Do you treat rules as a guide, or line that must not be crossed?

BUCKLE up folks – I am putting on my Mr Grumpy t-shirt and letting you in on a few things that really irritate me about cyclists (I really do have a Mr Grumpy t-shirt by the way, my kids gave it to me for Christmas one year – they thought it was hilarious and my reaction just proved the t-shirt was justified).

And why am I in such a bad mood on this beautiful, sunny Friday morning?

For once it is not something the American President has done, or even Donald being Trumped by our own President and his merry men who are robbing everybody to feed their own rich friends. And it is not because Telkom have been denying me access to my ADSL line for the past 10 days and forcing my data costs to skyrocket as I use my cell as a hotspot (even though our query has been "escalated" twice – soon it will be flying off the top of the escalator).

No, I am still a bit grumpy with cyclists who refuse to read race instructions, or wilfully ignore even the most basic of rules.

Last week's Compendium Hill 2 Hill went off pretty well and despite all the changes it seems most riders were pretty happy with the new-look of the event.

As always there are some people who did not like the new look. Bit even that does not worry me at all, we have to accept that and see if their concerns / suggestions are valid. Some are sure to be worth thinking about and a few ideas, as much as they may be very good ideas, may have some practical implications that mean they are not viable to implement – such as the request from one top rider to start the race later: It is good in theory, but it goes against requests from traffic authorities who want the riders to clear the limits of Pietermaritzburg as quickly as possible, and it impacts on the slow riders who may not have enough daylight to reach Shongweni.

No, people voicing their concerns and ideas do not make me grumpy, but people who ignore rules do.

I am sure there are not many (if any) race organisers who make specific race rules simply for the sake of making a rule. Every rule means it needs to be policed, so I think it is safe to say most race organisers want to make things as simple and easy as possible. The same probably applies to CSA and other national sporting bodies. Sure, we all may get it wrong sometimes, but I hope CSA and race organisers only put rules into the rule book with good reason.

Like the rule at Hill 2 Hill that some water points are not seconding points. I don't want to have to police that, and my philosophy is very much "make the race as much fun as possible", but when a landowner requests it (and you know if he denies permission to use his land then the race is in jeopardy) then I think it is a reasonable rule.

So why do people ignore the race instructions and try and second their riders at illegal seconding points?

Do they just not read the race instructions? Probably not. There are loads of other things as well, like:

A rider who goes off the course and then gets lost "because I thought everybody was on the wrong route".

And don't get me started on riders who drop litter on the course (when a team of cleaners clean up the route markings, they always pick up loads of goo packets, punctured tubes and other litter that riders think are OK to leave on somebody else's land.

I know we, as race organisers, make mistakes and get things wrong, but please realise we are all trying to make the race better – so please help us.