Photo Credit: Ultra Rob

What do the Triple Bypass, the Leadville 100 MTB race and The Growler all have in common other than being a some times humbling experience? They all sold out very quickly and in some cases the first day of registration. The big races / events / tours are filling up faster and faster. If you are not prepared to register when registration opens, you could miss out.

We created pages for each event with alternatives that have similar features and have not yet filled up. (Although, even some of the alternative events are now full! The Growler is an example.) We have the Triple Bypass Alternatives and Leadville 100 MTB Alternatives pages. Lets hope we don't have to create another page this Thursday. Of course we're prepared to do so.

Deja Vu????

Koppenberg has been Postponed to April 3rd!

Koppenberg Circuit, Saturday, April 3rd
UPDATE 3/26/10 1:40pm -
We are postponing the race until next Saturday, April 3rd. Thanks for your patience. The snow did not melt as much as we expected and the impending weather keeps looking worse. We did line up a gravel dump to help our cause but after consulting with our soil experts, it may not have made much of difference if there was still some deep snow.

Next week's weather is much dryer so a much less chance of a mud issue. It's not much more work for us to delay one week, especially if we could avoid a cluster.

Next week, same plan. As we threatened last year, we will go ahead with the race no matter the conditions. Worst case, Sunday's weather looks great, so the 9:45am wave should happen and definitely the 11:40 and later waves will be on.

Here are the expected options ...
A. It will be dry and racing will proceed as normal.

Sundays "A" field results look like a 40+ masters field, right? A fluke maybe, well look at the last "A" field results and it looks pretty similar.

I apologize for not doing this story justice by not going into great depth but isn't it amazing that many of the fast guys in Colorado are over 35 years of age?

Let's name drop here for a moment

When you ride on that big group ride, how consciously aware are you to the image you create, the snapshot in others minds and the connectedness you have with the environment around you? Every time we throw a leg over the top tube we instantly become a representative of cycling and that representation can exponentially grow as the size of the group does. Much like the related current term of "conscious capitalism" one can think of this as "conscious cycling", specifically in regards to group rides as "enjoying the ride while being mindful of others within the group and those sharing the same resources as you". That statement can also apply to individual road riders, mountain bikers, commuters, and even those in others sports like running, rock climbing etc.

The Boulder County Sheriff's Office is looking for means to get the cycling community to "Self-Police" themselves while reaching out to cyclists to understand our side of the story, express problem areas, educate law breaking group rides and communicate the law without having to engage in strict enforcement. The Boulder County Department of Transportation is also engaged in an outreach program with the recent survey on motorist and cyclist tensions in the canyons. The Cyclist/Motorist Canyon Work Group was created by Boulder County Transportation and they really are looking for successful means to have cyclists and motorist exist in harmony on our roads.

Conscious Cycling

Hopefully, the majority of the readers of this site are already practicing "Conscious Cycling" and to some degree they Self-Police their peers in daily cycling activities, whether its riding solo or on a club ride. It's that 10% that refuses to be respectful and courteous to other road users and who tarnish the county-wide image of cyclists. It is also that 10% who spark the type of comments we've all heard at some time or another, "you aren't one of those guys flying down hwy 36 taking up the whole traffic lane are you?" Don't you get tired of trying to defend the image of group riding?

Self-policing is perhaps the best tool to help ensure we have access, safety, and fun as we ride with our peers. It will also require leaders willing to speak up and break the large group you're in into several smaller groups or say something when the group ride you are on fans out into the traffic lane and impedes the flow of traffic? That's exactly what needs to happen if the group rides of Boulder County are going to survive the ever growing use of roadways by both motorists and cyclists. The County and the Sheriff's Office can't attempt to educate cyclists and motorists forever. If we don't learn from that education, group rides like Gateway and Bustop could receive increased attention from the County, potentially causing them to disappear from Boulder County altogether. The time to clean up our act is now as group rides could be gone tomorrow.

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