Thoughts from the officials car........ 1st adding another field causes an increase in price for the promoters. They need another official. This could also make the day little longer which would mean there would be more in permit fees most likelyI saw what caused the first wreck, but I couldn't tell you if it was caused by a Cat 4 or 5.I had I think 21 infractions written down. Only a couple of those were Cat 5 riders. The biggest issues I had were the full field taking up the full road when there wasn't a defined centerline. If some of the group were taking up 55% of the road, I could see that since it could be hard to gauge where center is. But riders were dirt to dirt. Also, the v racers had full access to both lanes after 200 meters to go. A large portion of riders jumped around 250 meters (before the uphill started)
I don't have specifics of who did what since I turned in my notes, but if anybody has any questions, feel free to contact me off list
Jon
Sent from my T-Mobile 4G LTE Device
-------- Original message --------From: John Wilger via OBRA Date: 4/1/18 8:01 AM (GMT-08:00) To: Brad Davidson , dsaltzberg@zone5promotions.com Cc: Obra Subject: Re: [OBRA Chat] Piece of Cake Cat 4/5 Men
Yeah, I had similar thoughts about the 5s needing their own field for road races. Plus it would have made the field smaller for the 5s, which I understand a promoter not loving, but when your talking about new racers(especially early in the season) that makes a big difference for safety; less fighting for the same patch of road, and easier for officials to keep an eye on everyone.
The promotor could easily make a change for the rest of this series to have the fields be senior 5s and senior 3/4s. It wouldn't even affect any series standings, since the 4/5 race was entirely nullified. The 4s would just only be able to earn points in the final two races of the series.
So I wonder: any chance that we could see a change in the fields for the next couple of races in this series? If not, I think I’m going to pass on them. (Which makes me really sad; I think these are otherwise great races in general, and I really, really want to support them.)
On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 4:48 PM Brad Davidson via OBRA wrote:
Or just split the open fields at 3/4 and 5 like many other events do. This is the second year in a row that we've had:
* A crash in the final sprint
* Early race crashes due to wheel contact when the pack yo-yos on a climb or corner* Riders failing to respect the centerline rule* Riders forced off the right side of the road
This is all novice-level stuff. I get it, winter is long and we're all excited to drop some watts in the sun again... but it seems like some folks might need a little more time on a fast-paced group ride, or out on the tarmac at PIR, before they're ready to handle their bike at full speed.
Maybe there are other solutions than changing the split, but IMO there's a huge difference between the bottom of 5 and the top of 4. Putting them together this early in the season is just asking for trouble.
I love Piece of Cake, but I won't race this event in this field again. I'll take a self-upgrade to 3 and gladly spend the rest of the year sucking wind at the back of the pack if that's what it takes to get me out.
-Brad
On Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 15:44 John Wilger wrote:
It was literally the most dangerous race I’ve ever been in. And the whole field (I hear) is being nullified. And rightly so.
Literally begging the promoter to do a senior 3/4 field. Or do Masters as 35+. Please? Some of us need to be able to go to work next week. :-D
On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 3:32 PM Brandon Davidson via OBRA wrote:
Not calling any one individual out, there was a lot of embarrassing stuff goin on out there. Just gonna leave this here for y'all:
https://youtu.be/18x-7inBrmw
-Brad
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John Wilger | +1 (971) 678-0999 | http://johnwilger.com
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