 |
RE: [RC] re: trail trash and crabby old riders - David LeBlancCindy said: Even if I can't ride like I used to, I still want the sport focused on 100 mile rides.? Even if I can only ride 25s, I don't want 25 milers winning big awards and being given national championship status.? That's about like 10k runners trying to say that 5k runners ought not get any awards. It's the same thing, just different distances. There's something you might not expect going on up here in the NW. In PNER, we _require_ placing for LD (and BC), and even (shudder) give _points_ for top-10, AND lump all the distances together, and then give out reasonably nice awards on the basis of all the rides you did, without regard to distance (except for some awards that are specific to one distance - an obvious one being the 100 mile points award). To hear people talk here, all that should be one of the signs of a coming apocalypse, and surely endurance and the coveted 100 mile distance ought to be doomed in our area. The funny thing is that we've got a lot of 100 mile rides, and increasing participation - our 100 miles starts for 2007 is up by 26% over last year alone. Something interesting going on there - the NW, SE and MW regions are all favorable to LD, they've all got a lot of 100's, and the SE and NW have more 100-mile starts year over year when it's remained flat across the whole country. I think that giving 25 (and 50) mile riders recognition and encouragement is the way that you grow new 100 mile riders and keep this sport going. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 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!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
|