Rules?

[Mathewsen]

Ah but he went quite a bit faster this year - chalk it up to getting better or being "pushed/chased" by the group?  I'm not saying I advocate the time bonus concept - I don't.  But it's never as clear as it looks at first.
Matt I thought you were serious...

DH, Nothing is as clear as it looks and that's half the fun of our armchair cycling polemics.
I wanted to see if you would quantify that which you have been speaking so emotionally charged about. though i don't actually advocate time adjustments, i was curious to hear if you were willing to put a number on it.

Conversely, the ability to push forward or back/tweak up to the last minute, the staging of an ITT is worth something too. year-to-year, weather can influence things more than all the theoretical sharing and motivations combined.

re. owen + CTR, maybe he'll comment on any RPE differences. start time may have been a factor (tho, IIRC he was also 6am in 08). experience is a factor. i heard his `09 kit was more minimal. maybe the cataract section is harder but marginally faster than cinnamon pass--as well, other new sections. chalk it up to vagaries.

an irony of group-starts is that though they may be intended to allow athlete's to compete under equal circumstances, it seems to also 'create' (at least in some peeps' minds) as many inequities as it rubs out.

[Ohio Robb]

in doing research for AZT i've stumbled upon this thread and without reading 27 pages, was hoping for some help. 

i read "No Pre Arranged Support" and a phrase i read somewhere that read something like "if it isn't available to everyone, it gives you an unfair advantage" last year before CTR and shipped one box to a hotel in Mt. Princeton.  I figured it was no different than a post office, and available to everyone to do the same (the hotel explicitly told me they accept packages for CT users all the time and had a system in place)

Dinner with Stefan and some other guys the night before "educated" me to the post office only rule, so i intended to ignore the box.  I had no intention of unfairly cheating others, or myself in the event, and thought that i was following the "available to everyone" basic premise on which all these rules are ultimately grounded.  it never mattered, i was hitchhiking to the hospital by the time i got there

i'm as much a stickler as everyone...and shudder when i read events like Dirty Kanza describe the race as self supported, except for that part where you can meet your supply team at three spots.  ??   Or when we here in Pisgah attempt a long 100 mile "race" and 15% of the field had made a food drop.  I started this kind of racing because it mirrored the kind of self supported commitment i used to experience climbing and mountaineering in remote spots.  i actually laughed at Chris's bolt wars reference...

I think the individual promoters of the big events should gather from these 27 pages some talking points and list very specific examples of what they want to occur during their events.  Like it has been said, the starting lists of the major races are not represented here, but there is educational, if not enlightening information held within.  For those of you scouring blogs for wrong doing, many instances of gray area behavior were probably considered in the minds of the rider, and cleared within his/her own reading of the perhaps too sparse rules.  If i had finished the CTR last year, i would have dq'd myself if i read about a rule later, maybe for taking water from a family in a parking lot, or riding with chris and kurt for two days, or whatever, but i certainly wouldn't have thought it a violation during the event.

and that's just the honest opinion from a start lister. 

[ScottM]

Hey Rob -- not sure we want to revive this whole thread, but check out the AZT site for my latest take on the rules for that event:

http://www.topofusion.com/azt/race-rules.php

I allow a lot of the gray area stuff talked about here (e.g. sharing, trail magic, shipping), but the suggestion is to "use sparingly."  That seems like a good compromise to me.  We are not so serious about this that we can't share a twix, but don't take it too far.  That leaves it up to judgment and creates a gray area itself, but that's my best solution right now.  Also remember that the AZTR will be a small event, and I am not so worried about rules infractions as I would be if I knew ~50 people were going to show.

Side note: there is an additional, unique to the AZTR rule, that will be strictly enforced -- you have to carry your bike across the Grand Canyon, no ifs ands or buts.

[bmike-vt]

Side note: there is an additional, unique to the AZTR rule, that will be strictly enforced -- you have to carry your bike across the Grand Canyon, no ifs ands or buts.

I think you might want to change 'across' - maybe something like down, through, up, and out...



Unless you really experienced bp'rs have your base load down so low that you've managed to float.
But man, that is a big hole in the ground.
Only time I was there I had a bike with me - nearly useless staying in the parks along the south rim.

[krefs]

Unless you really experienced bp'rs have your base load down so low that you've managed to float.

I am working on a plan to send two tanks of compressed helium to the park post office.  Epic Eric is constructing two silnylon air-tight sacs (I am hesitant to use the term "balloons"), one 1.3 m in diameter and the other 0.9 m.  These can quickly be inflated with the helium once I reach the canyon.  One sac will carry below it an ultralight harness system to hold a frame, and the other a simple loop to suspend two wheels.  A short length of high-test Eternium fishing line will allow me to "carry" the floating load while leisurely hiking the trail through the canyon.