Mountain Biking In Cali Officially Screwed.

Photo of Taylor courtsey of Terry Martin, at Terr4Sports.com


Hi everyone. This is gonna take a while, so grab some lunch and a stiff cocktail and hang on. I may be a little pissed now, so that will add to the "spunk" of this one as well.

For 2007, some changes have occured. California will be cleaved into two separate racing divisions. Reminiscent of the Mason-Dixon Line, our Civil-War-Esque division has begun. Can I play Abe Lincoln, his hat was sweet. Instead of the usual 11 races we had to do, we have now been relegated to a mere five. Those races are;
March 25th, Bonelli; March 29th, Firestone; May 20th, Castaic; June 1st-2nd, Santa Barbara; June 30th-1st, Big Bear.
The Big Bear Shoot-Out will determine the best riders in their classes in the State. OOPS! It will just detrmine the best riders from Santa Barbara to Big Bear. My bad. "Hey mom, look at me, I won...I'm the best guy in FOUR COUNTIES!" sweet. We will also NOT have any point and a half races this year, and only four of the five will count toward your overall score, sixty points max per race.
Now, we all know how bad the RESULTS/AWARDS system is at TBB events here. With the already late 11am starts, we rarely escape these venues before 5 or 6pm. On a Sunday after racing, that puts people home just in time to change clothes and go to work. Well, in their infinite wisdom, the peeps at Blue Wolf/TBB have decided to push race starts back to TWO P.M.! Better gather some sick days, cuz you ain't makin' home in time for work. Oh, and did I mention that that the Firestone DH is scheduled for FRIDAY? Don't people have to work to pay for this shit on Fridays?
AND NOW FOR THE LADIES...

New rules have basically outlawed women from racing all together. Gather the Suffragettes and let's march on USA Cycling! Here are the rules as of now...

1...NO AGE CAT. separation for all Beginner and Sport ladies. That means if you are a 40 year old Sport woman, you get to race against 20 year old Sport women. That's fair, right?

2...Expert ladies only get three age groups, 19-29; 30-39; and 40+.

3...NO seperate designation for over forty women and beyond. Sweet.

Now, I may be missing the point here, but how is that making women actually want to continue racing? For a team like ours, that PROUDLY supports up to SEVEN women in all classes and age groups this an aggregiuos violation of not only the ladies who race, but the INDUSTRY COMPANIES WHO SUPPORT THEM.
By comparison, last year in the NORBA NCS Series, there were only four men in the 65+ age group. There were SIX women in EACH of these age groups (45-49 and 50-54, with one in the 55-59). How the hell is that fair?

OH, and another note...SAGEBRUSH SAFARI is not ahppening this year. When asked why, TBB/Blue Wolf said that due to the fire a year and a half ago, we couldn't race there. I just got off the phone with the Lake Morena Park Ranger, and he told me that as completely untrue, and that w ecould come down and ride today if we so pleased. Veronica Mars ain't got shit on me.

Peace out peeps..

Chris