southern sportive

TheBullet

Enjoyed the day and route. Signed in quickly and popped to the Esso across the road to use the toilet (which had no queue!) so got away quickly.

I thought the route was mostly car-free which was nice. The wind made it hard but finished with an respectable time of 5Hrs10.

Was wondering - how far did everybody make it on their computer? I made it about 99 miles.

malcolmfrost

My 705 made it 155.6km which Google says is 96.6853575 miles.

hitthewall

Out of interest, can anyone with a GPS confirm the mid-ride length?

112 km = 69.6 miles which was very close to my Cateye which had 69.5 miles. Be good to know I've got my wheel circumference entered correctly.

Thanks.

kafkathedog

my cateye wireless made it 96.69 miles

Brewsterwmb

Found the route to be spot on at 96 miles...

Although I knew it was 155k I was having to work that into miles in my head then the pink 10k sign popped into the corner of my eye! :P

sampras38

Just like to say how much I enjoyed the day also, so thanks organisers, you did a great job. It was my first Southern Sportive and apart from what I thought were a few unneccessary narrow lanes with a bit too much gravel, all in all a good time had.

Jaeger

Agree with a lot of the positive comments. I am generally very impressed with all the TrailBreak Sunday/Southern Sportives, and having got Silver on the Mid-route last year I have improved to a Gold on the 155km this year.

One criticism is the drink at the stops. I didn't take any food from the first two stops, relying on energy drink and a few gels I had with me. However, after a few miles from CP2 I drank some of the SIS I had re-filled my bottles with and it tasted like water. I literally downed a full bottle, then onto the next, but even with a couple of gels this was not enough and I really struggled to CP3, where the flapjack and fruit just about got me home (literally limping in at 6mph up the last bit back into the college).

I bought some of the SIS from CP2 home with me and even the gf said she could barely taste anything in it. I am curious to know what concentration this is mixed to, as I genuinely believed it had a big effect on the latter stages of my ride, and left me rather disappointed with what was otherwise a great route and event. (And before anyone says it, I am not stupid enough to have taken water by mistake - I read the label!).

Anyone else have this trouble?

sampras38

Jaeger wrote:

Agree with a lot of the positive comments. I am generally very impressed with all the TrailBreak Sunday/Southern Sportives, and having got Silver on the Mid-route last year I have improved to a Gold on the 155km this year.

One criticism is the drink at the stops. I didn't take any food from the first two stops, relying on energy drink and a few gels I had with me. However, after a few miles from CP2 I drank some of the SIS I had re-filled my bottles with and it tasted like water. I literally downed a full bottle, then onto the next, but even with a couple of gels this was not enough and I really struggled to CP3, where the flapjack and fruit just about got me home (literally limping in at 6mph up the last bit back into the college).

I bought some of the SIS from CP2 home with me and even the gf said she could barely taste anything in it. I am curious to know what concentration this is mixed to, as I genuinely believed it had a big effect on the latter stages of my ride, and left me rather disappointed with what was otherwise a great route and event. (And before anyone says it, I am not stupid enough to have taken water by mistake - I read the label!).

Anyone else have this trouble?

I noticed the same thing but had brought a few Hi-5 powders of my own so it didn't affect me. I actually thought it was water it was so weak..;-)

Jaeger

sampras38 wrote:

I noticed the same thing but had brought a few Hi-5 powders of my own so it didn't affect me. I actually thought it was water it was so weak..;-)

Exactly.

I've taken powders on some sportives before, just in case, but not needed them. Still scraped Gold, but the last 2 hours weren't nice! :evil:

There's a lesson there for next time, I suppose.

JasonRwmb

I think at the start it was mentioned that the checkpoints had either water or electrolyte drinks. SIS don't do a pure electrolyte drink so guess it was watered down GO. I did have one bottle of it from CP2 and would agree that it tasted fairly weak. Normally I take a few High-5 sachets with me, or some Motor Tab tablets, but I realised in the morning that I had run out. I took loads of bars and gels with me, with hindsight far too many really.

Distance from my Garmin 305 was 96.84 miles.

Sir Velo

sloboy wrote:

.

I rather like the route and it seems to be evolving for the better each year. Duncton this year was the busiest I've been on, but no real problem from my side.

The route evolving each year. Does it change? What was different this year? If it did change was it generally faster or slower than previous years?

One for Martin, what about have the Gold/Silver/Bronze 'age weighted' for us older riders?

SV

Beer, anyone?

I thought the event was really good fun. My second sportive, but much bigger than the last one so was great to chat with lots of other cyclists along the route. (Although, as comments above, the SIS definitely seemed to get weaker with each feed stop... )

And my only other complaint is that it wasn't fair to have run out of hotdogs for the slower riders - biggest disappointment of the day!

sloboy

Just odd turns here and there was what I had in mind - so the route up Harting Hill changed after the first edition and then in the first two there was a nasty right turn half way down a hill that I didn't notice this time.

Sundayrider

Jaeger wrote:

Anyone else have this trouble?

