2014-10-04 - Parkour Ride

I only won fastest amateur female rider, not fastest female rider overall! Ha, I felt so cringe being up there considering I hadn't even qualified for the final event, and was way at the bottom of the overall times, but from what the MC said it looked like I was faster than the two pro women!

Improvements on next year from a riders point of view:

• Longer orienteering time. 30 minutes to practice the course as many times as you like not just one practice go. On my qualifying run I overcooked the first corner of the chicane level and had to put my foot down to avoid crashing into a barrier, but if I'd had more than one test run I would have remembered that there was a sharper corner there. I think other people also did their qualifying run slower than they could have because they weren't familiar enough with the course.
  
• A course that gives fixed gears half a chance...not a single one qualified for the top 20 I don't think? It was definitely a course for technical bmx and mtb people. Had there been more uphill sections (like starting from the very bottom) or straight sections where you could sprint it out then it would have made it a bit fairer for fixed/road, and more exciting during the racing too as you'd get riders catching up on the parts that suited them and falling behind on others
  
• As hms said, more than one qualifying TT. Putting my foot down on mine was obviously annoying and I lost precious seconds that perhaps I would have made up in a second one.
  
• More girls! Me and Sam were the only girls in the amateurs. As pleased as I am to have won lots of swag it didn't really feel like much of a fair competition, especially as we were both fixed and had pretty much identical times. There's loads of girls who should have entered that and could have done really well.
  
  

From a spectators point of view:

• Less time between races
  
• More screens everywhere so you can see what's happening on other levels/finish line. There needed to be one on every level really.
  
• WHERE WERE THE BURRITOS
  
• If they needed to pad out time to make the event last longer, which is understandable since each race usually lasted less than a minute, perhaps there should have been some fun races/other events happening between the main knockout rounds. Having Rollapaluza there as a side show was perfect as you could go and watch/do that when there was a lull...more of that kind of stuff. The 'Swatch Lounge' should have had something actually happening there not just some bean bags.
  
  

But overall it was a really cool event and I really enjoyed both riding and watching it. And drinking quite a lot of cider.

There are some amazing photos here by Jake Lewis, including one of me holding aloft my swag in front of the crowd like a twaaaaat.