{"id":121,"date":"2011-10-25T12:27:37","date_gmt":"2011-10-25T12:27:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tjkopena.com\/blogs\/outdoors\/?p=121"},"modified":"2011-10-25T12:27:37","modified_gmt":"2011-10-25T12:27:37","slug":"eccc-mtb-2011-uvm-easterns-catamountkingdom-trails","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tjkopena.com\/blogs\/outdoors\/2011\/10\/eccc-mtb-2011-uvm-easterns-catamountkingdom-trails\/","title":{"rendered":"ECCC MTB 2011: UVM Easterns @ Catamount\/Kingdom Trails"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Two weekends ago wrapped up this fall’s ECCC MTB season. \u00a0A short race report is in the wrap-up<\/a>. \u00a0Full results are on the calendar<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Alongside the now classic Catamount races, this weekend debuted yet another new venue to the conference. \u00a0In fact, as far as we can tell, the races on Burke Mountain in the Kingdom Trails were the first races ever allowed in the trail system. \u00a0Speaking to one of the KTA people afterward, they said they approved the event in order to get more exposure among our racers. \u00a0I think that’s awesome and hopefully it worked out. \u00a0Certainly Sully and I talked up the Kingdom an awful lot. \u00a0The weather wasn’t really compelling to keep riding, it was kind of dreary and wet all day Sunday, but I think a number of people did partake of the opportunity to go ride the other trails.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Men's A lines up.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Yep... How the mighty have fallen.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Heading off into the fields.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Women's A in the opening stretch.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Not too surprisingly, the weekend had a good bit more riders than the generally small season has had. \u00a0At about 140 riders on Saturday despite the weather—periodic rain and even thunderstorms—attendance was really solid. \u00a0Even better, about 110 made the long transfer from Burlington to East Burke, surprisingly good retention. \u00a0I had been guessing more like ~80, so that was pretty exciting.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Apparently it was a little tiring out there.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Yep. And these guys did really well!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
We laugh at the suffering of others...<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Even beyond that, I had a great weekend. \u00a0Catamount is basically like a home race at this point. \u00a0Even though we transferred over to Burke Saturday night, we still managed to drop by and see the Sullivans for a bit. \u00a0Keeping up with an unplanned, implicit tradition, I also got a call Sunday from an old friend I’d been trying to get a hold of for a while. \u00a0We only talk basically a couple times a year, and MTB Easterns Sunday has just happened to be one of those days the past couple years.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Slalom time!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Airborne.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
The banquet.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There was a lot of talk at the banquet about what to do for next year. \u00a0Lots of people seem pretty intrigued by Eliminator format racing and some of the other potential changes and additions we’ve introduced. \u00a0Other people are real hesitant to break from pattern. \u00a0Either way, I don’t think it’ll really change much unless we manage to really change the promoters and teams. \u00a0 Short track isn’t unpopular because it’s intrinsically bad. \u00a0It’s unpopular in large part because most of the courses are pretty unpleasant. \u00a0We’re going to face the exact same problems with Eliminator unless promoters get more serious about making good courses, rather than just showing up at a mountain and being handed some fire road to race on.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Men's a STXC lines up.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Hughes and Jesus goin' at it!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Hamlin showing them all how it's done.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Bella and Marie tearing around the STXC.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
A sprint for the line.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Generally next year I think we need to get more serious about a bunch of things. \u00a0License control has gotten a bit too lax, there were a number of riders needed things fixed for nationals. \u00a0We’ll probably also have a more formal promoter process with the race deposits and so on to prevent issues we had this year. \u00a0What the scoring crew will look like I have no idea. \u00a0Sam’s talking about moving out west, which would be really unfortunate in many ways. \u00a0I would miss him a lot, and it would be a big loss of knowledge and experience. \u00a0Scoring went extremely well this year. \u00a0For example, we were ready for and whipped through the Easterns awards ceremonies in no time. \u00a0Hopefully Stu and\/or Tim would still be available so we would not be training an entirely new set of people.<\/p>\n

In any event, that’s the end of yet another ECCC MTB season.<\/p>\n

Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.<\/em><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two weekends ago wrapped up this fall’s ECCC MTB season. \u00a0A short race report is in the wrap-up. \u00a0Full results are on the calendar. Alongside the now classic Catamount races, this weekend debuted yet another new venue to the conference. \u00a0In fact, as far as we can tell, the races on Burke Mountain in the … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “ECCC MTB 2011: UVM Easterns @ Catamount\/Kingdom Trails”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[24,43,76],"class_list":["post-121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eccc","category-mtb","tag-eccc-2","tag-mtb-2","tag-uvm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tjkopena.com\/blogs\/outdoors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tjkopena.com\/blogs\/outdoors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tjkopena.com\/blogs\/outdoors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tjkopena.com\/blogs\/outdoors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tjkopena.com\/blogs\/outdoors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tjkopena.com\/blogs\/outdoors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tjkopena.com\/blogs\/outdoors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tjkopena.com\/blogs\/outdoors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tjkopena.com\/blogs\/outdoors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}