Matthiessen Mounatain Madness 5/6/12

[Westy_3]

Sounds like a great time..........now I guess I'm happy my bike is in the shop.

[BD83]

Soooo... whens the next wrench night?

Novice race:
Lap 1 - standing water on trail
Lap 2 - a little has soaked in, so it is super greasy
Lap 3 - soaked in deeper, mud getting thicker and deeper, and still super greasy under that

Seriously, wrench night? Pretty sure my bottle cage is the only thing that still functions properly.

[mcwrath]

Wow Russ, how did you manage to keep your bike so clean??

That race could sucka-ma-bawls. I was doing okay holding my own through the slippery stuff while everyone else was struggling and crashing around me, but when the mud turned to baby poop, my bike wouldn't go no more. The bottom VPP link on a santa cruz is most definitely NOT made for clearing mud. I had to remove the back wheel two times to get it cleared out. At the 2nd lap I decided that 28th place was not worth the damage I was doing to my bike, and walked out.

I spent 2 hours at home last night cleaning, scrubbing, detailing and relubing. Probably needs another 2 hours today.

[badfish41]

Those trails are totally f'd.

[Byke Dood]

This was the race bike shops have been waiting for

[Russhole]

Why Russ, Why! The new paint job the new drive train, why???????? Good god man don't you have any respect for that thing? And where are the pictures of you after the race?

As soon as I saw Ben, I wanted to go home, but Jake made me race. What?, I'm American. I gotta blame someone don't I? At the start of lap two I kept getting rocks in between the chain and rings and the pedals would just stop. I didn't want to spend another hundo on bike parts, so I quit. I picked up a lot of scratches on the new paint too.
I spent about an hour cleaning my bike and then another half hour cleaning the driveway. I'll never race in muddy conditions again.

[badfish41]

Following the DNF, hindsight was a clear 20/20.

[Steve D]

The skies opened up and began pouring literally 10 minutes before the Novice class began. What was he to do?

I could go all judgmental and say the dude shoulda called it due to rider safety and trail sustainability....but I will hold that judgment in light of IVAC's young age and lack of experience in such situations as well as the pressure and subsequent criticism if he were to tell all those racers (there was a pretty good turnout) to go home.

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...

[BD83]

[Byke Dood]

Photo link

http://www.flickr.com/photos/2017839...7629624099904/

[Bexter]

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.

[jimithng23]

..."We're not going to let you tear up our trails...

In my eyes, as a Steward, that was the worst part of it.

Let me be clear, I am not ripping on Dan (IVAC Race Director) here. He was put in a very difficult situation and did the best he could. I'm sure looking back on it now, he would change some things but it's hard to make those decisions when you have 100+ racers ready to go.

Like I said, Live and Learn. Life goes on.