually do to work with and get the support of local communities?
Does the event organiser, K-Extreme, have a track record of staging this type of event? My experience would say not. I'm all in favour of using local businesses but only if they can deliver at the right quality.
The more sceptical amongst us doubted that the gillets where ever ordered. The lack of drinking water and food at the stops just cannot be justified. It all smacks of cost cutting and taking as much profit as possible. If a representative of K-Extreme is reading this, you need much more transparency about cost. Riders will pay £65 if they can see where the entry fee goes. At the very least, you should apologise on your web site and tells us the lessons you have learned for next year. Without this, I certainly will not participate in 2012.
It would be a real shame if the event dies. Let’s hope the organiser, sponsors and councils can put their heads together and get it right next time.
Llangollen area, that farmers had deliberately cut the road side hedges before the event and had no intention of obeying the road signs as they needed access to their livestock. What did the organisers actually do to work with and get the support of local communities?
Let's nip this one in the bud. I would say that this is the period for hedge cutting as there are lots of people cutting hedges around Chirk, Ellesmere and Wrecsam too.
I do, however, think there was a communication problem and having spoken to the organisation on Saturday I came away with the feeling of them not being particularly helpful.
I don't think I've ever done a British sportive that comes anywhere near to the quality of organisation of the European events. Even the Maratona (with legendary Italian brio) was excellent with closed roads, was live on TV for 5 hours, had fantastic feedstops, oh and nice and warm too.
Local Support was superb - that's as +ve as I can be.
The organisation was shocking. I've taken part in many sportives/races and have never taken part in one that was such a shambles as this one.
The published route was not the actual route, there was no GPX published, the signs were poor, marshalling even poorer.
The excuses regarding sabotage (they are excuses) could easily have been anticipated and managed. Most of these type of events put marshalls at all key turn points and spray arrows on the road in addition to signs. This means that sabotage cannot impact the event. The organisers took the cheap option!
This was meant to be a closed road event - but clearly it was not and therefore very dangerous, because cyclists were riding as if the roads were closed. Large parts of the course were closed but much was not! On top of this at key points marshalls were not stopping cars, e.g. on descents where it is most dangerous there were no marshalls at the bottom to stop cars going up the hill in the direction of descending cyclists!
Virtually every rider I spoke to got lost at some point or had a near miss - completely unacceptable. At the end there was not one rider I spoke to who had covered the same mieleage, because everybody had taken a different route - what is the point of timing the event and placing the riders!
If you have traveled hundreds of miles at cost, spent money on overnight accomodation, paid £60 entry and trained for weeks in order to 'compete'....... Need I say more. This event should be shelved and everybody given a refund.
Thank you very much to all the Marshals (who i think volunteered their time for the day!) Thank you also to the local people of Wales who came out and really got into the spirit, you made the day! Thanks for putting your neck on the block as well and organising a great event Gareth!
Have to say it is a shame for Wales and the area. I don't think i'll be in a hurry to do it again. I loved the route and our 5 day visit to North Wales. We came down from Aberdeen, it's a long way to go and a lot of money to spend to be knobbled by a small disgruntled minority, who's complaints I do understand and appreciate all the same!
As for the hedges, they needed cutting! I drove along some of the route on Saturday when they where cutting them! Cycling plus did recommend winter wheels and tyres! It was good advice!
Twas I! It just said hello to all STW forumers
Thanks for making me smile. Did the sign mention "free potato" or was I in a bit of a daze?
Yes, I also wondered where my free potato was?
Just seen the 'official' timing, seems out by 7 minutes, I started my GPS when I crossed the start line and stopped it when I cross the finish line. Seems odd. Chuffed to be in the top 50.
Rowskein, are we talking about the same event?? Sure the event in principle is a great idea, but it didn't live up to the expectations which was promised. Overlooking the fact that gillets didn't materials, there was little or no food/water and signage was poor and we coughed up £65, what part was it a great event?? As for it being a small minority being disgruntled is frankly a bl**dy cheek!!
