This social media thing is painfully slow. I expected by now to have the participants all in one thread along with some trolls to spice things up. This was a great festival and I will go to any party they throw, but race?
I googled how to get participants in a thread and it said to attack everyone. I question the race because I have historically looked to race results as some empirical data that even marketing can't mess with. However we had such a small sample I laugh at my attempts to study the results last year when I didn't go.
Racing is important. As someone who is just poking his head into your playground I am astonished things have gone so far with out it. So as an old guy who has crashed a lot of toys I am going to tell you how this goes.
Five days after a race, Devo and I should be trash talking about what was unfair. I whine that the course was set to his bike. His back yard is fire roads, mine single track. Then we start a series of our own with one weekend in his yard, and one in mine. The winner stands up on youtube and says: "I want to thank my manufacture who made the riding easy."
And then the game is afoot. I learned from Bernie Ecclestone even a dumb a$$ like me can manipulate smart engineers and talent riders to progress a sport.
So here is my course for the engineers to work their slide rules and riders to practice: We go up the downhill to the flume. Time penalty for putting a foot down. Points for scaring the young whipper snappers coming down. Across the flume to Tunnel Road. You can scare small children, but if they fall off the trail, that is a time penalty. Tunnel Road to the top can be your fire road to catch up. Do we roost the guys in Lycra for points? Then the wrong way up the Rim Trail. No feet down at the staircase. When we get to the ski area we will have some thousand yards of portage where you can carry that hub motor. Then freeride all the way back to my house, pick what ever run you think is fastest. Oh, and if you can do the whole thing without yelling at your trail dog, that's an automatic win.
What is the best bike? Which rider do I employ?