 |
Re: [RC] 25-35 endurance or LD? - Joe LongOn Fri, 14 May 2004 18:30:52 GMT, Ridecamp Guest <guest-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: Please Reply to: Skyla slstewart@xxxxxxxxxxxx or ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ========================================== Just nothing more then "writing". In Idaho, our rides offer a trail ride of 8-15 in conjunction with the AERC rides. Sometimes they can see up to 40 riders just on the trail ride! Can make the financial difference. So, when do we start sanctioning this super short LD distance? Then, at what point does the 10 mile ride get to call itself endurance? Think about the HUGE amount of riders you can get, if they too get endurance points and miles, for doing 8-15 miles! I can see that I would still be an "endurance rider" well into my 80's. :o) Now I will run off to hide in a deep dark hole... :o) PS, only being a smarta--, BUT, this could happen... It not only could happen, if endurance rides are defined down to 25 miles, it WILL happen. There will always be those who want the bar lowered for them, so they can get the recognition without doing what is required. Today, everyone has exactly the same opportunity to become, and be recognized as, an endurance rider: complete an endurance ride. This whole thing comes up time and again because there are a few who want the recognition but will not or cannot complete a 50-mile ride. My first wife Robbie had a defective heart. She would literally turn blue climbing one flight of stairs. It was more personally challenging for her to ride 25 miles than for most of us to ride 100 miles. To attempt it was to literally risk her life! But she wanted to try it, and did try it, and she finished! I rode with her the whole way and I am extremely proud of her for her achievement. But I am even MORE proud of her for being someone that would never have asked to have that ride called an "endurance ride", or for her to be called an "endurance rider" for having done it. She never wanted anything given to her because of her handicap. When her doctors made her give up her job as a pyschologist, she did volunteer work right up until the day she died -- she was one very classy lady. -- Joe Long jlong@xxxxxxxx http://www.rnbw.com ============================================================ Many of the endurance riders in our top echelons of competition, now and in the past, exemplify the 'common man' not the hierocracy. It is this possibility, this chance to come to the fore, that makes endurance competition of the Aussie/American type so much more desirable to part of the world. ~ Bob Morris ridecamp.net information: http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/ ============================================================
|