Quote Originally Posted by Steve D View Post
In the spirit of 'live and learn' when race directors are put in such difficult positions (esp. after reading these posts), how about "We're not going to let you tear up our trails or your bikes." I'm not being judgmental, either. I wasn't even there. Just a general observation for future reference. I hadn't thought about the damage to the hardware...
Our club has been in this exact position. We hadn't had a race in the rain and in fact our mindset has been that we'd call a race due to rain and reschedule. Then April 2009 came. The Novice racers were on the line and it started gently raining. The radar looked like it was going to be short-lived. So, we raced. The rain picked up and it NEVER stopped raining -- all day. The trails were horrible. The consistency of a slushy chocolate milk shake. We were/are lucky to have Sylvan Island because of it soil composition. But, there were many equipment failures that day and I think EVERYONE had to replace their brake pads (our local bike shops sold out of brake pads the week after the race). I had to replace my bottom bracket and my husband had to replace his bottom bracket and headset. Yet, after the 2009 race and seeing how the island took the rain (the trails firmed back up and it didn't take anything more than more riding to smooth out the ruts), we now race "Rain or Shine -- but racer be aware of the damage you might incur to your bike if you do opt to race." Granted, Sylvan is uniqiue with it's soil and nothing like normal black dirt.

Give the race directors a break. They didn't want to disappoint the folks who had travelled to the race (WE didn't want to cancel our race in 2009 or 2012) and they full-well knew they'd be taking one for the team knowing that they would likely have plenty of work to do to fix the rutted trails post-race.

That being said, I will never race in muddy conditions again. It's not fun, it's hard on equipment and the trails, and clearly as seen here is hard on morale.