September 23rd, 2006
Three Peaks Tomorrow
John Rawnsley has posted up an article from a National paper the day after the very first running of the Three Peaks.
“Nothing much has changed only the distance and the number of competitors”.
In related news I was saddened to hear that some folks have been up on Whernside practising. Now, I was given to understand that mountain bikes were disallowed from the race because fat tyres were seen out on the course at other times of year, causing access issues for the race organisers*. Folk going out on CX bikes threatens the race in the same way.
One aspect of only allowing CX bikes in the race is that anyone out practising on a CX bike is pretty much guaranteed to be a three peaks racer. This makes it easier for the landowners to raise it as a legitimate problem with John, if they see it as such. I have been called on to name and shame. I’m not going to do that unless asked by the organisers themselves, and then only if it has been raised as a problem with them by a landowner.
However I do think some folk who do this race should practise some restraint rather than risk the race.
As one guy said:
John Rawnsley does a fantastic job every year negotiating with land owners to allow the race to take place at all, and I think we owe it to him and ourselves to back this up by not being “silly” in and around the area - that is if we want the race to continue in its current format.
* I should point out that I have no problem with banning MTBs in the name of tradition. So long as we can all agree that flat bars on cyclo-cross bikes aren’t traditional either.
![[Valid RSS]](http://32sixteen.com/wp-content/themes/three_column/images/valid-rss.png "Validate my RSS feed")
del.icio.us