Swanton Pacific has one, and only one
loop, starting from and ending at camp. Lucky us that there is so
much available trail in this area that we can do that. SP is anything but
boring.
Barbara McCrary Ride manager, Swanton
Pacific 75/100 "The most beautiful trail in the world"
One
thing missing, at least in this part of the country is the fact many of the
rides had between 75 and 100 miles of trail. Now so many rides have loops that
are shorter and are repeated. To me, and I am sure many of the older riders,
this is boring and tedious. A deterrent to the longer rides.
Bob
Bob Morris Morris Endurance Enterprises Boise, ID
-----Original Message----- From:ridecamp-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ridecamp-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Truman
Prevatt Sent: Monday, July 21, 2003 5:19 PM To:
DVeritas@xxxxxxx Cc: ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re:
[RC] declining 100s
The first ride I did had 11 in the
25 and 4 in the 50 and it was in 1990! Endurance got started late in FL. It
was an easy jump from 25 to 50 because you all hung around together and
there was encouragement - "hey you've done a couple 25's the last one in
2:30, it's time to move up to a slow 50". Same was true for 100's. Most
everyone wanted to "give it a shot." Now in FL a small ride is 60 people and
we have gone from three rides in 1990 to 9 or 10 next year. Most are
running close to 75 and 100. When they were small we had more people doing
100's than we do today! We have lost that community we had just 10 short
years ago.
Like anything there are many causes and it's more complex
than just one thing. However, the close knit family aspect of endurance
riding is clearly not what it used to be and I think it shows in a lot of
ways - the decline of 100's being one.
Frank and Terre we must be
getting old, we sound like old farts sitting around the campfire reminiscing
for days gone by - and sigh, maybe never to return.
In a message dated 7/21/2003 2:29:09 PM Mountain
Daylight Time, tobytrot@xxxxxxxxx writes:
Back in "the good old days" riders were smaller, in general,
and 'everybody knew everybody'. Riders all gathered around a
campfire at night and socialized.
I remember at rides I'd be talking
in a basecamp with other 100 mile riders, someone would walk up to the
group, and before you knew it, we had talked them into entering the 100 in
the morning. That used to happen alot.
A rider, saying, "What the heck, I'll do the 100,
too." More times than not, they'd enter, ride it,
complete it and we'd all have a late dinner
together. The bigger we grow, the more we seem to
limit ourselves to the little areas we find comfortable, understandable
and more easily managed. Venture.
-----Frank
