I’m riding it this year for the first time since 2013. When I registered I was asked to put in Strava details and/or recent race results, seems they are using this for the wave seeding rather than just relying on your estimated finish time (guess if you don’t want to share your data you take your chances on the seeding).
Is that new this year? Certainly seems to be working quite well - I know quite a few people doing it and they’re all in the waves I’d expect them to be for their ability/fitness. When I last did it there were a lot of people taking the mickey with their finish times in order to get an early start. If all the early waves are of people who have the data to back up their times then hopefully the standard of riding should be fairly decent. And maybe a reduction in the number of frustrated wannabe speedsters in the later waves (or at least only wannabe speedsters with a penchant for data privacy…)