Originally Posted by
unterhausen
Not to be too slanderous against French randonneurs, but I think their attitude towards rules is somewhat flexible. I guess I looked French, in Villaines there was a guy that invited me to take the route the course used to take instead of the main road that it goes on now. I'm a little confused by American organizers that have ridden PBP and worry too much about where to put controls. It is obvious that the French are not nearly as concerned about possible shortcutting of courses as most Americans that set up brevets.
The campers at the top of le roc'h are all cheating, but they get around it by setting up a table and giving food to everyone. I don't remember that from 2011. I am pretty sure they weren't supposed to drive on that road, it would be really annoying to be passed by a lot of campers. I don't think I saw any other examples of support outside of controls. OTOH, the people standing in front of their houses are the best part. I wasted too much time talking to them.
In my limited experience in France, everything is flexible if you ask the right way
I think any organizer that is worried about cheating should just require photo controls and/or e-pop instead of putting in a whole whack of controls. There's a lot of places to cut corners on brevets in southern Ontario... lots of the roads are on a grid and I honestly don't care if people do want to cut corners, it'll put them on busy roads or gravel most of the time... 'cos of covid we require e-pop for the cycling insurance so hopefully it's something we keep going forward.
I assumed those people on the roc'h were just locals serving crèpes and whatnot, didn't realise it was a team support. I don't really have a big problem with people doing that if it's truly neutral support that anyone can access, it's not much different from finding a corner store or a coffee shop.