Yes. The SIS at the first check point tasted fine and a world away from the SIS mix at the other check points. At the second check point it was very weak and also weak at the third check point. A lesson learnt for me not to rely on supplied energy drinks in the future.

A great ride . I just couldn't believe the number of riders I saw chucking banana skins into the verge. I think it takes about a month for a banana skin to decompose; so the verges will be clear again for next year :roll:

Zav

thanks to all those who stopped and helped out the dynamo pile up at about mile 35 on sunday. much appreciated.

Brewsterwmb

Only stopped at CP 2 and that did taste week, but I am use to Torq now and its been a while since i used SiS... I blame it on the watered down SiS though

Zav - hope all are OK ?

Anyone see the results yet? the page is there but no link ? :arrow:

Zav

all fine thanks. great excuse for group set upgrade ...

sampras38

I also want to thank a guy called James who I bumped into about 20 miles from finishing the long route. He was doing the mid-route and when I told him I was going for a time, him and his brother pushed me really hard to the finish and made a big difference to my time.

cheers

RedGreenBaron

Echoing most of the above:
Great route, very good signs (ribbons and pre-warnings appreciated).
Horses for courses - we really enjoyed the A285 bit, so would not favour removing it- not that much traffic and loved the better tarmac and chance to work smoothly together.
There were more rough gravelly roads than I'd expected, but I'm not complaining, due to minimal traffic and scenic-ness. However, in a couple of places the gravel was really quite dangerous, and a lady had clearly come off badly on a large patch of gravel on a blind-left hander early on (hope the injuries weren't as bad as they looked). We were aided by one of her group standing in the road and warning us.
Agree SIS much too weak (at second stop).
Foodwise I'd love a limited selection of juicy sandwiches to buy at the end. Would cut the queues and be an alternative for those whose stomachs can't cope with the heavy (but I'm sure delicious) options. However, I might be the only one.
Anyway, thanks for all the hard work, SS team.

SouthernSportive

Hi all

Results are finalised now as best I can see. I've been checking them through and everything seems right, but if you spot anything suspect that I've missed, please let me know.

Click here

Thanks for all the positive comments and for the feedback and critiques too, which don't go ignored. I'll try an give some quick responses to most of the points.

I don't agree that the event has outgrown the venue, but it has got as big as it can be there. We won't be increasing capacity for next year. Parking should have worked fine and a complete parking plan and team was in place. We have three venues in place as in previous years, and between the college itself and the junior school behind the college (connected via the short cut through), we can accommodate the majority of vehicles effectively on site. We have agreements to use the Penns Place council office car parks as overspill which are just a kilometre away and the town centre car parks are close enough to be practical options too. This has worked well and would have done this year too, had the caretaker of the junior school not forgotten to open up our second car park for us and lost us a third of our central parking. Best laid plans and all that! That caused us some difficulty first thing but fortunately turned out to be the biggest problem all day.

It seems different people have different thoughts on the A285 section; I personally think it gives some variety from the narrower lanes and fits with the course well enough. It's also the only practical way of bringing the course round that end of the route. We do need riders to keep in single file as far as possible on the Duncton Hill climb though; motorists should have a little patience with us, but they should be given space to pass in a reasonable time too.

I'll look into what happened with the SIS drink; sorry if some of the mixes were too weak. Don't know if our volunteer crews got the mix wrong or were just trying to refill in a hurry or what. SIS are absolute stars as far as supplying us for these events, but I would like it if they could get us the blackcurrant mix instead of citrus, for the simple reason that you can judge the strength of the mix easily from the colour. That's not complaining though, they do us proud.

Gravel on the roads; I wish we had TdF style clout for getting roads cleared and resurfaced, but sadly we don't. The cleft stick of route design in ththis part of the world is that the smaller lanes can be a little sketchy, while the bigger roads can be a little busy, so it's something of a balancing act. The corner where the girl came off is a particular point of caution and we put two big SLOW signs out there, which unbelievably, where removed by persons unknown, which is just moronic beyond belief!

Sandwiches; we're likely to stick with the chilli and hot dog style options, but I think the garage across the road was selling more sarnies than usual on Sunday!

Age & gender adjusted time targets; we're planning to introduce them next season.

mark_d

Here are the long route results sorted by overall time. Does anyone know if the top 5 riders did the whole route? Two had a longer first split than us and no second split, and the other 3 had no first splits and second splits much faster than ours. Not impossible but they'd have been going some -- we rode our legs off the whole way.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key= ... kYXc&hl=en

Stuck on a Giant

Well. the lady that crashed is Mrs SoaG. Her bike is fine, although the brake levers are rather scraped.

She had a little trip to Cosham A&E in the ambulance, as she looked a bit of a mess, and had broken her helmet in the impact and was a bit confused initially. Her shoulder really hurt and she was worried it was broken.

She's basically OK though - rather battered and bruised but not broken. She came home once they'd cleaned her up at Cosham. She's got a nice black eye, other cuts and grazes on her face, a sore head, sore shoulder and road rash down one side.

This is reallly bad timing as we're off to Italy for a cycling holiday on Saturday! Hopefully Specialized will get the crash replacement helmet to us in time.

It's good to hear there had been signs put out - we were a little unhappy that corner didn't appear to have been signed as an earlier bend had been. Perhaps if the ejits who removed them saw the consequences they might feel a little guilty.

Thanks to the guys who stopped to help - the two who helped initially, and the paramedic who also stopped.

malcolmfrost

Hi Southern
further to my previous comments, when I arrived at the school entrance I was marshalled away and told to turn around, fair enough but then where to go to? A lot of people were parking in the residential estate first left back towards the A3. I know that if I woke up at 8:30 on a Sunday morning to find my close full and the road blocked by cars I would have been very miffed. A marshal at that point to keep people away and point to the overflow would have kept them happy.
Glad to hear the crashee is reasonably OK, I crashed badly at the Hyde Park Triathlon 3 weeks ago and it does wear off, Ironically a good long Sportive gets the nerves back!!
Thanks for a great event, will be back.

RedGreenBaron

SouthernSportive wrote:

Hi all

Results are finalised now as best I can see. I've been checking them through and everything seems right, but if you spot anything suspect that I've missed, please let me know.

Other than the first 5, 1083's times are not feasible.

SouthernSportive wrote:

Thanks for all the positive comments and for the feedback and critiques too, which don't go ignored. I'll try an give some quick responses to most of the points.

The corner where the girl came off is a particular point of caution and we put two big SLOW signs out there, which unbelievably, where removed by persons unknown, which is just moronic beyond belief!

Sandwiches; we're likely to stick with the chilli and hot dog style options, but I think the garage across the road was selling more sarnies than usual on Sunday!

Thanks for the responses, which all make sense to me (including, prosaically, the sandwich point).
I am also very comforted to hear about the SLOW signs, and doubly shocked to hear of their removal. I wish Mrs SoaG a speedy recovery.
Nick

sloboy

I did ok with the car park signage. Knowing that I was perhaps cutting it a bit fine for the main car park, I was on the look out at the roundabout for signs saying the cycle event was the other way i.e. to the left and away from the college. I was a bit surprised then that the close up to the primary school had marshalls on it waving us on (I didn't think I was late enough to have missed the second car park as well), but then guidance to the overflow and back again via the cycle path was fine.

paul_xedos

Hi,

Looking at the Google spreadsheet I think the first 6 finishers possibly need to be questioned, based on split times and previous rankings. David Thompson this years fastest time (4:12:00) was a silver ranking last year (5:47:00). For placings 2, 3 and 5 split 2 looks way too fast for the 100mile course. For placings 1 and 4, I'd say the reverse was true in that split 1 was too slow. Both would have needed a dramatic speed up in Split 2 to record the eventual time
Rider positions 5-11 look genuine, 2 consistent split times, with the same start time which suggests they worked as a group round the course.
Most of the other positions 10-20 look genuine as 6 of us with 8:03:00 and 8:05:00 start times worked in a bunch and finished within a few minutes of each other

Sorry to be so nerdy in analysing like this - I stopped my checking after position 20

Cheers
Paul

topcattim

Was anyone else slighlty surprised by their official finish time? I figure it may just have been a measurement error at my end, but I'd been watching my stopwatch throughout and came in (by my calculation) about 12 mins inside the gold standard. This was time elapsed, not time on bike.

I was surprised to have an official finish time of 2 minutes over gold. Perhaps somehow I was misreading my watch (but I started it as I crossed the line, and didn't stop it until I got to the end; it has never mistimed before). Alternatively, I wonder it somehow made a difference that I crossed the timing mat twice at the first split/2nd checkpoint - once on the way in, and once on the way out. I reckon I spent about 15 minutes there, as my ride buddy had a mechanical. This 15 minutes is almost exactly the difference between my stopwatch finish time, and the time given by the official timing. But surely the final elapsed time is calculated as the gap between start and finish times, and I reckon I started at 8-04 and finished at just about 1-35. Stupidly I didn't pay too much attention to the precise time, as I believed from my previous checks at my watch that I was going to make it in below the standard, and I figured the official timing would give me the right answer.

In the big scheme of things, of course, it doesn't matter. I realise it is probably my error, and the easiest way will just be to ride faster next year, but (in a spirit of desperation ) wonder if it might be a timing error?

paul_xedos

Correction to my previous post suggesting the first 6 places look suspect. I should have said the first 5 places. Rob Reid was in the 8:47 group and I'm sure that's genuine

SouthernSportive

Agree about the first five riders on that list and have amended them (had already tracked down one who had transposed transponders (now there's a phrase you don't get to use every day!) with another rider). We can't verify any riders time, but the rest look plausible so will stand as published.

SoaG - I'm glad to hear that your other half is OK. I hope she's fit enough to enjoy your holiday.

SouthernSportive

topcatjim - the times are taken simply from the gap between your start and finish times. Both of these are recorded onto the same box, so even if the clock in the timing box was wrong (which it shouldn't have been; it was set only an hour before first start) then it would have been wrong for both your start and finish times, so the gap between them should still be consistent with your ride time.

I have had one email from a rider who thinks his finish time is out, but can't see why that would be when most of them seem to be correct.