On today with closed roads around Peebles, Talla and Witchy Knowe. Back over to Innerleithen at Gordon Arms.
Early start. Dave's giving me a lift. Car assisted all ability bike event / sportive.
Over by noon really.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Events, rides etc.
Tour 'o The Borders 2015
(23 posts)-
Posted 9 years ago #
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The Tour o' The Bordersers have had a good day for it.
I motorbicycled down the A7 to Galashiels and then turned right. The marshall at Cardrona recognised me and said a bunch of recumbents had already passed through, so I took off for Peebles High St, where there was a super crowd at the finish line, but I didn't see anyone I knew.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Nice course today. Very mixed weather - started cool and cloudy, crazy headwinds, poured down then ended sunny. Glad we did the shorter course. The longer one would have been manageable but Talla took over an hour as there had been two major accidents and we were stopped on the ascent and had to wait/walk about 4km. The first appeared to be someone hitting the bridge at the bottom of the descent (various bike parts were scattered here) and we were initially stopped at the first feed point for 15 mins while they were airlifted out. The second was someone who came off the road and dropped on to the rocks by the river on the Talla descent at about 30mph and they had to stop the course for an ambulance to come through in reverse. Having a mass exit from the feed post before Talla perhaps wasn't the best plan as it meant there were lots of cyclists on the hardest part of the course together and it would have been virtually impossible to cycle even the first section.
Starting again having got cold was harder and they were asking anyone but the fastest riders to take the short route as the roads needed to be reopened. sun had come out by the time we reached the last few climbs making for a very nice finish.
Hope all those injured make a quick recovery.
Posted 9 years ago # -
T'was a great ride, stayed dry for me and I missed the road closure. Hope the victims are ok. The descent from Talla is great fun, but obviously quite tricky, I seem to recall someone died there on another sportive a few years ago. I wonder if this means Sportive organisers will have second thoughts about using this section in future. That would be a shame because it is my favourite bit.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Yes. Thoughts go to those hurt. One airlifted out. We had to shelter by a dyke as after warming up on Talla things got cold after ages of inactivity. No mobile signal there.
Saw Stuart Snowcycle. Others around.
Got dropped once only - on bridge onto high street. These guys were moving. Fought back to not be last. Not that it matters ;-)
Ride times on trackers include standing about. Real run time for me was quite acceptable... Except Dave did an extra 20 miles in 20 minutes more!Posted 9 years ago # -
Picture of people having paid £58 to sit by road side up a hill...
20150809_095123 by LaidBackBikes, on FlickrI hear on twitter that the one person was very lucky not to have been more badly injured.
Posted 9 years ago # -
"paid £58 to sit by road side up a hill"
?
EDIT
Forgot you did sarcasm.
Posted 9 years ago # -
At least the man doing the chicken imitation kept people amused
Posted 9 years ago # -
Really well organised event. Great route, though Talla was brutal! Good friendly banter in the delay for those poor souls who had come off on the descent. Mostly directed at those taking comfort break behind the dry stone dyke.
Last long descent down to Peebles was very enjoyable.
Fab to see so many locals on route being so positive and supporting riders as they went past.
Tour of Borders posted on Facebook that in the litter sweep they found less than a black bag of rubbish including fish supper wrapper - so thought that it was doubtful that this was a participant today!
Posted 9 years ago # -
The two who fell on the rocks just didn't turn a corner in time and went straight on. One of them has been on the official Facebook and is back home and bandaged but otherwise ok.
I think a few things went wrong with Talla and I'd have second thoughts using it in a sportive because of this. The first airlift caused two large bunches. One on Talla and one at the first feed station. It's clear that the organisers wanted as many people to stay warm as possible hence the group was stopped at the feed station. Whilst those on the road will have left roughly in order of speed, those at the food stop returned to the route in a fairly random order so some of the faster riders were toward the back. As we had been warned there would be another road block at kilometre 45 there wasn't much attempt at overtaking and the narrow road and mass of passing motorbikes didn't really allow the opportunity. When we reached Talla everyone wanted to give it ago but a marshall half way down started to ask people to walk with the poor conditions and the stop at the top. This had a ripple down the riders and a few bumps as people had to stop suddenly. At the top there was still a very mixed group and that made the descent out quite dodgy (even though they were thinning out the riders into groups) as the faster folk were weaving between riders with very little room on the section with steep drops on either side.
