I can speak on this too...I use to be a part of a CTR newsgroup and they were brutal...they argued all the time...at ridecamp there are opinions voiced and disputes but I have yet to see anyone get very nasty. I love it here. In fact, it is ride camp that has sparked such an interest in my joining endurance rather than CTR. So I am going to volunteer this weekend and see what endurance is all about. I'll be in Sonoita, Arizona...hope to see some of you there!
wonder what makes endurance riders tick and perhaps want to find out that what I have seen and hear is not the norm.
Being a ctr rider I find most endurance riders I know to be aloof and beyond approach, so the only way I can communicate is on ridecamp and I have done a couple LDs and plan on a 50 at frigit digit in Feb. but I'm around 2000 lifetime miles in natrc.
This is an odd observation, in its way. While I have not competed in NATRC, my sister-in-law has managed one for 35+ years. I have done drag-riding for this ride and one of my observations is that NATRC riders take things so seriously. When I arrived at a vet check behind the last rider, I was "shushed" and told to move away from that rider (and others) because my presence would cause the competitiors' horses' pulses to elevate. I think, because they are being judged on the trail, and because there is a prescribed way that they should ride and take care of their horses, that the ride itself for these folks is far more serious than that of endurance riders. And at the VC...I couldn't talk above a whisper or I was chastised by the competitors. I was told to take my horse away from theirs. I found it rather uncomfortable and demeaning to me, a volunteer.
Offhand, I cannot remember any endurance rider that I considered aloof and beyond approach. Rarely the rude one who is bent on placing high at any cost to courtesy, but not aloof.
