Etape Cymrue Closed roads for 2012!!!

Cipodog

I see that the organisers of Etape Cymru are persevering with their advertising "Closed Roads" for 2012--despite the fiasco last year. When are people going to realise that 100% closed roads in a UK sportive will just not happen? Advertising closed roads should mean just that--no traffic on either side of the road for the duration of the event. This means for the first riders on the road to the very last riders on the road which can be 4/5hrs after 80mls or so. Are the organisers going to have Police/Marshalls on EVERY vehicular access onto the route for 5hrs? Closed roads for 99% of the route is not good enough because as we know that missing 1% could be the rider(s) that fly round a blind right hand bend in the right hand gutter straight into a vehicle!! The Coroner would certainly have some strong words for the organiser. I would call it gross negligence but the loss of a life or serious injury is more important. When this happens all Sportives will be banned.

Stedman

Cipodog wrote:

I see that the organisers of Etape Cymru are persevering with their advertising "Closed Roads" for 2012--despite the fiasco last year. When are people going to realise that 100% closed roads in a UK sportive will just not happen? Advertising closed roads should mean just that--no traffic on either side of the road for the duration of the event. This means for the first riders on the road to the very last riders on the road which can be 4/5hrs after 80mls or so. Are the organisers going to have Police/Marshalls on EVERY vehicular access onto the route for 5hrs? Closed roads for 99% of the route is not good enough because as we know that missing 1% could be the rider(s) that fly round a blind right hand bend in the right hand gutter straight into a vehicle!! The Coroner would certainly have some strong words for the organiser. I would call it gross negligence but the loss of a life or serious injury is more important. When this happens all Sportives will be banned.

Having done 3 Etape Caledonian events, I can confirm that 100% road closure is possible with the backing of the local community!

The only vehicles I have seen on the course are the organiser’s motor bikes, one ambulance (once) and the sweep vehicles at the end of the event.

Cipodog

That may well be the case in the outback of Scotland but it just won't be possible in busy N. Wales

bompington

Funnily enough the etape cal doesn't take place in the outback, it's in relatively populated and busy Perthshire, not really the highlands proper, and on normally busy main roads for a good deal of its length. The fact that the route is closed successfully is due to organisation not remoteness - lots of planning and communication in advance, there are lots of marshalls, and every road, driveway and even field entrance is coned off. Certainly not a hint of a problem in 4 years so far.
Excuse my asking, but this isn't yet another "my Real Cyclist sensibilities are offended by sportives and I wish they'd all just go away" threads is it?

Wirral_paul

After the fiasco last year, with so called roads closed, not enough gillets etc, who will enter?? I know i certainly wont fork out £50+ entering and i live within 45 mins of the start. I think we'll see a rapid demise to this event in its current guise.

pdw

And this year it's under new management, headed by one of the guys responsible for Etape Caledonia, so I think there's cause for optimism.

super_prestige

Wirral_Paul wrote:

After the fiasco last year, with so called roads closed, not enough gillets etc, who will enter?? I know i certainly wont fork out £50+ entering and i live within 45 mins of the start. I think we'll see a rapid demise to this event in its current guise.

I will be doing it again this year, as i only live 30 mins away. However i will be riding out to the start, at the start i will be setting the garmin timing myself eating and drinking at the food stations. The only difference this year will i wont be paying the entrance fee.

Ron Stuart

This what I posted on the Cyclosport website when I first saw the Etape Cymru was to be held again this year.....

Hi,

I have done many Audax's in North Wales as well as the highly rated Grand Fondo Cymru which was stopped after fellow club mate Johnnie Woodall’s untimely death.
Having a closed road sportive in and around Wrexham/Ruabon is and will always be a mistake. There is only one thing worse than a sportive that is on open roads and that is a sportive on closed roads that aren't. You will not stop the local traffic around this part of the world from infiltrating the route; they can't even succeed on the TOB all the time. You have put the event adjacent to the most highly populated area of North Wales and I'm afraid a number of the locals will as they did last year just ignore the marshals, it's the mentality you can't legislate for here in the UK. I have been in touch with Jonny Clay at BC and explained this to him, also myself like many other's have been on forums etc explaining that there is a much better venue and routes that have already hosted a major sportive for many years in the past and that is Bala. Please drop the closed road idea as there will be riders who actually think that there definitely will be no cars on the road and ride with less caution.
This I am sure is to late implement for 2012 but there are people around who know how good the Grand Fondo Cymru was when it was run out of Bala, just avoid Bank Holidays etc and you will find much quieter roads that are much more suited to the large sportive numbers. The Grand Fond Route took riders up around great stand out areas such as Snowdonia which is the Universal stand out feature of North Wales also it took in the Highest Road Pass in Wales etc, etc.
Without closed roads it gives much more scope to design the best route for the event without the constraint’s of a single Police authority to consider. You just don't need Closed Roads out of the busy season where I am suggesting. All the ground work has been done in the past just pick up and rename the old Grand Fondo Cymru, you will have far less overheads and can therefore charge less to enter.
Please get it sorted for 2013. :shock:

petemadoc

Etape what? ?

