I have had my eyes on the American Mountain Classic, a 4-day mountain bike stage race, since April. I finally decided to do it an started training for it at the end of June. Let's just say that I hope that the race itself is easier than trying to figure out what the heck the race organizers are thinking.
A few weeks back Blue Wolf Events announced that they were combining the NMBS finals with the Stage Race on Aug. 21-24. Everyone complained, so one week later they announced that they had changed their minds and moved the finals back to the week after the stage race, August 29-31. This past Thursday they sent out an email saying they had moved the Stage Race to combine with the finals a week later, August 29-31. This put everyone in a tizzy, including me. I quickly called all my friends who were going to share a 4BR condo with me during the race, told them the news and they all changed their plans accordingly. (Most of them decided not to race because they couldn't change their plans and committed to another event)
Later that evening I got another email from Blue Wolf, stating that they had made a mistake and that the press release they sent out was incorrect. The Stage Race was in fact on as planned. They were sorry for any inconvenience they had caused.
Good Lord.
We have now most likely lost our $750 deposit on the condo rental I canceled. My buddies have already changed their plans and it seems like they are going to loose their entry fees. I am still planning on racing, but geeze-louise, could someone please get it together in the next week and a half? There are no course maps posted yet and no one seems to really know if this thing is actually going to happen as planned. Stay tuned. One thing is for sure: I will be on the start line on the 21st!
I have to give the race organizers some props: at some point in the last few days they fixed what seemed to me to be a serious mistake in judgment. For the last few months they had been advertising that the pro men's payout would be significantly higher then the women's. ($2500 for the pro male winner, $1000 for the pro female). They have now remedied the situation and have made the women's payout equal to the men's. Attack of conscience? Who cares, they have done the right thing!
1 comment:
Bummer that they appear not to have their shit together but good on 'em for stepping up with the women's prize money. I am rooting for you to bring home that phat check.
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