Northern Rock Cyclone entry?

Buckled_Rims

fluff. wrote:

Comparing it to the only other one I've done of these this year in the Kilotogo Cheshire Cat.

Registering: preregistered for both, took seconds in each case. Had to wander round Newcastle with a funny looking wrist tag for a night though.

Yes, that tag was a stupid idea. I registered at 3pm on Friday, by the time I got home at 4, I had pulled the damn thing off! I'm sure people thought I was a criminal being tagged. I just superglued it back on again in the morning.

As for other complaints, yes, there wasn't that much choice at feed stations and I don't like geobars. The iso drinks were nice. But I did take all my own food, in case.

Parking. Everyone was warning in an email. As soon as I saw verge parking I decided to drive to the "park and Ride" facility 1.5 miles away which I treated as a warm up and a warm down.

Other sportives are more friendly and run by their club members (usually), but they're not big sponsored events like the Cyclone. I don't think you can compare the two.

hugo15

I enjoyed the Cyclone yesterday. We managed to get parked at the ground which was a bonus. Plenty of food at all the feed stops but some different flavour bars would have been good. I was also craving something savoury after eating sweet sticky stuff all day. Overall an excellent well organised event.

Only downside was the amount of litter. Empty gel and Geobar wrappers littered the roads. I was amazed to see a rider in a Brooklyn USA top chuck an empty bottle into the field no more than 100 metres after the second feedstop. I mean, how hard would it have been to put it in the bin before you set off again???

cumbriamike

the Great Yorks Bike Ride does a full lunch stop and home made cakes from the WI at one of the stops!

That brought back a few memories Andy as I used to live in North Yorkshire and have done the GYBR a couple of times. The lunch at Terrington was something else.

The Cyclone IS an excellent event and its easy to find fault its best to try and see the funny side of the little quirky things.

No excuse for the litter though.

andy_from_embsay

AndyD2574 wrote:

In my opinion, and its only my opinion - far too much whining about sandwiches!!!!

...

I say again cheers to Peter for a good day!

For crying out loud - you compare this event with others, and say that you'd have preferred more variety at feedstops and suddenly it's "whining about sandwiches". I said the event was ok. It's not up there with the best, but it was ok.

I'm not sure why some folk believe that one should never suggest improvements - as if you're making some personal slight on the organisers, who I'm sure work jolly hard.

And yes - well done Peter - hope it goes as well in future.

andy_from_embsay

Parking. Everyone was warning in an email. As soon as I saw verge parking I decided to drive to the "park and Ride" facility 1.5 miles away which I treated as a warm up and a warm down.

I saw the warning about limited parking and the alternative being at the park and ride, but nothing to say that you'll get booked if you park anywhere else - not that that's the organisers' responsibility - I'm a big boy and if I get a ticket that's my own fault - however the signs are unclear, a point I've made to the council in an email.

A suggestion (if one's allowed to make one without it being described as whining) would be to make it crystal clear that there's no parking anywhere in the vicinity of the rugby ground - as an avid reader of pre-event literature I would have read that and not even contemplated parking on the verge no matter how unlike an estate road it looked. In most places (and I live in the Dales and come from the Lakes, both places with "parking difficulties") if you're off the road and not obstructing a pavement or access then you're ok - where that's not the case (eg Great Langdale in the summer) there's very clear signs explaining the fact.[/quote]

nolf

Was looking forward to doing this and the crit the night before.

Unfortunately I'm an idiot and thought the crit started at 7:20, so we were still warming up when it started :? *Doh!*


(In the Cyclone we were the guys in red/white uni of york tops)
In the cyclone we were kind of glad we hadn't raced as there was a crash, and we needed all the energy we had. We didn't have the form of last year, but were hunting for gold.
12 mile ride to the start from a friends house gave us a good warmup, and at the start we (me and my team mate) tried to form some groups by powering away (got to 1st feed in 1 hour). A fairly good group formed from before feed 1 to feed 2. But my mate had to stop for a crap so I had to wait at feed 2.
Later we caught some stragglers from the group so they must have been going pretty well.

Unfortunately after waiting 20 mins for my mate to catch up, we had missed a load of decent looking groups and struggled to find another one. Between feed 2 and 3 was spent solo and we lost a lot of time because of it. Feed 3 we got in with a bigish group, that gave us a rest while we got in some food and stretched before ryalls.