With new management this thing has a better chance. I do agree with Ron that it would be better starting in Bala.

Ron Stuart

PeteMadoc wrote:

Etape what? ?

With new management this thing has a better chance. I do agree with Ron that it would be better starting in Bala.

Thanks Pete, and hopefully the new management will improve the event. I don't believe this closed road business is a good idea mainly because if you study last years route it is like a spiders web of crossing roads, this as I said before restricts the area that can be used by demographic boundaries in attempt to just employ a single police authority.
I would like not just to complain about the current choice of venue but rather to put up a the case for having this Etape Cymru replace what was the old Grand Fondo Cymru. I have contacts that can offer information about what was the route etc.
I would like to do this as much for Johnnie Woodall who received the MBE for his contributions to sport and in particular the fantastic effort he used to put in organising one of the best Sportive events at the time. The event should use more the great outdoors that is North Wales and not just a small corner near Wrexham.
If there is anyone that knows of a key organiser, I would like to have words regarding the future of this event or one very similar.

petemadoc

Ron, a letter was sent out to everyone who took part last year and it had an email address on. I've thrown mine away but I'm sure someone else will have it. It might just have been this one

info@participatesport.com

licko

The Etape Eryri seems to be running close to the route suggested above (http://etapeeryri.com/ ) without the closed roads or the high price (still seems a bit steep though). I'm waiting to see if a few more enter before I take the pluge and sign up.

petemadoc

This is a good route and I know the roads well. Goes past both sides of Snowdon and finishes with a great descent. The price is high as with most UK sportives but the route is worth every penny IMO, truly breathtaking!!!

I'm trying to get my wife to enter the 77 miler.

Cipodog

Hi bompington---Just to put you in the picture re: my take on Sportives---I have not only ridden many sportives both in the UK & in France & Italy but have organised 16 events in the last 10 yrs in the UK--The Polkadot Challenge & "Spud" Riley Memorial Gran Fondos are both "my" events & they have been ridden by 6,400 riders in that time(& donated £82,300 to Christies Cancer Hospital from the entry fees). It is because of my passion & experience for them that I am so concerned about other organisers trying to "push the envelope" especially when safety issues are involved. Ron Stuart's response is spot on---fully CLOSED ROAD Sportives will not happen in England or Wales & to advertise them as such is nothing short of irresponsible.---Dave Riley

Stedman

Cipodog wrote:

Hi bompington---Just to put you in the picture re: my take on Sportives---I have not only ridden many sportives both in the UK & in France & Italy but have organised 16 events in the last 10 yrs in the UK--The Polkadot Challenge & "Spud" Riley Memorial Gran Fondos are both "my" events & they have been ridden by 6,400 riders in that time(& donated £82,300 to Christies Cancer Hospital from the entry fees). It is because of my passion & experience for them that I am so concerned about other organisers trying to "push the envelope" especially when safety issues are involved. Ron Stuart's response is spot on---fully CLOSED ROAD Sportives will not happen in England or Wales & to advertise them as such is nothing short of irresponsible.---Dave Riley

Sorry I totally disagree. If running can organise two massive events on closed roads with all that TV and press coverage etc, I cannot see why cycling which arguably is a bigger sport, cannot achieve the same!

Brakeless

Stedman wrote:

Cipodog wrote:

Hi bompington---Just to put you in the picture re: my take on Sportives---I have not only ridden many sportives both in the UK & in France & Italy but have organised 16 events in the last 10 yrs in the UK--The Polkadot Challenge & "Spud" Riley Memorial Gran Fondos are both "my" events & they have been ridden by 6,400 riders in that time(& donated £82,300 to Christies Cancer Hospital from the entry fees). It is because of my passion & experience for them that I am so concerned about other organisers trying to "push the envelope" especially when safety issues are involved. Ron Stuart's response is spot on---fully CLOSED ROAD Sportives will not happen in England or Wales & to advertise them as such is nothing short of irresponsible.---Dave Riley

Sorry I totally disagree. If running can organise two massive events on closed roads with all that TV and press coverage etc, I cannot see why cycling which arguably is a bigger sport, cannot achieve the same!

