Re: RC: Turning in a violation

[David LeBlanc <dleblanc@mindspring.com>]

At 11:28 AM 5/26/00 EDT, Trailrite@aol.com wrote:

>    One of the hardest things to get riders to do is complain about a rule 
>violation.  For some reason they are worried about turning it in.  

This is because it isn't always clear who screwed up.  As an example, a
couple of rides back, one of our group went on ahead.  She was right ahead
of us, then we didn't see her.  We just kept riding, the lead rider was
sure she was on the trail, and I know I kept seeing ribbons.  After a
while, the woman that was ahead came up from behind really puzzled as to
how this happened.  She insisted that we must have gotten off trail, we
insisted that it must have been her.  We can all sit around and argue until
we're blue in the face, but none of us can really prove which of us got
sidetracked.  I know it wasn't far one way or the other.

Accusing someone of cheating is a really serious thing, and you have to
make sure that you've got them nailed - that's one reason people are
reluctant.  Some rides are marked better than others, and one of the
responsibilities of the people marking the trail is to clearly tape off
places that could be an easy mistake.  As someone else suggested, if there
is a strong chance of cutting trail, stick someone out there to monitor.
The only CTR ride we went to, we screwed up and cut trail by miles (trail
came out on the same road about 50 yards apart), and got into camp way
ahead of everyone, and were disqualified.  We didn't mean to.  Be a real
shame to lose a whole ride and have everyone looking at you like a cheater
when all you did was get mixed up on a ride that had a flaw in the markings.


David LeBlanc
dleblanc@mindspring.com