RE: National Championship Ride

["Alison Farrin" <alison@innovativepension.com>]

On a related note, we did a 15 mile ride this weekend and it took us 3.5
hours.  Granted we rode from 10 am to 1:30
and it must have been close to 100 degrees at noon, so were weren't pushing
the horses.  But, at one point I was lamenting the fact that we were going
so slow.  Betsy looks back at me and says, Yeah, but have you EVER done a
ride this hard???  We were doing switchbacks up and down hills - think
Pacific Coast Trail at its worst.  Now, add steps cut into the rocks to
facilitate hikers, some of them 2 feet tall.  I was riding along thinking
that I was getting a great lesson in how to ride drop fences.  The horses
started out gingerly stepping down these drops, but once they got the hang
of it, you could see they were having a ball.  They'ed come around a
switchback, break into a fast trot, launch out over these drops and keep
right on going.  (In reverse, it was not possible to climb them at anything
other than a walk.) However, it was harder trail than I've EVER seen on an
AERC ride.  Granted, the hardest I've done has been "moderate plus", but
I've learned not to panic when the ride manager says be careful of the
rocks, these are really tough.  Hasn't been a ride manager yet caution me
about any rocks near as hard as we train on.

 >riders said the section of trail that management
> considered "challenging" was "unconscionable" and "cruel".
> Anything worse than the OD and Tevis comes into question as
> far as use in a competition.

So can somebody that was there describe this section in detail???

Alison Farrin
Innovative Pension Strategy & Design
alison@innovativepension.com
858-451-9594 x 107

> -----Original Message-----
> From: guest@endurance.net [mailto:guest@endurance.net]
> Sent: Monday, August 07, 2000 10:00 AM
> To: ridecamp@endurance.net
> Subject: RC: National Championship Ride
>
>
> Barb Thomas thomas@amgen.com
> Heard from a couple of the 50 mile finishers over the weekend
> and would like to see some feedback and opinions from other
> riders.  I heard that the vetting was outstanding.  But also
> heard that the vetting was outstanding.
>  Some riders said the section of trail that management
> considered "challenging" was "unconscionable" and "cruel".
> Anything worse than the OD and Tevis comes into question as
> far as use in a competition.  The riders all received mugs,
> finishers or not and they had to but their T-shirts.  For a
> National Championship Ride, was this what you riders
> expected?  What would you do to change or improve it?  I'd
> sure be disappointed to go to a ride that was to be the
> premier AERC ride and find such conditions, esp!

>
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