The longest running event is 26 miles not 126!!!

Ron Stuart

Licko wrote:

The Etape Eryri seems to be running close to the route suggested above (http://etapeeryri.com/ ) without the closed roads or the high price (still seems a bit steep though). I'm waiting to see if a few more enter before I take the pluge and sign up.

Looks interesting but starts and finishes a long way from anywhere else. Bala would be a lot nearer for most of the travellers and is just as near Snowdonia.

Wirral_paul

Caernarfon is pretty easy to get to though - just follow the A5 or A55 across N Wales. Its little more than an hour and 15 mins from me on the Wirral. I'll probably do the full route if i can get on the Tacx soon

Ron Stuart

Also there seems to be a creeping misuse of the French word ‘Etape’ even in cycling terms, I do however understand the benefits to the Marketers of giving an event a grandiose title but I’m afraid to me it just insults my intelligence.
Etape in cycling terms means ‘a stage’ or in general terms ‘a point’. The use of the title Etape de Tour is correct it means a ‘stage in the tour’
The British adaptation to say Etape Eryri which means ‘a stage of a bird of prey’s nest’ makes no sense whatsoever as it is no stage at all let alone a birds nest.
This is probably the closest we get to an Etape but the promoters were proud enough of the English language not use the term Etape… http://www.tourride.co.uk/wales.asp
Are we this gullible?

TheGeneralist

Ron Stuart wrote:

Also there seems to be a creeping misuse of the French word ‘Etape’
Etape in cycling terms means ‘a stage’ or in general terms ‘a point’. The use of the title Etape de Tour is correct it means a ‘stage in the tour’
The British adaptation to say Etape Eryri which means ‘a stage of a bird of prey’s nest’ makes no sense whatsoever as it is no stage at all let alone a birds nest.
Are we this gullible?

I think you'll find more than one example of words in one language being used in another language with a [sometimes slightly] different meaning.

What Etape means in French is largely irrelevant to what it means in English. It may have started out to mean the same thing but if English speakers use it to mean something else then so be it.

Last time someone pointed you in the direction of a particularly interesting video on youtube, did you correct them and say that it doesn't make sense. How can you see an "I see" on youtube.

And rereading what you said above, just because Etape de Tour means stage of the tour doesn't mean that Etape Eryri means stage of a birds nest. You'll notice that one has "de" in it and the other one doesn't. So your transalation to "stage of a bird of prey's nest" is wrong. The Eryri is just the name of the etape.

bompington

Ron Stuart wrote:

Also there seems to be a creeping misuse of the French word ‘Etape’ even in cycling terms, I do however understand the benefits to the Marketers of giving an event a grandiose title but I’m afraid to me it just insults my intelligence.
Etape in cycling terms means ‘a stage’ or in general terms ‘a point’. The use of the title Etape de Tour is correct it means a ‘stage in the tour’
The British adaptation to say Etape Eryri which means ‘a stage of a bird of prey’s nest’ makes no sense whatsoever as it is no stage at all let alone a birds nest.
This is probably the closest we get to an Etape but the promoters were proud enough of the English language not use the term Etape… http://www.tourride.co.uk/wales.asp
Are we this gullible?

This is arrant pedantry up with which I will not put.

Ron Stuart

General do you work for the press?
You have conviently missed out the part of my sentence that really is my major point. You can nit pick all you like about 'de' missing it's irrelavent to the point. There are words we use from foriegn lanuages that have indeed lost their original meaning but in this case the whole point of using Etape is for us Brits who look up to what currently is associated in cycling terms with the term 'Etape' and that is something French, is to do with a TDF stage and has a high profile amateur event run each year during the TDF. In other words the use of Etape for a one day event which isn't a stage of anything is pure Marketing Bull - sh*t.
I rest my case

notsoblue

I did the Etape Cymru last year and it wasn't so bad. They just need to make sure they don't run out of food and water at the feed stops and police the course a bit better. I agree that advertising the sportive as being closed road is a mistake unless they can guarantee it though. Very dangerous indeed if cars will be using the course when riders aren't expecting them there.

Cipodog

As it was me who originally raised the issue of "Closed Roads" & there's now been much discussion I would just say that I've got nothing against Sportives indeed as my last posting makes clear I ride them & organise them. Just bear in mind that no matter what is adverised or advised by any organiser of a UK Sportive the ROADS WILL NOT BE CLOSED--so ride as you would do on a regular ride with your mates--i.e.--keep to the left hand side---Dave Riley