Generally the organisation was very good but I think a better plan would have been to keep the order at the feed post and stop people at the bottom of Talla rather than the top (more sheltered) then spread them out for the attempt. I'd also give marshalls a megaphone and inform riders of delays etc and how long they will be. Quite a few people thought the stop would be very quick and could have put on additional clothes if they had known how long it would take
Posted 9 years ago # -
I had a great day out, but feel sorry for all those who experienced such a massive snarl up.
I never managed to catch the first group, but did have an awesome time trying. I was 11th rider across the finish line, and vaguely hopeful I managed to sneak into the top 10 given I started in wave 2.
With a bit of a headwind at times, the recumbent advantage played out well, although having said that, I had to ride the entire 120km without drafting anyone, so I guess it's swings-and-roundabouts there.
I'm determined to do something more than simple commuting next year, and see if I can knock that last five minutes off my time!
Posted 9 years ago # -
That's a great result Dave. It's mad that recumbents aren't UCI approved. Maybe less need for drugs if they did (muffled laugh).
I think the fatality on the descent from Talla to Megget was on the Tour of Tweeddale in 2008. The short route.
Posted 9 years ago # -
I think the times are up here: https://www.raceplus.co.uk/raceplus-index.php?content=1&race=47647&show_type=All&event_id=TOB15&event_id=TOB15&sort_by=lname&sort_order_listing=asc
The website seems a little flaky though
Posted 9 years ago # -
Dave Stanners died on this route in 2011, "taking part in the Peebles CC Sportive on Saturday 3rd September when he went off the road on the descent from Talla and was fatally injured."
I am fairly sure there wasn't anyone killed in years before 2011.
Posted 9 years ago # -
There was a crash in 2008 on an event. I was confusing the two. I'm not even sure it was the Tweeddale now.
Posted 9 years ago # -
I read on the org's FB page that the same bridge involved in the past fatality was involved in yesterday's incident (hence why there were hay bales on the uphill side).
I hope they keep the same route as it was just fantastic - but it would be easy next year to have a timing mat at the Talla summit and another at Megget, then /subtract/ the time taken from each rider's total (like the reverse of the KOM segment, it would neutralise the descent).
I found the descent fine, but there were no other riders within about 250m so it wasn't hard to stay on the road. I can easily imagine if you're trying to stay with a group you could end up coming off.
(As an aside... I averaged 34mph on the descent and thought I was like a lightning bolt, but the leading group went down at 36mph. They must have been pedalling hard!)
Posted 9 years ago # -
I think the times are up here
Out of interest tk, how did you find that website? I was looking out for the results but couldn't see them advertised on the ToB website
Posted 9 years ago # -
Googled for last years results then changed 14 to 15 in the URL - seemed to work!
Posted 9 years ago # -
Official link has been posted: http://www.raceplus.co.uk/raceplus-index.php?content=1&event_id=TOB15
Posted 9 years ago # -
Okay, now we just need to find all the photographers' galleries!
Posted 9 years ago # -
Two top ten placings for bikes that don't meet UCI norms. Needs an investigation as I was told "It's not natural"!
Posted 9 years ago # -
I had a
sitrecline on Laid Back's non-UCI unnatural carbon fibre bike today.It's very (n+1)ish. :-(
Posted 9 years ago # -
The bloke who crashed is now posting on fb from the icu at the Royal. Seems to have a few nasty injuries, but looks to be basically ok.
Apart from the £5k bike he wrote off :-0
Posted 9 years ago #
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