team competition

["Rick Forrester" <rwforest@eoni.com>]

 Hello from Mary Forrester in Oregon,   While things are sort of quiet on ridecamp I thought I would bring up team competition. In the Northwest Region we have teams that compete against each other all year. 3 riders on the team must complete the same distance on the same ride. The top 3 finishers from the team can count their points for team points for that distance and the team captain sends them in to the points secretary. If you have 3 finishers on more than one distance then you can count those, too. It's really another dimention in endurance, and this year in the NW we have had a very close competition to the very end between the Fish Creek team and the Bad Girls, and nipping at our heels all year were the CC Riders. If you are looking for a way to stir some interest in your region, and get more riders to the rides this is a good way to do it. On the last ride of the season we (the Fish Creek team) had team points on the 50, 75, and 100 mile distances.  11 riders from our team started, and only one was pulled. The week before we had 12 riders on 3 distances, with no pulls. And we have crew like nothing I've seen before, syringes filled with electrolites before we get there,  hay layed out, buckets of beet pulp and bran mash, people putting blankets on the horse, vetting the horse while the rider sits in a chair and eats. It's overwelming to a person who has ridden a lot of miles with no crew at all. While I'm no expert on this subject, I could probably answer some questions if anyone is interested in starting a team competition in your AERC region. People will often come to a ride just to help the team earn points. And it is lots of FUN!  So isn't that why we do this?