Re: RC: Posse Ride Ruling

[jlong@mti.net (Joe Long)]

On Mon, 10 Apr 2000 00:43:04 -0700, "guest@endurance.net"
<guest@endurance.net> wrote:

>Sonya Williams tglnwms@worldnet.att.net
>It seems that the ruling made by AERC did not consider the whole picture.  Two riders created a nightmare.  

I haven't been following Ridecamp very closely lately.  I'm assuming
this is referring to the accident where a non-rider was injured during
a race to the finish line.

There has been a lot of trashing of the riders by people who (like
myself) were not there and do not themselves know "the whole picture."
An endurance ride is a race, and the riders and management have an
expectation that there will be full-sprint races to the finish line.
Few of the people commenting on this tragedy have any direct knowledge
of what happened, if the riders really were irresponsible or uncaring
about the injuries, yet we see them pilloried over and over.

I assume the AERC protest commitee and the Board did investigate and
did get "the whole picture," certainly more so than most of their
critics on maillists.  I have confidence in their judgement.

Ideally, the last miles to the finish would be in a completely
controlled environment, but that is rarely possible.  There are
dangers in our sport and accidents will happen.  Let's please stop
judging people without knowing all of the facts.

-- 
Joe Long
jlong@mti.net
www.rnbw.com