I’m one of the lucky ones – number 150 AND a confirming email. Not so lucky are all my sons and mates who were relying on my nimble fingers to sort their entries. Should I feel guilty? The real person at my bank says five payments went through, but I suspect Entry Central will only “collect” the money for entries already confirmed by email. I suspect these are the ones which remain on the published entry list.
So – what happens now? Entry Central closed the process with what looks like just over one half of the available places confirmed as sold. My guess would be that the remaining places will be allocated on the basis of the times presumably showing up on their records of when customers were bounced, although with so many of us hitting repeated requests, that could be a problem.
But why the melt-down this year? How likely is it that 10,000 plus people were all trying to enter at 12 noon? Even with last year selling out in 40 minutes, that doesn’t suggest such a volume of applicants?
And why choose 12 noon on a Saturday? Maybe this was a response to presumed gripes from people in previous years who couldn’t access a pc at 10:00 am on a weekday morning, which is when entries have been opened up electronically in previous years. Did no-one realise that using a weekday morning opening date would act as a volume regulator, notwithstanding it was tough on those unable to get online at that time of day?
Let’s hope it’s sorted soon. Dare I step away from the pc?
And what’s the chance that more than a few people will be riding “independantly” in May, on the public roads and trails, forgoing the cake and medal, rather than miss out completely on something they had expected to be able to participate in?