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Re: [RC] 100 Mile One Day Rides - Truman PrevattBarbara, you hit the nail square on the head. When I started in the SE you'd get 20 show up in the 25, 15 for the 50 and 7 or 8 for the 100. At one or two of the SE 100's I went to in the early days of my riding there would be more 100's than 50's. Hey that's a pretty good mix. Today in the SE - with a few exceptions ( and exceptional years when the PAC or NAC is in the East) - you get 50 show for 25, 50 for the 50 and 5 for the 100. That's not a good mix. I know of one 100 that was dropped because the RM got tired of people saying they wanted a 100 but on 6 or 7 showed up. One 100 started because the ride manager was responding to all the people saying they wanted one and would come, only to have 3 people show. They only did it one year - can you blame them?We've had in the SE about 50% decline in the 100 mile starts in the 100's while at the same time a 60% to 70% increase in the number of total starts. We went from 12% of the starts coming from 100's in the SE back when in the mid 90's to about 4% of the starts coming from 100's today. We seem to have evolved to a few big 100 mile rides and have lost the small ones. This may either be a cause of or an effect of the overall decline - most likely both an contributor to and result of the decline. The bottom line is endurance rides are driven by supply and demand. When the demand decreases, so will the supply of people willing to run them. If people want 100's go ride them - increase the demand. If you aren't ready then go help the ride managers on their 100's. If you want people to run 100's so you can "ride them someday when you are ready," then by golly go out there and volunteer to help a ride manger run a 100 today. If you don't, don't expect that many to be around when "you are ready." Ride managers need people to help. It's hard to get help - especially at 3 AM! The fate of the 100 mile ride is up to the riders who want to ride them or say they want to ride them. Truman Barbara McCrary wrote: If riders don't come to 100 mile rides and support them, how long do you think 100 mile rides will last? A ride manager works just as hard to put on a 100 miler for 25 people as he would to put it on for 250. We had a long discussion on Ridecamp not too long ago, and it seems fairly obvious that many riders nowadays prefer 50s or even LDs because they can get back to camp, take a shower and relax. -- “You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.” Malcolm X =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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