KTG? How important is safety on sportives?

Yeoer

After last weekends Tor of Cornwall Facebook was full of comments about hyperthermic riders at feed station one and how windy it was out on the north coast of cornwall...

Kilo to go replied in one of the many threads... :shock:




By some act of god (can't believe it was on perpose for one minute :shock: ) i have been removed from their facebook page and along with all my posts and replies to post... funny that! good job i screen shot this page to save me typing it again!

I have sent them an email letting them know.

There were loads... and i mean loads of safety related comments pretty much all of which have now strangly disapeared!

1158 riders entered... 354 finished! no real reason to consider calling it off... "it up to you" is really not acceptable, they are happy to take money from any rider no matter what thier ability... accept some responsibilty for there safety, or at the VERY LEAST accept they made a few error's at is... all to fine and dandy in "Kilo to Go" land!

If you wrote something that might not have been liked... check back and see if your on the naughty set as well!

Kilo to Go's motto is... " on your bike Britian " LMFAO so so fitting!

Cleat Eastwood

i did kilo to go's cheshire cat and only have high praise for them. On the cheshire cat there was pre ride concern about the state of the roads on one of the descents and the announcer said that KTG had been out that morning to mark them for riders - was no one at the start with a briefing telling you about hot drinks/facilities etc.

SBezza

So you knew the weather was going to be rough, it was forecast for a few days, and yet you complain to the organisor about it. If you felt it was unsafe, perhaps you should have pulled out. The organisor puts on an event, it is up to the riders to make the ultimate choice of to ride or not, we do not live in a nanny state just yet.

As for hot drinks, MTFU and dress appropiately and it wouldn't be such an issue. For the love of god can't a rider find their own way to a cafe if alternative drinks are required that are not part of the sportive.

I rode a TT on the same day in very similar weather, I knew exactly what the weather was like and I had to make the decision myself wether I thought it was safe to ride or not. Yes it was very cold, very wet and very windy but did I complain to the organisor, well no, I started knowing all the above factors and made my own judgement.

Doesn't anyone do training rides in the very cold, very wet and very windy winter

Yeoer

Your kind of missing the point... how can a 'professional' company be sarcasic when it come to safety questions! and then when they become uncomfortable answering simply delete the whole thing... sorry thats the whole point.

A TT is totally different to a sportive, 1, how long was it? 2, its a race and not a paided for fun ride.

Yeoer

Cleat Eastwood wrote:

i did kilo to go's cheshire cat and only have high praise for them. On the cheshire cat there was pre ride concern about the state of the roads on one of the descents and the announcer said that KTG had been out that morning to mark them for riders - was no one at the start with a briefing telling you about hot drinks/facilities etc.

No, the only thing that was said was no tribars today and watchout for a bit of standing water.

I don't have a gripe about the overall running of the ride, the mashalls we all very good, the signage was excellent, the route was good, its just the fact that a) they didn't react to the conditions well enough and b) they wont even admit they might have had a few issues or made a few mistakes.

I've read that around 500 started the ride, thats mean's around 150 couldn't complete there route, most of which pulled out at tintagel (feedstop 1, there were bikes litrally being blow around the car park as there were no bike stands, the KTG flags were right over it was blowing so much), in fairness they did lay on busses to take riders back to start at that point... say's it all really.

mamba80

Why did you ride it? that is the obvious question, whether ktg cancelled or not, they ve made their money, infact by cancelling they d have made even more! they laid on buses and i doubt a few hot drinks would have made any difference - imho any out riding that day were being un wise to say the least.

KTG are a commercial company and in the 3 CT i ve done they ve always been very good, they dont control the weather or the accuracy of the forecasts.

Yeoer

Having ridden a number of sportives including the Exmoor Beast 100 i can tell you hot drinks make a massive difference if only psychologically.

The question why did i ride it really doesn't come into my gripe with KTG it's the fact as a professional organiser of events how can they give control of there public facing facebook page to a sarcasic 10 year old who has seemingly no respect for the safety of riders who are paying for his/her job, and then delete all traces (well so they think) when they don't like the way things are going! to make Kilo to Go land sunny again! and if its not they just keep deleting the clouds!

All they needed to say was... it was a hard weekend and we will undoubtedly learn for it. As it is they are so arrogant to think they can fend off safety related questions with sarcasum! and there's nothing to change/improve.

Way to go guys.

Philip Whiteman

Sticking to the question posed on the header of this thread.....

Whatever criticisms I have levelled at commercial sportive organisers such as profiteers, short delivery, bla bla bla bla, they cannot be criticised for the weather. There is a degree of vicarious liability in terms of riders ensuring their own safety and making their own reasonable decisions on whether to ride or not. Cyclists should not require nannies when it comes to judgement calls on whether to ride or not in poor weather conditions.

As I discovered at an event where some riders returned hypothermic, they had not attired properly despite the forecasted conditions.



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CakeLovinBeast

Philip Whiteman wrote:

There is a degree of vicarious liability in terms of riders ensuring their own safety and making their own reasonable decisions on whether to ride or not. Cyclists should not require nannies when it comes to judgement calls on whether to ride or not in poor weather conditions.

One million times this.

jimmythecuckoo

+1 I rode Rutland on Saturday knowing it would be tough and knowing the weather wouldnt be kind.

Yeah I didnt like it, but that isn't the fault of the organiser.

If it rains on cup final day and you didnt want to get wet, would you ask Wembley for a refund?

SBezza

Yeoer wrote:

Your kind of missing the point... how can a 'professional' company be sarcasic when it come to safety questions! and then when they become uncomfortable answering simply delete the whole thing... sorry thats the whole point.

A TT is totally different to a sportive, 1, how long was it? 2, its a race and not a paided for fun ride.

Well I can't see any sarastic remarks, only a reply which seems fairly fair.

As for my TT is was a 40 mile sporting event, no not much different to the 46 mile ride, and probably harder. I still had to pay to ride the TT, I didn't pay stupid money to ride it though :P

jibberjim

SBezza wrote:

Well I can't see any sarastic remarks, only a reply which seems fairly fair.

Have to agree KTG doesn't come across badly - the event doesn't sound bad at all, and if he did organise buses that weren't expected because of the conditions then I'd say they went above and beyond.

Yeoer

It would appear i am not the only one who thinks there post race manner is some what unprofessional.

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