[RC] Tevis Discussion, Here's a different question - sherman
Beginning
in 2006, the rider no longer picks his starting position in the first, second
or third group, and instead, your group is assigned by ride management
according to your percentage of completions (I believe that was the stated
determining factor). I know many riders were not happy with this since the
percentage of completions doesn’t necessarily equate to being in front or
going as fast as possible at the start. OTOH, I know a few very fast
competitive riders who have a lower percentage of completions due to the speed
causing lameness or metabolic issues and were very frustrated with being in the
back at a slower starting pace. If you’re assigned to group 1 or 2, you
can choose to start at a later time, but no one can move up to an earlier group.
Anyway,
when it is time for your assigned group to assemble, you go to a holding
holding area first and walk circles for about 15 min until a Tevis volunteer
WALKS the entire group out to the starting line. Once the volunteer leaves the
circling area, ALL RIDERS
are supposed to stay behind the volunteer holding their place and by the time
you arrive to the start line it should be time to start with no standing
around. In theory it’s a good plan, however, many riders decided to trot
& push past to try to get a head start on others within their group. Of
course, once this happens, all the horses want to start trotting, and what
rider wants to be passed by 60 riders? Then you get to the starting line and
have to wait, hoping the rude riders will quit pushing and shoving their way to
the front.
?
I
only made it 63 miles in ’05 and was overtime 1 ½ minutes, but I had
spent extra time with my daughter being pulled early in the ride due to an
injury in the Granite Chief Wilderness, was 10 min. late getting out of
Robinson’s, spent an extra 15 minutes letting my horse eat at
Devils’ Thumb. We had started out near the end, and we pulled over many
times during the climbs up to let people trot by us because we knew we’d
make up time going a bit faster downhill, unfortunately, not everyone is so
willing to yield the trail therefore it was impossible to go the speed
we’d planned on downhill, which was NOT fast, just faster than a rider
can jog with their horse. You can see I would’ve been okay with time had
I paid more attention, but my watch had started loosing time after Robinson
Flat and I wasn’t aware of it until the next day.