After a bit of a rest me and my mate powered onwards again and had dropped most of them by the ryalls. Managed to get up the ryalls ok on my standard double (52/39 with a 12-25 at the back). Ridiculously overated climb, even managed a smile for the camera!

Now that Ryalls was done we knew there were no major hills left so started hammering away. We knew we'd lost a lot of time in the middle so were determined to make it back up! A group formed that were similarly minded, and we kept a very fast pace to the final feed.
My team mate had a longer than intended break (I think he had stomach issues as we lost a lot of time with his crap breaks!), but powering away we did the final stretch in less than 30 minutes.

Very dissappointed with the overall time of 6hrs (20 mins slower than last time!) but I think the wind was a bit tougher, and the lack of teammates/a decent group lost us a lot of time. Apparently we were 81st of 90 finishers, when we finished (set out at 8:30 so not that early), so I don't think many people will have got gold standard.

Are times going to be put up? It would be interesting to see a table with- a time of 6 hours-6hrs 10 mins puts you in the 300-399th, or something similar.

What times did others do?

nolf

I'll definitely be back btw, although the roads are largely crap, and lack of food variety is a pain, the route is good.
Very little traffic, some challenging climbs, a well sign posted route, loads of entrants (blocking the road), challenging goals (altho I would say perhaps 18.5mph avg is too fast for a gold standard on that route), and finishline was ok.

Will probably be back next year finals dependant.

andy_from_embsay

The results are on sportident - and you're right - doesn't look like a lot of Gold on there!

hugo15

andy_from_embsay wrote:

The results are on sportident - and you're right - doesn't look like a lot of Gold on there!

Only 32 people acheived Gold standard. Another 248 got Sliver and the rest Bronze.

I finished 557th out of 1130 finishers, which saw me just scrape into the top half of the field. My time was 7 hours 10 mins.

Quirky

I did the 104 and really enjoyed the ride. I wasn't going for a good time, I was just pleased to get round. I did think it was pretty bad that by the time I got to the last 2 feed stations there was literally nothing left. Fair enough, I wasn't there as soon as some but there was still plenty of people behind me.

dholden

anyone got the results in an excel format?

amaferanga

dholden wrote:

anyone got the results in an excel format?

Copy and paste.

nolf

Oh thats not so bad, me and my team mate came 18th and 19th in our age category, and 150th/151st overall. Thats made me a lot happier.

Not convinced that the winner John Wolstenholme who did 3hrs 33mins 34 seconds, actually did the full 104 miles...

Jessica\'sGrandad

I completed the 63 mile ride, my first sportive, and thoroughly enjoyed the day. The organisation itself was excellent, the ride was pretty hard going up to the first feed station, seemed to be into a stiff breeze and the climb a couple of miles before was tough enough for an old sod like me.

After a quick feed and a few more miles in the legs, the course seemed to flatten out and with a great decent around the 35 mile mark which seemed to go on forever, then the ride to the Ryals just before Stamforham seemed to disappear very quickly.
I couldn't manage the first climb and walked the best part of it, then almost died when I saw another leg up to the top, I just stood at the top of the first climb and watched back down awestruck as a few teams looked as if they were flying up the bloody thing, there was a team of about eight riders in Specialized kit and bikes that motored up as if they weren't there, very impressive. I got back on the bike after a short rest and had a go at the second part of the climb and almost made it but decided to give up before my heart burst, and hopefully conserve a little bit of energy for the ride back to the finish.
Had a quick feed and drink at Stamfordham and got going at a fairly brisk pace to get in on 4.58, I'd set myself a target of 5 hours so was very happy to just make it.

A few observations, very little litter that I saw, food stations were great and seemed well spaced for the 63 mile run, stewards and volunteers were brilliant with directions and timing and kudos to the guy who finished slightly ahead of me on the Orange fixed wheel bike, that must have been fun for him. The remarks about parking tickets, I got there fairly early but the car park was already full, was going to go to the park and ride but everyone was parking on the verges, about 50 metres from the entrance to the rugby club on the opposite side of the road was a grassed area which backed onto a housing estate and I found room to park on there along with about thirty other vehicles, after the ride I returned to my car and saw 5 or 6 traffic wardens issuing tickets but not to everyone who was parked where I was, only a couple of cars had tickets on, which I thought was quite strange, if they were parking tickets, I can’t understand why everyone didn’t get one.

