I rode Swanson last night and it was already pretty muddy! ....and I woke up to the rain down here in Bellevue and it habs been raining for almost 2 hours .
I say race is on. Let's do it like the Heartland Series who race rain or shine. Honestly, look back at how muddy the first Swanson Race was, then remember how sweet the trails have been since the race. I'm not convinced that racing in the mud hurts the trails. It may actually help.
Even if it stops raining now, we're looking at 90% humidity through tomorrow morning ... no way (IMO) it'll be rideable tomorrow. We all know how FAST Swanson drys :-). I'm not real thrilled about trashing another rear derailleur, so my vote would be to postpone.
cc, your picture tells the story...i agree..it's one thing when the rain moves in the day of the race as in the case of manawa, another when we have the steady onslaught. don't know who makes the decisions on this, but prudence says stay away and i think prudence is a babe! even though i'm not a racer, i don't wanna see the trail torn up...thanks for the info cc
riding a trail when it's wet is not respecting it.
and I agree, it's not setting a good example.
if you do race a muddy track. you can't bitch about someone going out there and trashing it with their huffy and leaving a deep rut and foot prints the whole way through the park.
CC, did you have to get off the bike and clear the mud to continue riding last night?
From my observations on the wet races we've held this year, the trails do not come out trashed. As long as there is no standing water on the trail, just occassional grease, hundreds of bikes passing over actually smooths out and dries the trail more quickly. Now if we're leaving half pipes, than it is damaging.
I don't want another first lap of the Sp/Ex race like the last Swanson or the Jr/Beg race at Manawa. But that occurred because we had rain just before the start. Forecasts show about 12 hours from the last 30% chance of rain and 20 hours from a greater chance.
Psycowpath Committee and the Midwest Wheelmasters are working out if/then scenarios. Since we put in trailwork hours too, THOR's perspective is taken into account as well.
That's ok mg your entilted to your ho. Believe me there are manytimes where I don't ride the trails because it's wet. But I ride Swanson more than anywhere else and do my share of trail work there. I have never had to fix any ruts or smooth any trails because of bikes. Horses on the other hand tear that place a new one everytime they go out when it's soft. So maybe we'll help the trails by having the race and keeping the horses off when it's soft.
I agree with Dale about bikes smoothing and drying the trail. Yea, we may have a few slick areas but after one or two laps everything is mostly dry. Plus it's not like 100% of the trail is wet. I'd say last night the trail was 90% dry and 10% wet twelve hours after the rain.
I know it's hard not to think your ruining the trails when it's muddy but after looking at Swanson this past week I can't see any damage we did from the last race.
If anything I say we move the start times back a few hours. It's rained almost every race this year. How do we know it won't next time if we postpone it? Let's get this series over with.
Well... I'm new to this Mt. Bike thing so I'll leave the decisions up to somebody more knowledgeable than myself but I though I'd provide input on what the trails were like Thursday night.
When I got there at 5:30 there were 4 other riders getting ready to leave after they had finished riding. Their bikes were spotted well with mud but not covered. They mentioned to me that it was VERY slick on the trail.
At 6:15 I took off with a group to ride a few laps. The first lap was a bit dicey on the turns and about 10% of the trail had spots that would collect mud on my tires. I would guess that I was only leaving a trail in those slick spots as the rest of the trail was in pretty good shape. My tires would usually clear off a bit between those muddy spots.
After the first lap I took a little break to wait for some of the faster guys to come back around. I would guess that there were around 9-12 people turning laps last night between 6:00 and 8:00 with that group of 4 doing laps prior to that. So, with some people doing more than one lap, probably 20-30 bikes had passed over the trail by the time I started my second lap.
On the second lap the trail was noticably better and easier to ride. I only kicked mud up on myself a couple times and my tires didn't load up as much. There were still some pretty wet spots w/ standing water but the spots that were just a tad muddy on my first lap were much better by now.
As for the weather. We got a lot a rain last night but I don't think we got as much last night as we did on Wednesday night. But I could be wrong. There is a pretty big storm passing to the north of omaha right now. So we may end up dodging a thunderstorm this afternoon. If we don't get any more rain tonight then the trail should be in better condition tomorrow than it was last night. However, the % chance of rain tonight seems to be going up.
Anyways... see you all in the morning... even if it is just to go for a ride on the Keystone.
13 comments:
Have fun suckas. :)
yeah, i'm pretty sure it'll be dry too. you know that place is like concrete...
... ahem. i think it's safe to say we'd be seriously messing up the trail to ride, let alone race on it right now. that's not cool at all.
I say race is on. Let's do it like the Heartland Series who race rain or shine. Honestly, look back at how muddy the first Swanson Race was, then remember how sweet the trails have been since the race. I'm not convinced that racing in the mud hurts the trails. It may actually help.
