highland lassie

It's not that the club isn't heavy-handed. It's more that the club has to use every volunteer it has to man the section and time controls, and lay the routes for the next day. If anyone fancies volunteering their services for the week to let more random checks get done, I'm pretty certain it would be very much appreciated.

Not sure how things work now having been out of the game for four years, but the observers distinguish between an 'asked' five and a genuine five when they record their scores. That's logged when the results are keyed, so the committee have full visibility of who is asking for ridiculous numbers of fives rather than riding sections. There will always be those with genuine reasons, such as a burst bike, burst knee or burst in general but there are also always those that take the proverbial and just go round asking for fives to be a tourist and get their award. There's nothing that can be done during the course of the trial to eliminate that situation, but the committee always reserve the right to refuse entry to the ballot in future, which gives them the ability to remove such tourists from the SSDT in future. The results system (or at least the one we ran in my day!) produces a report of riders that ask for over a given number of fives during the course of the week, so whilst a tourist might be there one year, they won't get the chance to take the place of another rider again in future trials.

Two options here - firstly as has been mentioned, any starting penalties in the morning are added on as soon as the garage book comes into the office from the starting crew. That's normally about an hour after the last man is away, maybe half-one in the afternoon. They're in Section 32 of the results. Secondly, their time penalties are added on as soon as their route cards is back in the office. If the first riders are back around two, their route cards start filtering up to the office within half an hour or so. They get checked and keyed straight pretty much straight away as there are a constant stream coming through, so time penalties for riders can be added on within an hour or so of them getting back to the Parc Ferme. They're in Section 31 of the results.

They already do.....ideally they'd put officials on every swing bridge on the route so that it could be given proper delay rather than having to factor in a what-if figure, but there are so few volunteers these days it's a struggle to man the sections and the garage, never mind the other niceties. If any of you fancy standing out at a swing bridge in the middle of nowhere for nine hours on the off-chance that it might be opened when there are riders approaching, please just let the club know - I know they'd be delighted to have you on board!

There's a distinct lack of SSDT chat this year.....has everyone lost interest, or are you all too busy sorting your protein intakes to chat/gurn about it these days?! I miss the old banter!

Course I went through them - that's my favourite bit!!! Completely forgot to get these old programmes to you, didn't I......if you don't get them by Tuesday, remind me!!! Head is mince n tatties at the mo.

Love, love, love it!! Excellent job Andy - thank you for bringing us into the light! Well chuffed.

Sorry Deryk - only just spotted this! They were twin brothers....not medically identical, but next to impossible to distinguish between them unless you knew them very, very well....! You're right - they generally took the bikes down. They'd head down the main road to Beauly, then cut over the top to Drumnadrochit before heading on down to the Fort....a cracking run even today. Not the week-long trek that you had mind you! In terms of family stories.....man, I could recite them for days, although a fair percentage probably wouldn't be appropriate for public consumption.

That's my Dad and Uncle Bill!! Lovely to hear them mentioned on here after such a long time. And lovely to see Uncle Willie in your pic too! Thanks for sharing!

It was actually impatient devil (prefixed with self-confessed, as he'd called himself the same in his own post) but I was typing it on my phone in my rush to defend the hard-working P65 crew and it auto-corrected. Absolutely no insult intended, not the way I work, although I am regularly tempted. And my apologies if your comments weren't meant, but having seen the same digs many times before at the same dedicated crew of volunteers, hopefully you'll understand if some of us take it personally.

Totally unfair comment Metisse - you'll be lucky if you find one member of the P65 committee that even looks at TC, and even if they did, they're decent folk that work all year to give you guys your trial. Believe me, they've got far more important things to worry about than weeding out anybody that throws a slack comment their way. Hell, if they did that, they wouldn't be able to fill the trial - everyone's keen to throw stones, but not so many willing to give up their time and money to help out. A wee bit of respect for those who do wouldn't go amiss. Besides, Cub did nothing wrong - his comments were fair based on the information he had. I responded purely to explain hat the committee had done everything they normally do....no mean feat with the connectivity problems in Kinlochleven, let me tell you!

Mairi here, ex-SSDT Secretary! Every year the p65 team get results to me in the SSDT office right after the presentation and I post them to the SSDT site for you all straight away. This year they did exactly the same - the problem was that I no longer have access to the site to update it so you couldn't get your results as fast as normal. I sent them straight to the SSDT team to post instead but as they were out in the Parc Ferme running (and clearing up after) their Welcome Ceilidh they couldn't put them online until the wee small hours this morning. I'm sorry I couldn't do more, but rest assured the P65 Team DID use the existing facilities in an attempt to appease self-confessed impatient fools. It wasn't their fault - they did everything they normally do, it was the fact that I no longer look after the website that caused the delay. The SSDT team is all new this year and they will be finding their feet in terms of all the wee jobs that happened automatically in the past. Cut then a wee bit of slack if you can! ?

Don't be daft Gary - apart from the fact that I don't think anyone that carries out the ballot is on TC, it genuinely is names out of a hat for the available places. Nothing said here would have any impact on that so neither you nor Wobbler need stress about it. I'm not involved any more, but i know that the ballot was done the same way it's always been done. I know everyone likes to be sceptical about the ballot, but believe me, it takes an entire day to print and cut up all the papers then record each name as its drawn. If anyone had the time to assess folk based on their competency, their awards, their personality, their friends, their enemies and their TC posts, then they'd deserve an award themselves! Long story short, don't stress, nothing here has impacted the ballot, and go get your name on the reserve list!

ISHY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :bouncy: :bouncy: :bouncy: :bouncy: :bouncy: YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm sure I remember various similar proclamations around your 40th Gary!!! Where has ten years gone?! :0)