As many of you who went to mountain mayhem will know there was also a road sportive run on the sunday.
My Mum (who is actually not a bad road cyclist) and her friends decided to do it as although they are from that area they liked the idea of a challenging and long ride that was marked and had feed stations.
Now, although my mum is not bad her friends are a little slow, so the pace was quite low.

Firstly they were a bit suprised that there were no marshalls informing you of where to go, only signs. Having never done a sportive myself (I still don’t get the point, is it a race or isn’t it?) is this normal? I thought they had marshals etc.

Anyway, that wasn’t the worst bit, when they got to the aid station having used all their water up there was noone left there! No water, no food etc. They had to stop at a local pub and ask for water.

They also became lost because of some of the signs had disappeared, so the ride was significantly lengthened, then when they got to the finish there was no water or anything for them there either!
As I say, they aren’t the quickest bunch, but they aren’t that slow either.

They were not informed of any cut off times etc. As if they had they could have worked out if they could have made them and not entered.

They were also informed at the start that the medics would be leaving at midday, so if you had any problems after that you should probably try and find a hospital!

I thought all of this was appaulling, I mean what is the point of a sportive if it doesn’t provide good quality direction and aid stations? What exactly are you paying £25 for?

I just wondered if anyone else had a similar experience sunday so they can put a bit more weight behind the argument when my Mum etc. complain.
Thanks

no excuses for the aid stations but in all the sportives I’ve done (1) the route was simply signposted and no marshals. Don’t see the need for marshals, and if they had them, they would need a stupid number. Did they give maps of the route? IMO you should be familiar with the route/have a detailed map before you start. Can’t help locals tampering with signs!

Bit weird of the medics leaving, unless there was some event cut off time…

Sportives are a nice thing to do occasionally as something to focus on to help training or to do with a group of mates but I think in concept they are a bit weird – paying money to ride open public roads….

(of course if you ‘race’ them, that’s a different story!)

Ah ok, see i didn’t know what was normal having not done one.
I still don’t really understand what the point of them is, I mean, what exactly are you paying for?

You do get marshalls at some sportives but it’s fairly rare. Usually it’s just signposting and gpx files.

We just ran a sportive and we had a “broom wagon” going around the course to make sure every rider got round. Of course we kept the feed stations open until the broom wagon arrived and the medics stayed all day (they probably invalidated their insurance in the medics didn’t stay). Plus the money raise went to charity.

tomhughes – Member
I mean, what exactly are you paying for?

Apparently, your mum thought she was paying for

a challenging and long ride that was marked and had feed stations.

and that’s what you normally get. Some Sportives will have marshalls at key points, something like the Etape Caledonia – run on closed roads – will have lots of marshalls, mostly to control access.

It’s a poor show if they’d run out of basics like water and I’d normally expect there to be some sort of food (cake/fruit/gels etc) made available at 2/3 points, although IIRC every one I’ve entered had something in the rules about not being too dependent on this.

Perhaps it’s a roadie thing starting early, but the one sportive I’ve done, I arrived at 9am to be told that the fast group left 2 hours ago and the first feed station (25 miles) was closing in an hour and if I didn’t make it that was the cut-off for the long route!

Thankfully back then I was fit and made it, then rode the middle section slowly trying to recover and caught up with the tail end of the bunch and working my way up to finish quite quickly, doing the last hour at the same pace as the first.

So they probaly expected most people to have finished by midday, bit like the london marathon packs up after 5-6 hours and doesn’t wait for the guy in the diving suit to finish 3 weeks later.