Yes, I also wondered where my free potato was?Just seen the 'official' timing, seems out by 7 minutes, I started my GPS when I crossed the start line and stopped it when I cross the finish line. Seems odd. Chuffed to be in the top 50.
iDave - where did you see the results list - I looked on the Etape Cymru website and couldn't see them yet and haven't received an e-mail from them. Can you let me know where they are ? Thanks
Came across the results via twitter, rather than the organisers! Says a lot.
http://results.racetectiming.com/Results.aspx?CId=27&RId=82&EId=1
Chuffed to be in the top 50.
You came top 50 in an event that wasn't a race and everybody completed a different distance. You must be over the moon!
you know what I mean djg - I wasn't hours behind the first finishers, I didn't creep over the line at midnight etc. And yeah it's not a race, but no one tries going as slow as possible.
Schoner, thought I was dreaming when I saw the STW sign. Real nice touch! You may have seen a 29er complete with knobbly tires, Twas I!
I know, I did my first sportive 2 weeks ago and understand the competetive element all too well! But in this case its kind of ruined by the fact that you don't know if the fastest finishers did 80 or 100 miles.
Fortunately there are things called 'races'.Unfortunately you can't take off 15 minutes for a food break or 5 minutes for getting held up or 5 minutes waiting at the traffic lights.
Competitive sportivers boil my piss 😉
Fortunately there are things called 'races'.Unfortunately you can't take off 15 minutes for a food break or 5 minutes for getting held up or 5 minutes waiting at the traffic lights.
Yeah, but how many of these so called 'races' involve 100 mile circuits in amongst great scenery, over big/famous hills etc etc. Is there a 100 mile race over the Bealach na Ba and round the Sheildaig peninsula? Or starting and finishing at the Cairngorm Ski Centre with a 100 mile circuit through the cairngorm hills? Or perhaps a 65 mile circuit of the famous Inverpollaidh hills? Not that I've seen.
Some of us like to be competitive but not in the context of sitting in a tight bunch worrying about 100 different types of ettiquette while racing round a contrived 50 mile circuit in the city outskirts...
Schoner, thought I was dreaming when I saw the STW sign. Real nice touch! You may have seen a 29er complete with knobbly tires, Twas I!
Daisy - saw you on the road, thought you were mad until I saw some of the descents. A nice hydraulic brake and wider tyres would have been handy. My hands hurt at the end.
It’s the same event Daisy, you just need to take a few deep breaths.
The locals quite frankly where magic! One guy went to the trouble of dressing up in full dragon gear and chase after us tour de france style for goodness sake!!!
The bewildered lady driving down the Garth was a first warning sign that all might not be going to plan! “gosh, there are an awful lot of bikes out today! Ummmm”. It’s an October Sportif and much as I would have liked to gun it and come in with a knock out time, this was obviously not going to be the day for it.
Desipite the big problems a thank you is still in order to all involved! If these events are to catch on we’d better stick together and if you really think it’s that easy, why not volunteer to help with the next one? How about a spot of marshaling duty? There was a guy still marshaling riders home at the final corner at 5pm, still clapping! We all owe these guys a thank you!
The gilet? Would you really not have done the event if there was no gilet on offer? The Etape Caledonia gave us a few leaflets and a small packet of bird food this year just in case you where thinking of doing it!
Just out of curiosity did anyone come a cropper on the cattle grid with the broken bar? A cattle grid inspection seems like a good idea next time around.
Sounds like a disappointing day 🙁
Re: the organisation. Did it change organiser quite late on? I thought it was linked to the Etape Caledonia and Hibernia (and now Penines too) but it doesn't seem to be mentioned on their website? In terms of route, marshalling and road closure the Caledonia and Hibernia have been really goo - i dont think it would be possible to take a wrong turn on either. (there was of course the tack issue but i cant really blame them for that)
Re: the organisation. Did it change organiser quite late on? I thought it was linked to the Etape Caledonia and Hibernia (and now Penines too) but it doesn't seem to be mentioned on their website?
