Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Working out a budget for a ride is very enlightening. What pops out at 
you is the without the LD's you will be in trouble paying the bills - at 
least in many regions.

While RM's are not in it to make money - they are sure not in it to lose 
money either. In the SE if it weren't for LD's the fledging (in the 
80's) sport of endurance sure would have not grown to what it is today. 
LD's payed the bills in the early days and they got people into the 
sport that would not be here doing 50's/100's today. I suspect the same 
is true for the CT region and the MW region. There are exceptions like 
Jody and Angie but they are a lot older than me ;-) .

That would mean fewer riders and fewer opportunities for what riders 
there were because of fewer rides. LD's have always paid the bills - at 
least in the SE - and in fact I suspect they still are.

Truman

Dodie Sable wrote:
> Let's look at this from several perspectives.
> The new rider (or new horse). The LD is an excellent training tool to 
> bring new riders and new horses into the sport. Ride management needs 
> to place emphasis on "optimum time" completers, not "first runners" at 
> an LD. I like the way the NE handles LD's - completion awards only. No 
> top 10, no BC, some RM's offer an Optimum Time award.
> The RM (Ride Manager). The LD entries usually help pay for the ride. 
> As an RM I have discovered there are many costs with putting on a good 
> ride that riders are never aware of. If I have thirty LD riders and 
> twenty 50 mile riders, what do you think the chances of me breaking 
> even on the financial side of the ride will be if I stopped offering 
> an LD? Let's assume that 20% of the normal LD riders would do the 50 
> if no LD was offered. That's only four more riders added to the line-up.
> The older rider. There are also many people that cannot do a 50 due to 
> health and/or physical reasons and the LD offers them a chance to 
> taste the sport (or continue in the sport) without causing themselves 
> injury.
> I personally would be very disappointed if LD's were removed from the 
> sport.
> Dodie


--

“It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how 
smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong” Richard 
Feynman, Nobel Laureate in Physics


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