In this installment of,  stirring the pot to keep our kids on drugs.. I would like to talk about the amount of time it takes for race promoters/organizers/officials to generate results (and yes the payout) after a race.

Let's take, for example, the untidy events that occurred following the Cherry-Roubaix road race this year.  And last year.  And the year before that.  (Let's be clear that the Cherry-Roubaix people aren't the only ones, just the most recent).  Despite the fact that each rider had a satellite antenna affixed to his/her helmet, the results took over 2 hours to compile.  How is this possible with an uphill finish and most of the fields had less than 25 riders?  The riders could have sorted it out in 10min.  To make matters worse, by the time the announcers were allowed to do the podium showings, most of the crowd had left, along with some of the riders that should have been standing on the steps.

Let's be honest here...bike racing is an infinitely time consuming sport.  We spend HOURS upon HOURS training and racing, so the last thing we want to do is sit around after a race, in the middle of nowhere.  Sure, I understand that you need to wait for the last rider in the field to finish and there is the mandatory protest period for people to figure out if they were 35 or 36th.  But I, for one, would like to get home at a reasonable hour.  This is especially true when you are driving from 4+ hours away.  

Maybe there is something I'm missing?  Yes, I've put on a race, but it was 10 years ago and we hand scored the finishes.  Maybe something has changed that I don't know about, but it seems like it would be easier with the digital cameras and timing chips.  I would encourage the promoters and officials to give their side to this story.