“Sorry, podium or not, it’s not a race.
Plus, I don’t get why you’d treat a sportive as a race, if you want to race go and enter a local crit or do the local club TT. That way you know the people you beat are actually racing and not just on a nice ride out.”
Totally this. Thinking your Peter Sagan when all your actually doing is going for a ride with people on hybrids, MTBs etc that’s not a race.