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[RC] Diane/LD's 50's - appleg8

Diane, the problem with this post trying to vilify your previous remarks is that you would have been better off just saying you made a mistake or nothing.

The way I see it is that you projected in that last post false reporting and that was the bottom line. You sent that false reporting out as if it were "the word" and of course it was not. At least one newbie on this list believed your every word as posted.

Better you should have stated your stance on it all then rather than now come back after the 'facts' have been posted to show how erroneous you were.

This is a huge problem on the list of bloviating when there is no factual data to back it up. And further as David pointed out if you are not even riding for the past eleven years makes your point even more disingenuous.

I asked David to do another little study for me which he was kind enough to do and when I get back from Dust Devil this weekend I will post it on RC of the RM that do not furnish finish times for LD's.

I was very pleased to see that it is a very small number of RM that practice this.

To make the assumptions you have here in this post as well that the RM still are not accurate does you no favors I am sure.

I think Truman replied quite well. Humans will always error. Riders in this sport will always catch it and get it corrected. Hopefully the error will not be repeated.

That is productive intercourse. Would you agree?
amber


From: Diane Trefethen <tref@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: Re: [RC] LD/50 times


I have received some gentle and some not so gentle :) chiding as a result of my comments on ride times for LDs. My basic response is, "Don't shoot the messenger".

Truman did a study on speeds and deduced from the records that the top LDs
rode more slowly than the top 50s.  What did he use for this study?  The
AERC ride result records.  Are these records accurate?

That last is the question I was addressing.  My point was that if there are
SOME records so badly out of whack that one can spot them knowing nothing
about the ride in question, how many more are equally wrong but just harder
to spot?  For instance, according to the record, the Tidioute Challenge 25
on 08-Jul-06 was won in 4:16.  WON!  It is not impossible that the winning
time was so slow but when the winner of a 25 mile ride goes only 5.86 mph,
a reasonable person will think, "Can that be right?"  So you look at the 50
that was run concurrently.  That ride was won in 5:34, an average of 8.98
mph.  That is slow too but not outlandishly so.  I think Truman said the
50s run about 15% faster than the LDs.  In this ride the record says they
ran 53% faster.

David said, "I believe it was you earlier admonishing Truman about
statistics. Don't make the even more fundamental mistake of comparing a
statistically significant sample of hundreds of rides to anecdotal
evidence."  I didn't.  I did not say that because some LD rides appear to
include hold time, probably all do or that because I was passed by 25ers,
all LDs go fast.  I said some LDs were reported incorrectly and I couldn't
tell if maybe all were and that the 25ers that beat me to the lunch stop
clearly rode faster than I did.  Several RMs have written that no way do
they include hold time and I believe them.  But how about a new RM and/or a
Ride Sec'y that hasn't done it before?

No matter how carefully you do a study, if the data is flawed, the study
results are unreliable.  In the case of the AERC LD times, the question is
not IF the data is flawed, it is HOW MUCH is the data is flawed.

David also pointed out, "You'll find finish times on 50's up in the 11 hour
range, too".

Absolutely true.  And even more significantly, you'll find some in the 1-2
hour range.  It seems that besides transposing digits and including hold
times, some rides (at least one that I know of - Gold Coast 50, 1988) make
the mistake of reporting what time it was when the riders crossed the
finish line.  If that were to happen today, or if it happened in 2002, at a
ride that was holding both an LD and a 50, the difference wouldn't be 15%
or 53%.  It would be around 1900%.  But this probably couldn't happen.  I
bet Mike's software has traps for 25s that take more than 6 hrs.

amber
g8nfool
www.applegaitnendurancehorses.com



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