Dismay in the endurance world

I've been reading with dismay the sad state of affairs in the endurance racing world. It's quite a shame that for voicing an opinion One of cycling BLOG world's favorite sons has been suspended from the 24 Hours of Adrenaline worlds.

Man the dude had a countdown timer to that race for like almost 200 days. I've seen it tick down almost every day.

It's ironic. In the early days of the 24 hour craze, it was seen as the antithesis to the businesslike NORBA/UCI scene. Pure grass roots. Crazy costumes, crazy people, doing a crazy thing like riding for 24 hours.

And Yes, I was there. I rode in the 1996, 1997 and 1998 24 Hours of Canaan. Those events provided some of my defining moments in cycling, with some of my absolute best performances and one of my absolute worst. From my first time doing it where I was honored to race with my friend Denny who to me was the greatest bike handler I'd ever met. I was so in awe to ride with him and his crew. Till 3am in the morning when one of the guys decided he'd had enough and I had to do his lap, and then later on at 10am when I had to do his lap again.

To the next where our sport crew got 10th.

To the MUD year where I did a 1hr lap in 5hrs, and the year our open team won 2nd place against a team that only ran their woman the minimum requisite laps, and we ran our woman (my wife) through the night.



I've got the aprons, the frisbees and the Timbuk 2 bag to prove it.

I was there when John Stamstad payed 4 entry fees and wrote a different alias for him for each entry and did it solo. Sort of jump starting the 24 hour endurance craze. It was pretty cool to get passed by him and then try and hang on his wheel for a second.

But now the 24 hour scene has become as business like as the Norbas. With Laird the Ego suing this other dude. And the serious sponsorship going into the events.

Now it is things like the Single speed world championships and the SM 100 that are taking torch for the grass roots casual, fun, but still ride hard events.

This guy Stuart who is banning Jeff must not have a clue as to the reprocussions this may have over time. As many in the cycling world still poo-poo Blogs. Tell it to Krypotonite. See what they think about the power of the Blog and the Internet.

I hope it works out, and that Jeff get's his shot at the race he was counting down to. He deserves some credit too for not just lambastinig the guy for what he did. JK just stated the facts pro-fesh-en-al and all.