Well, never been there and probably never will now... maybe I'll go do the social road ride, I should be assured I get to do the whole thing at least. Or, I could do that any day for free.

I know, I should probably just keep quiet, but as a race fan, I thought I'd go & see who did what at the results page. Huh? confusion ensued. First of all, how many actual races went down there? 'couple 100?!? From the main results page, the races are not listed by their complete category - often the gender is left off, and I found a whole section of clydesdale races that did not include that aspect of the race category until you got to the specific results page for that race.

Women XC expert results by the 5 year age groups (ahh, age groupers & clydesdales, takes me back to my Tri years) were NOT tagged with 'Female', I just guessed they were women by the names in results(sexist, I know). But finish times were also confusing - or often mssing - one XC woman winner went 2:05 - in 38 miles of mud?!?! Test her! Most were in the 3:30-4 hour range, seems more human. But most of those categoreis only list 2-6 'finishers'.

Well, Just another bitch thread on this forum, this time about the results in general. Seems the race is just too damn big now to be run with efficiency and they need to re-think the whole thing. With athletes traveling from all over the country, seems you'd want to give everyone their shot at competing in the events they paid SO MUCH for. I hold BOTH the Sea O org and the Officials responsible for these shortcomings, though each has a different set of responsibilities in this apparent mess.

The men's pro finishers were piling in just a few minutes before they canceled the expert women's 2nd lap.

there were all kinds of folks hanging around the finishing/starting straight away - interviews, congratulations, heaving racers, etc...

i mean, it was PACKED with people and finishing racers.

Anyone know how the racers who still had another lap (expert women who started 40 minutes after the pro men) were supposed to get through all that mass? Literally, you could barely walk through there, let alone keep on the accelerator. I was told they had a side shoot to run riders through in previous years, but I didn't see anything like that this year.

anybody know?

oh, and my recollection is that they had started pulling women's expert races at around the 1:45-1:50 per lap. That's pretty fast in those conditions. I recall Gunn-Rita doing her first lap in the low 1:20's. I KNOW there were other riders that day doing lap times close to the times the women were cut off at.

I think, maybe, one of the last women's expert riders might have been near the 2.5 hour range, but I can't be sure because it was just mayhem at the start/finish and we all just went back to the tents in ... well, disgust.

just my observations from being at the 2nd feed zone and seeing the first expert women roll through to start their 2nd lap (overtaking men's experts, by the way), and then ... silence.

~m

JoeRacer wrote:
Once the race starts, the Officials are in charge not the Promoters. They hire the Offiicals to run the race. Final decision to shorten or stop a race is with the Chief Official.

i think all she's saying is that while the decision may have been made by the official(s), the check$ were still made out to the promoter (SO).

TS

badjenny wrote: I just want an apology form the Otter folks.
Once the race starts, the Officials are in charge not the Promoters. They hire the Offiicals to run the race. Final decision to shorten or stop a race is with the Chief Official.

Remeber that some races at Cross Nationals where shortened or delayed because of weather. This ain't Bowling. Weather Happens!

wow. i've always liked "good jenny", but i'm starting to like "bad jenny"... :o

Wow! what a bunch of braniacs. So they just looked up at the running clock and forgot that we started at 1:40pm and not 1pm??? So they were adding 40-45 mins to our time? I just want an apology form the Otter folks. I will take my fury out on the Napa Valley course... :twisted:

HI Jen

I continue to get responses from the officials on site which leads me to believe they did not understand the start timing as they thought we were taking 2.5 hours per lap and were concerned that we would take 5-6 hours to finish.

I am frustrated knowing that such an uninformed decision was made that affected so many racers. As soon as I understand how completely misinformed they were, I'll post more.

I hate to keep nagging on a subject, but I believe that until we bug them to understand how the problem happened, they will continue to take our participation for granted and to make the same mistakes.

In the meantime, I hope this does not discourage you. Take that training and unleash it at Copperopolis or Napa Valley Dirt Classic. I know that this has put a little fire in my belly for some mountain bike races myself.

See you out there!

Sabine

Oh, And although I have heard back from the NORBA officials, the UCI official and the timing company, I have yet to hear a peep from Sea Otter in response to this.

I am "madcyclists" friend Jen, he started this rant after hearing how disapointed I was to be pulled at Sea Otter. Thank you Sabine for sending the nasty gram to Sea Otter and NORBA. I also sent an email to Sea Otter in hopes for an explanation.

I began racing mountain bikes last year as a beginner and did well, so this year I decided to advance to Expert class. Otter was to be my first big "test" race to see how I stacked up against Expert riders. I trained my ass off for this event. I was devestated to be pulled halfway through.

I could have handled it if at the start line we were told that there would be a cut off time in order to do the second lap. I would have raced a different race had I known. I was racing a conservative first lap knowing this would be my toughest race to date. The other point is that anything could have happened on that second lap, I could have caught riders who went out hard and were blowing up. The fair thing to do would have been to not allow anyone in our field back out. It essentially denied the rest of the field the opportunity to be competitive.

I'm still pissed...

I wrote an email to the Sea Otter as a rep of a team who had 5 racers affected by that decision, over 50 entrants in all the events, and a large booth in the expo, and I still have received no reply.

I have however received replies from the Western NORBA regional rep and the head cross country official. And regardless of whether or not I agree with (or even believe) their explanation, their response is very much appreciated.

The response from Dean Crandall is here:
http://velobellababble.blogspot.com/2006/04/customer-service-hold-please...

The response from Dan Thomas is here:
http://velobellababble.blogspot.com/2006/04/we-are-such-delicate-flowers...

The response from Sea Otter is here:
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/ap15fj/fplan/3-016.gif

Sabine

yeah, i agree that an explanation would be nice. however, i'm not sure how much time the SO promoters spend browsing our little forum. i suppose the thing to do is to just organize a mass boycott of the event for next year. a thousand or so fewer competitors might get someone's attention...

Perhaps instead of us specualting what happened the Sea Otter folks could step up to the plate and give an explanation. SBO seems to have found the time, and I find that to be a plus.

I hate non-responsiveness, it's just rude!

Ron

I don't know the details but the Sea Otter folks may have been required to be out of the venue by Laguna Seca/the Park folks *before* sundown. My understanding with stuff on county/state property is that the race promoter gets to pay the *overtime* that all the government employees are required to be there over and above what was initially agreed to.