Forgive me for I have sinned

Submitted by Kris Thompson on

Forgive me fellow racers for I sinned against you. I knew it was wrong but the selfish racer inside of me came out and took advantage of a questionable barrier situation. As you might be able to tell from the photos that there was about 3 feet of space on the right side of the barriers on the rt and about 1 foot on the left side. This taping was not due to a crash and a spectator putting it back up like happened at Louisville CX this was done by the course designer. This is different than what some riders had done at Louisville and seemed fine in my tired state but after I did it, it felt dirty doing it. Also you might be able to see many tire tracks on the far right side of the barriers so by the 5th lap I was thinking "hey, the leaders must be doing this (but I found out later they were not), maybe the course designer was just messing with us by making these barriers optional", but even my 9 year old son who raced today knew that you were suppose to ride the barriers. I apologize to all for doing this. Great course today, the BMX track offered something different but mother nature kicked us in the balls. We'll put up a separate story to cover the race.

After the race I spoke to the head official and he said that the intent is to ride the barriers and not to go around them, he will be reminding the remaining categories to go over the barriers.


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8 Comments

In the spirit of the race

Submitted by Michael Schaub (not verified) on

We all know that as long as the tape gives you room it's legal... technically speaking. But in the spirit of competition, we all know what the barriers are for, so do we really need to stretch the rules? With that being stated, does riding on the grass instead of the sand pit(Louisville)hold to the same scrutiny? I believe barriers are barriers, if you can escape other obstacles because of tape placing go for it. Opinions?

Come on

Submitted by Clay Harris (not verified) on

Go and sin no more - you're forgiven, but look at all the tracks over there? Brutal! Come on guys - you know you're supposed to go over barriers.

We saw Chris Jones doing this last week at USGP (on the upper railroad ties - there was a foot gap) and we heckled him mercilessly. Then he did it on the last lap and got tangled in a bit of course tape - karma.

Here he was in LA "running the barriers" http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/dam-cross-weekend-los-angeles-day-1-c2/...

Weak sauce!

Not Optional

Submitted by John Kerschner (not verified) on

Barriers should never be seen as "optional" in my opinion. The designer would not bother putting in barriers if they didn't want racers to go over them. Trying to "game" the course as stakes blow down, etc. is just wrong in my opinion.

I agree, barriers are to be used not avoided

Submitted by Kris Thompson on

I've thought about this a lot today and went over past comments and yes, barriers are for the riders to go over, not around. They are not optional! We don't need to rely on yellow tape to tell us that. Again, what I did was wrong. I'm not faulting the course designer, someone made the point that the wind was blowing the tape so maybe they were doing us a service by keeping the tape our of our way.