Fundamental Differences in Motivation (was 3rd loop?)

["guest@endurance.net" <guest@endurance.net>]

K S SWIGART   katswig@earthlink.net

Nancy Mitts said:

>I can't speak for all of the Texas rides, but the Ozarks part of the Central 
>Region & the Texas rides I have done are all loop rides. Occasionally there 
>might be a check out of camp but not often. 6-7 loops (& vet checks) on a 
>100 are the norm. 3-4 on a 50.

>There just isn't anywhere to go point to point unless you just take off down 
>the road!
>The ride I used to manage was all on 2000 acres. (Yes, that's 2000, not 
>20,000)<BG> It was a real challenge to lay out even the 2 - 12 1/2 mile 
>loops, and parts of them were common trail.

I cannot EVEN imagine riding endurance this way.  Clearly the 
people who ride endurance in such areas (looping back to camp on
four times on the same 12.5 mile trail to get 50 miles in) are
motivated differently than I am.  

It begins to make sense now why people become obsessed by 
competition, awards, riding times, etc.  They don't go to rides
for the same reason that I do...I go for the trail.  If you go
for the trail, then all that other stuff is unimportant fluff.
Nice if you have it, but irrelevant in the scheme of things.  

But if the trail is four (or EIGHT!!!) loops of the same thing,
it is hard to get motivated to go for the trail. And if _I_ had 
to ride endurance this way, I simply wouldn't do it.  You couldn't
pay me enough.

Consequently, it seems as though people who have no choice but to
ride endurance this way (because that is all there is) are 
motivated differently than I am, in a pretty fundamental way.

Suddenly, it now makes sense as to why these (what I consider to
be silly) debates about awards and mileage and competition all 
take place.  All those things actually matter to people who don't
get the reward of miles and miles of spectacular trail :).

I mention this because it would behoove us all to recognize that
we have less in common than we think.  If one person is there for
the awards and one person is there for the trail and those two
people don't realize that their motivations are completely different,
they are NEVER going to be able to come to any agreement about
how the event ought to be run; because they didn't even start 
on the same page!

I frequently irks me when in conversations or discussions somebody
fatuously states, "Well...we all want the same things..."

When in actuality, all I can say is, "No...we don't."

If all endurance riders wanted the same thing out of endurance
that I do, then they wouldn't go to endurance rides where you
are required to ride the same section of trail 4-8 times, 'cuz I 
know I wouldn't. So if there are people like me who live in
Central Texas, you wouldn't know them, because they wouldn't be
at endurance rides. And I can definitely tell you, EVEN if I
lived in a place where that was the ONLY kind of endurance ride
on offer, I still wouldn't do it.  I'd trailer to other regions,
or I would stay home.

I am not saying that people SHOULDN'T want to go to endurance
rides like this or that there is something wrong with people who
do, I'm just saying that _I_ wouldn't.  If other people like
to do these kind of rides, that is fine with me.  I mention it
merely because it demonstrates just how different we really are.
And these differences are not superficial, they are quite 
fundamental...as they speak to what is our basic motivation for
even doing it.

And if, as a national organization, we want to meet the needs of
all endurance riders, then we had best realize that the people 
doing it are doing it for VERY different reasons and try to 
identify and accommodate those different reasons, not just
blithely assume that we are "all in it together" and that we are
"really all the same."  'Cuz we ain't...we're different.

Personally, I think that there are some very regional differences
in endurance riders and the AERC would be best served to allow 
as much of the governing/managing, etc. of endurance rides/riders
to "the locals."

kat
Orange County, Calif. (who spends most of her endurance riding 
time trailering to the Mountain Region...'cuz the trails are better)

p.s.  It is nice to know that I don't need to bother trailering
to Central Texas :).