I was not selected, outright, to be in the Leadville Trail 100 bicycle race this year. I got this:
Dear Leadville Trail 100 Family,
We deeply regret that we were unable to accept your application into
the 2010 Leadville Trail 100 Mountain Bike Race. We really wish we
could accommodate every interested rider, but we simply can’t. Our
goal and primary obligation is to offer every racer the nation’s
highest quality athletic experience with the utmost degree of safety,
medical care and racer support. The ever increasing numbers of
returning racers and new applicants are testimony we are meeting our
goal. We do not keep a waiting list and cannot yet accept entries for
2011…..
Further down in the body of the email was a note saying to contact Carmichael Training Systems to get into one (1) of three (3) training camps to still get into this year’s Leadville 100 race.
Evidently, if you get into the camp, pay your twelve-hundred ($1200+) plus dollars, they’ll let you into the Leadville 100 – at no additional cost! They (they being the Carmichael types) were only taking registrations by phone and only starting at 9 AM mountain time on February, 15th.
At 9 AM mountain time I began my quest to reach someone at Carmichael. Fifty-three (53) minutes of dialing and redialing later I got a recording saying, “we sold the fuck out.” Or something like that.
After being bummed, I called back and left a message to see if there’s such a thing as a waiting list for the camps. I wonder if I’ll even get a phone call back.
Being the pissed off, disappointed, hard-headed, hot-headed, person I am, it makes me think they’ve got quite the scam going here. Well son-of-a-bitch, you didn’t make it into the race BUT we’ll take $1,200 off you (in a guaranteed sell-out camp) to let you in anyway.
Today, I’m disillusioned. Tomorrow, I’ll mark my calendar to get my name in for 2011.
So that leaves me with, “now what?” The Highway 212 Gut Check is that same weekend. I could do that, I suppose. I could plan to go to Colorado anyway and do the other route of the San Juan Hut to Hut ride. I could stay home and dig trail.
Leadville was to be my big motivator to get my ass in condition to survive the rigors of the race. Now I’m searching for something to provide similar motivation. Any ideas???
Ride On.
4 comments:
You've probably seen the couple of blogs I've written on this. It does seem like quite the scam. Supporting the little broke mountain town is one thing, paying your way in for signing up with CTS is another.
Snakebite, take your pick of any number of 12, 24, or more hour races and focus on that as a primary goal for the year instead. There's also a little thing I see going around now called transwisconsin that a bunch of buddies are going to do- 550 miles similar to great divide.
Let me know when you find your motivational ride. I need one too. I might be willing to Gut Check again. Apparently I'm the one who brings crappy weather to the event however.
Sounds like a huge scam to me.
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