It was never linked to Etape Caledonia/Hibernia, that's organised by IMG. Etape Cymru was organised by a group called K-Extreme. The word Etape just means "stage", there's no copyright or trademark associated with it so anyone can use it for any Sportive title if they want.
^ However. It is pretty clear that they were attempting to gain publicity by association with the IMG events.
Their website lists no new events,they also states 2 councils a bus comapny and various other companies are supporting the Etape,and possibly none of them rode the route before hand and saw any pitfals, regarding closed roads and locals needing to go out, or visit family or freinds, then you have the visitors who like to spend an afternoon at worlds end or the panorama, or even at the Ponderossa,horseshoe pass.
The thing is with a real cycle race, like the tour of britain, ot the Tour Series, you have a dedicated motorcycle escort,Police out riders, limited numbers of riders, not 1600 riders of mixed ability as where on the Etape, and a huge circuitous course using small single track lanes,alongwith disgruntled locals.
They're already asking for registrations for next years event! Cheeky beggars.
Nice chaps on Bikeradar have stated that you have to register before the end of November to take advantage of 25% discount.
Due to the distance I had to travel to get there, as well as having to register on the saturday, I travelled up late on Friday, and only returned home today.
I put a lot of time and effort into training for this, but in the last few weeks I started to have some doubts, which were confirmed in the couple of days before the race.
The email re no gilets, was only sent about 36 hours before the race, when they must have known by then that they weren't going to be available. Also, I can't remember being asked what size Gilet I'd need, although as it would have been a while ago I might have simply forgotten. I also had an email the day before about the parking at the start; that sort of stuff should have been sorted months before,and any problems made clear then.
I'm a Police officer by profession, and I've done the Etape Du Tour a few times, as well as a few other sportives in this country, and I always like to know what I'm in for as best as I can, so after registering on Saturday, I went with my wife to have a look at some of the route.
To put it simply, we both felt it was unsafe with the amount of riders that were going to be using it; the roads I saw were too narrow, some of them were no more than farm tracks, and I could also see major problems in keeping cars off the course as there were too many junctions to close off, and the road closures weren't all day either, which was a recipe for disaster.
Any road closure points need to be manned by someone, a lot of people ignore the signs put out,and the person stood there also needs to be firm enough to tell people that they can't go through.
After seeing all that I saw on the Saturday, my wife was basically scared for my safety, I was in agreement with her, and on Sunday I had a lie in and had a look around Chester for the day, which on reflection was a good choice by all accounts.
As for 2012, I don't think I'll be signing up again, even with a 25% discount!
No free potatoes I'm afraid, it actually said "+potato to all STW forumites" (couldn't think of anything wittier sorry). 'fraid I missed you daisy, all the bikes became a blur after a while 🙂
Have to say it is a shame for Wales and the area.
Relax, Wales doesn't mind in the least.
It's a lot bigger than Denbighshire and, while the roads they chose are certainly scenic, this is not the only part of Wales where people can enjoy riding a bicycle in beautiful scenery.
No promised gilet, empty feed stops, poor signage, parking and timing issues... You'll pay a lot less than £65 for an audax and the organisers always choose interesting routes. So why the big lurve for sportives and disdain for audaxes?
Alternatively, why not have a few days there and ride a variety of routes? I promise you there's no shortage of possibilities.
Sorry to bring this back from the dead however I've just found out that one of the directors of K-Extreme, the company that 'organised' the Etape Cymru, is Mike Turner. He used to be a director of Wrexham FC and CEO of Crusaders RFL. See how highly regarded he is by Cru fans [url= http://www.redpassion.co.uk/forums/crusaders-rugby/79721-mike-turner.html ]here[/url]. Wrexham fans hold him on a much lower pedestal, the words piss up and brewery come to mind.