Can’t wait to do it again next year, looking at the results and seeing men and women in their 60’s and 70’s getting round in better times than me makes me determined to improve and train harder, a brilliant event and thanks to Peter and his team for a cracking weekend.

Yorkman

nolf wrote:

Oh thats not so bad, me and my team mate came 18th and 19th in our age category, and 150th/151st overall. Thats made me a lot happier.

Not convinced that the winner John Wolstenholme who did 3hrs 33mins 34 seconds, actually did the full 104 miles...

How do you find out your position overall and in your age group?

I think i'm looking in the wrong place.

Jessica\'sGrandad

You can copy the results from the website, paste them into an Excel spreadsheet and use data filter and sort commands to manipulate the results to what you are looking for, eg, age group, times, male or female etc.

nolf

Jessica\'sGrandad wrote:

You can copy the results from the website, paste them into an Excel spreadsheet and use data filter and sort commands to manipulate the results to what you are looking for, eg, age group, times, male or female etc.

Wot e said.

Really easy to do, if you don't have excel download open office version and do the same.

Pleased to see we beat all of the Durham Uni riders, after all thats what really matters.

geordiefella

the only time i was tempted by some food was the ice cream shack at the top of that last little climb. Cor, were they just trying to increase your times between stages or what ;-)

Enjoyed the day. Was a good trip out. Will train more next time. Found the flat lead out really good for warming up before the hilly bits, and a crackin tail wind in the last 13-14 miles back to base. Could have some with a BBQ area at the end though.. Cor, i could av killed for a steak sandwich off the grill!!!

DaveMoss

amaferanga wrote:

None of the 4 sportives I've done have had sandwiches at the feed stops. Which sportives supply sandwiches?

Bethany(Edinburgh) sportive; Drumlanrig challenge and Cumberland challenge all well stocked with sandwiches; which on a long ride is a far better option than just cereal bars and bananas.

I did the cyclone the first two years and both times organisation was good and I enjoyed both experiences. The only minor negative on the second time was having to queue to set off. Has this got any worse as the event has got bigger?
To my mind, after 5 or 6 hundred riders, bigger is not better in a sportive and I'm afraid I'm not inclined to rush back to the cyclone, though the fact it is on a Saturday might tempt me. (But I can understand why some people find the bigger events attractive )
From past experience of Peter's organising, I suspect that any issues with the feeds will be sorted for next year and anyone who has not done it should not be put off from giving it a go. It sounds like the parking issues are down to none reading of instructions and misguided enforcement. ( Does the council want an event like this? of course they do. so this year the traffic department should have had the sense to put polite notices on windscreens rather than tickets. Appeals might be worth a try in this case. I spent a few years in charge of parking tickets and in a situation like this, had someone written in, we would have let them off)

The Cumberland challenge has been mentioned, it's not till September and I can say from experience, this is one of the very best both in terms of route and organisation. Definatly one to plan for if you havn't done it before.

fluff.

DaveMoss wrote:

The only minor negative on the second time was having to queue to set off. Has this got any worse as the event has got bigger?.

Less than 5 min queue for me around 8.15, perfectly acceptable when you have over 3,000 riders on the day.

Ad Hynkel

Was warned on other pages here to carry enough food to get round and glad I took the advice! Did the 104 ride and on stop 2 was scrabbling around in the bins for half empty bottles of water...not great but worse for the few that were behind (I did not start early). Can understand the final stop being out but the stop before Elsdon should have been done better.

Anyway, was a great first intro to this type of distance having done many of the London to... rides over the years. Thought generally it was very well organised and would recommend it to anyone who likes a rolling ride...

Only other comment would be that there didn't seem to be much interest in the back markers to get any groups going. Should I expect that? Guess people want to keep to their own little 2s or 3s...fair enough. A great day all the same.

wiffachip

parking tickets cancelled, any already paid will be refunded

svenwardle

Can you confirm that this is the case?
Ranted a bit, then paid mine.