I wasn't planning on racing
But I know how pissed I am when someone rides wilderness when it's soft and messes up the flow by leaving ruts.
just not a cool idea.
Isn't there a Thor bi-law that says if your leaving tracks to stay off the trail...
if you have the race, your probably gonna cut the fields in half at least.
no reason not to pospone,
or cancle and move the state champion ships to the Caves date.
just my 2 cents.
Even if it stops raining now, we're looking at 90% humidity through tomorrow morning ... no way (IMO) it'll be rideable tomorrow. We all know how FAST Swanson drys :-). I'm not real thrilled about trashing another rear derailleur, so my vote would be to postpone.
cc, your picture tells the story...i agree..it's one thing when the rain moves in the day of the race as in the case of manawa, another when we have the steady onslaught. don't know who makes the decisions on this, but prudence says stay away and i think prudence is a babe! even though i'm not a racer, i don't wanna see the trail torn up...thanks for the info cc
Thor,
trail have our respect.
even if that races goes on,
riding a trail when it's wet is not respecting it.
and I agree, it's not setting a good example.
if you do race a muddy track.
you can't bitch about someone going out there and trashing it with their huffy and leaving a deep rut and foot prints the whole way through the park.
CC, did you have to get off the bike and clear the mud to continue riding last night?
From my observations on the wet races we've held this year, the trails do not come out trashed. As long as there is no standing water on the trail, just occassional grease, hundreds of bikes passing over actually smooths out and dries the trail more quickly. Now if we're leaving half pipes, than it is damaging.
I don't want another first lap of the Sp/Ex race like the last Swanson or the Jr/Beg race at Manawa. But that occurred because we had rain just before the start. Forecasts show about 12 hours from the last 30% chance of rain and 20 hours from a greater chance.
Psycowpath Committee and the Midwest Wheelmasters are working out if/then scenarios. Since we put in trailwork hours too, THOR's perspective is taken into account as well.
That's ok mg your entilted to your ho. Believe me there are manytimes where I don't ride the trails because it's wet. But I ride Swanson more than anywhere else and do my share of trail work there. I have never had to fix any ruts or smooth any trails because of bikes. Horses on the other hand tear that place a new one everytime they go out when it's soft. So maybe we'll help the trails by having the race and keeping the horses off when it's soft.
I agree with Dale about bikes smoothing and drying the trail. Yea, we may have a few slick areas but after one or two laps everything is mostly dry. Plus it's not like 100% of the trail is wet. I'd say last night the trail was 90% dry and 10% wet twelve hours after the rain.
I know it's hard not to think your ruining the trails when it's muddy but after looking at Swanson this past week I can't see any damage we did from the last race.
If anything I say we move the start times back a few hours. It's rained almost every race this year. How do we know it won't next time if we postpone it? Let's get this series over with.
I just did the math from the NOAA website. At Offut, they've received 2 3/4 inches of rain since Wednesday. It's saturated ground at this point.
Hmmm...
Well... I'm new to this Mt. Bike thing so I'll leave the decisions up to somebody more knowledgeable than myself but I though I'd provide input on what the trails were like Thursday night.
When I got there at 5:30 there were 4 other riders getting ready to leave after they had finished riding. Their bikes were spotted well with mud but not covered. They mentioned to me that it was VERY slick on the trail.
At 6:15 I took off with a group to ride a few laps. The first lap was a bit dicey on the turns and about 10% of the trail had spots that would collect mud on my tires. I would guess that I was only leaving a trail in those slick spots as the rest of the trail was in pretty good shape. My tires would usually clear off a bit between those muddy spots.
After the first lap I took a little break to wait for some of the faster guys to come back around. I would guess that there were around 9-12 people turning laps last night between 6:00 and 8:00 with that group of 4 doing laps prior to that. So, with some people doing more than one lap, probably 20-30 bikes had passed over the trail by the time I started my second lap.
On the second lap the trail was noticably better and easier to ride. I only kicked mud up on myself a couple times and my tires didn't load up as much. There were still some pretty wet spots w/ standing water but the spots that were just a tad muddy on my first lap were much better by now.
As for the weather. We got a lot a rain last night but I don't think we got as much last night as we did on Wednesday night. But I could be wrong. There is a pretty big storm passing to the north of omaha right now. So we may end up dodging a thunderstorm this afternoon. If we don't get any more rain tonight then the trail should be in better condition tomorrow than it was last night. However, the % chance of rain tonight seems to be going up.
Anyways... see you all in the morning... even if it is just to go for a ride on the Keystone.
....How is that for a long comment.
Uh oh ... it's raining again ...
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