One the pre-race items I always work out in advance with organizers is who will be called upon on radio for course repairs, especially tape breaks.  At Northeast and Mid-Atlantic races, inevitably tape breaks somewhere on the course, or needs to be tightened.

Never saw this phenomena occur at Diegem or Hofstade – neither broken tape nor tape that was so stretched that it impeded riders passing.

Which of these hypotheses do you think is (are) the reason(s):

-          they just use stronger plastic tape than we do

-          they have less wind than we get at our cross races

-          the riders at these events are just more skilled and never hit the tape

-          they have so many course marshals, that the repairs are done so fast, no one sees the breakage

-          the wooden stakes they use are stiffer than the stakes we use, thus there is less flex to cause tape loosening and breakage

-          their fields are so much smaller than ours that there is less likelihood that a rider breaks the tape