Less Wheels, Less Problems

Broken bikes left the ladies
walking to the finish.

As much as the 2012 Cape Argus Cycle Tour was a huge success it had its dissapointments too.The elite women were seeded in a big pack  as they were joined by the Leading men's Vets and Masters. This resulted in a large and consistent Leading pack throughout the race, as well as causing the pack to be spread out over the whole road. With the group consisting of so many riders it resulted in a nasty crash, injuring over 20 pro riders. this is simply unfair and quite frankly, incompetent of the organisers of the event. The Cape Argus Cycle Tour has a reputation for being the worlds largest individually timed cycle race.

http://www.southafrica.info/about/sport/cycletour.htm
 It's unacceptable that a world class event doesn't raise the standard here, afterall, our other local races don't require that The Elite Ladies Start with two other competitive categories, all racing for the podium. Competitive categories should be seperated to compete strictly with riders of the same capacity- resulting in less riders per group, resulting in less casualties. Sure, falling is part of the sport and "If you havent fallen, it means you can't ride." Another problem was the amount of participants in the overall even, somewhat 36 000 riders- once again causing serious traffic jams amoungst the cyclists. the organisers of this huge event need to restrategise if they still want the turnout to be this strong, either by:

• Providing More ride groups
• Ensuring more time between groups starting
• or require participants to qualify for the Cape Argus Cycle Tour on a more strict basis than just being seeded

For more info on the event, checkout News24 www.sport24.co.za/