Re: is this fair?

[Susan Evans Garlinghouse <suendavid@worldnet.att.net>]

> Cyndi Craig wrote:

> > i was a little disconcerted because i felt the 25s weree being asked to
> > pay more than their fair share.


Linda Flemmer wrote:
> Not everyone wants to or can do 50's or 100's.  It is a personal
> choice.  I was at a ride a couple of years ago where the 50 milers were
> told that they were "riding half a ride" - talk about insulting!  We
> shrugged it off, but it still brings back bad memories.



LD riders get told all the time that they're only riding half a ride, or
worse.  I don't have a problem paying close to the same costs as the
50's or 100's, because as Linda pointed out, most of the fixed costs are
the same, but I do wish (some) RMs would not treat the LD riders as poor
cousins.  I went to a ride last year where the LD completion awards were
the dirty, ripped leftovers from previous years 50's (stuff nobody
wanted, it really was trash).  There WAS a box of nice new T-shirts, but
the LDs were told in no uncertain terms those were for the "real"
riders.  (That's a quote.)  Why couldn't the RM have ordered enough
shirts for EVERYONE, and not used the LD riders as a convenient disposal
system?  Also, when I asked why the LD wasn't AERC sanctioned, I got
sneered at (and I DO have a reasonably thick skin).  Well, if anyone is
riding for the incredibly valuable completion awards you get in ANY
division, you're in for a disappointment, but I really didn't care for
the attitude that LD riders were just an annoyance to be gotten rid of. 
At this ride, too, I think my entry fee was only a few bucks less than
the fifties.  As a result, if I can only get to one ride this spring,
I'm not going to go to the ride where we felt lucky to be allowed to eat
dinner in the same building as the 50's and 100's---I'm gonna go to the
ride down south (one of Terry's, may she live forever), where they  do
make LDs feel welcome and I have alot more fun.  So Terry gets my money,
not the other ride, period. 

This is not to sound whiney, or start off the old discussions again
about how LD riders are as good as anyone else, I'm just making this
point---it seems to me that the LD division is making up a larger and
larger proportion of the starting pack.  LD money spends as good as
anyone's, and alot of LDs riders are happy to stay LD riders forever for
whatever reason.  If RMs made the LD riders feel like they were welcome
and had Accomplished Something that day, they're going to get happier
riders, more repeat business and everyone makes out.  AND the LDs
wouldn't feel abused because they pay almost as much as a fifty or 100. 
Just seems like good business to me.

OK, I'm off my soapbox now. :-D

Susan Garlinghouse