Craig Austin
Maybe if the promoters would ever try STARTING the season a little later they'd find that it's not just a summertime vacation issue, it might be that we're tired of racing mountain bikes by then. It might be that we've replaced our derailleurs, chains, and cassettes a couple of times already and don't want to spend more on repairs. It might be that we've raced all spring and don't have particularly fond memories of mountain bike racing a certain course because it hasn't been fun (as fun as it could be under better conditions).
Look back at the mountain bike "season" in the last five years. The first race of the year:
2003: March 29
2004: April 4
2005: March 26
2006: March 26
2007: March 25
2008: April 6
You don't have good data about turnout in later races, because you've never tried moving the season back to find out. The complaint we used to hear from promoters was that the Bend mountain bike races got much better turnout. There's a reason for that; they were held in raceable conditions. Spring races can be great in Bend; if it's not snowing, the trails are very rideable. Not so on the west side.
In 2005, the year Kevin only had 97 racers, that was already the 10th XC race of the year (not counting the TOE or creampuff). In 2005, we'd had four XC races by May 1. I don't know about the rest of you, but I love to race 'cross--just not on my mountain bike. I love mud, and I love muddy courses. And we get plenty of that in the fall and winter. Oregon is blessed with wonderful trails and great weather in the summer; I for one would love the opportunity to enjoy both at the same time.
Even 'cross can only sustain the fever pitch for about 10 weeks. Those guys have done a great job of giving the people what they want, when they want it.
Start the mountain bike season in late May or early June; let the roadies have the Banana Belts and the early season stage races. Mountain biking is a summer thing. I know I'd be at a lot more races.
Craig Austin
________________________________
From: obra-bounces@list.obra.org on behalf of Randy Dreiling
Sent: Thu 6/5/2008 1:11 PM
To: kevin thompson; obra@list.obra.org
Subject: [OBRA Chat] Mt Bike race number
As a promoter of over 10 years.
Kevin is 100% correct after June numbers drop big time, even if there is no other event the same day
I think we have had this chat 20 times now.
It has nothing to do with promoters, nothing to do with courses, nothing to do with cost...remember as I always point out it was the same cost to race the oakridge ftf last year as it was in 1992, even cheaper for JR's.
The bottom line is people stop showing up after June
We can go round and round about it and why it happens, but the answer is people stop coming.
This is a BIG part of why there is no oakridge ftf this year, when I was not allowed by the forest service to host the event in May and instead I would have had the race in July I decided to pass for this year, as it sucks to put a bunch of effort out to host a race for 50-75 people no offense and at the end of the day loose money.
I miss not seeing you racers this year, but I can't afford to loose money.
As before think about the LONG list of races that are no longer around.
Take care
Randy Dreiling
----- Original Message ----
From: kevin thompson
To: obra@list.obra.org
Sent: Thursday, June 5, 2008 12:56:06 PM
Subject: [OBRA Chat] Falls City Firecracker AWESOME
John, and everyone else who is interested,
I am speaking for myself, none of the handful of other mountain bike promoters have said they agree with anything I am going to say here.
This year was my 6th year running the Firecracker. Of course I want more people there. It takes just as much work to put a race if 10 people show up, as it does if 200 show up.
Several years back, Shane Young was doing the OBRA rep job at the mountain bike races and one of the things he did to entertain himself was to track attendance through out the season. The conclusion that he made was that after school got out in June, that fewer racers showed up to race. After reading John's email today, I went back to look at my history in the OBRA arcives. My data backs Shane's data up. I checked the old schedules to see what conficts where happening on the dates the Firecracker was happening. This is what I found.
The most surprising to me was in 2005 the firecracer had an entire July weekend to its self (just what John seems to want). I had 97 racers.
The complete history is:
July 2003, Brownsville crit, and state track on the same day, 115 racers
July 2004, Silverton rr, firecracker is the xc state champ, 89 racers
July 2005, no compitition the entire weekend, 97 racers
August 2006, Woodland rr, 75 racers
May 2007, Swan Island, 158 racers
June 2008, Silverton, 170 racers.
The last 2 years, the race was before school got out and I almost doubled participation.
I tried for 4 years to promote a race in the summer, it was not really worth my effort.
Any thoughts?
See you all at Pickets.
Kevin
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