Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Maybe some historical perspective. If I heard right the Tevis will be 
run for the 50th time this year. This places the first endurance ride in 
1954. That was just 6 short years after the transistor was first 
envisioned and about 6 years before it ever found it's way into 
commercial use. Dwight Eisenhower was president and there were no 
interstate highways. It was 3 years before Sputnik was launched by the 
Soviets to usher in the space age. Jim Crow laws were still firmly 
entrenched in the US. 

While the AERC didn't come about for some 18 years, I suspect the 
principles that went into the formation of the AERC were shaped during 
the early years of endurance riding that started in 1954. There have 
been massive technological advances - the computer you are sitting at 
has thousands of transistors.  We have had two massive social movements 
since then, the Civil Rights movement and the Viet Nam War protest 
movement. These have inexorably changed the social character of the the 
latter half of the 20th century.

A lot has happen since 1954. Social norms have changed and what is 
acceptable has changed. Just as society has changed since the first 
endurance ride, the membership of the AERC has changed since the first 
members. It started almost like a regional organization and then spread 
over the years as endurance riding spread over the country. New members 
have from new generations have brought their own sense more diversity to 
the organization. I suspect the demographics of the AERC membership is 
vastly different than it was 20 years ago.

So today it seems we are standing here with an organization that is 
somewhat a dichotomy.  I see a lot of these debates more a reflection of 
that dichotomy than as debates on the issues themselves. And when such 
dichotomies have arisen in other situations, one part of the dichotomy 
is usually unhappy with whatever resolution.

I have no idea how it will play out, but the one thing history teaches 
us is there is only one constant - that constant being there will be 
change.

Truman

Cindy Collins wrote:

> Statements like this from inexperienced riders DOES make me physically
> ill.  Those folks who founded the AERC (and their associates) weren't
> Jefferson and Franklin, but they were visionaries in their field of long
> distance riding:
>
>
>  



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