The October 1999, Bicycle event that wasn’t!

Mountain Bike Festivals are usually a high light of mountain biking. The climax if you will. This year Pedro's in New England was a big downer. Instead of taking me to the height of mountain biking , with a rush of pure adrenaline, I was dumped into a quagmire of mud and disappointment.

While I realize that the organizers and Ride Leaders couldn't do anything about the previous days hard rain, they could have pre-viewed the trails before the event and kept better track of the people who trusted them to lead the way. We started out as a group of 30+ people, due to poor planning, intermediate and beginner riders were mixed on the same ride and at the same time the " Ride Leaders" were totally ignorant of the trails they were supposed to lead us on. Which meant that at every split on the trail, the "Ride Leaders" had to stop the entire group and confer as to which way to go. At one point one "Ride Leader" went back to speak to another one, and somehow got lost. Soon after, another "Ride Leader" came from the back ,of the group, to the front, asking if anyone had seen the 1st Leader. After 15 minutes of standing around, the same "Ride Leader" came back and told us to go on to the next split. So we did. Well, it soon became apparent that only 14 or 15 of us got there. We waited 10 minutes and no one else showed up, so we took the straighter of the two trails.

Soon... we found ourselves riding in mud, which quickly turned into mud bogs, that seemed to run for endless miles. Normally this might be considered fun , but as the mud rose above the hubs of our wheels, with no end in sight, what should have been mountain biking, became an event, that would be better equipped with "Hip Boots". Finally we came to an open field. Here we counted our numbers. We were down to 6 and no "Ride Leader". Another 10 minutes was spent attempting to clean the glops of mud from our derailleur and cleats, then... Lo and Behold, a "Ride Leader" appeared from across the field. He looked at us, seemed to ponder as he approached , then asked, "You guys didn't just ride through that mud field did you?", as he pointed in the direction from which we came. "You know you didn't have to. You could have gone another way." Silence was his answer. Then someone asked where the rest of the group was. He shrugged his shoulders.

Go To Page: 1 2

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic