2014 Tour Durban

My results (RACETEC) for the 2014 Tour Durban were as follows: In terms of my age group (65-69) I came 35th out of 38. In terms of my starting group (various rabble) I came 297th out of 375. In terms of the overall field I came 1368th out of 1456.

From my perspective those results do not concern me all that much. Others might think that I did not do so well. That too does not concern me as I primarily ride in my own race. It is very much a case of having run and finished, rather than having run and not finished, or not run at all. It is also an opportunity to play with other toys and you can see the profile of the race as tracked on my phone here.

So what am I writing all this down for. Well it would be to try and explain that to look at my result in that race, would be much the same as to look at the Sunday times after the Durban July to see whether the cow that someone managed to enter for whatever reason, actually managed to finish the race, let alone be placed.

The Tour Durban is a race for road bikes. I do not know how many MTBs are entered, but I doubt that it is as much as 10 percent, certainly not 20 percent of the field. Most of the road bikes end up being ridden in racing snakes and that puts them into another leauge. I have riden three Tours and I have never had enough other bikes around me with riders who were interested in cooperating, to form a racing snake.

So what am I trying to say? Basically that you cannot look at my Tour result and use it in any way to determine my performance.

If you did want to determine my performance, you could look at my Shova results, as there I do enter the MTB group as an MTB rider, riding on Nobblies. In terms of the MTB group (all ages), I beat 64%, 53% and 55% of the field in 2013/2/1 respectively. In terms of my age group (road and MTB), I beat 88%, 86%, and 84% of the field in 2013/2/1 respectively.

How come I am able to beat almost half the mountain bikes entered, and only beat 15% of the entire field?

Simple!!! Most of the field is riding road bikes (horses), whilst I am on an MTB (cow).