Tuesday, 3 April
One of my hat victims brought to my attention this morning a previously little-known event: the Local Yarn Shop Tour. This is sort of like a pub crawl or art walk, but you visit LYSs instead. And these are spread out from Bellingham to Renton. If you visit all 20 shops over the weekend of 18-20 May, your name is entered in a drawing to win a $400 gift certificate from the LYS of your choice.
The problem with this tour is that you could (well, I could) EASILY spend more than $400 in the process of visiting 20 LYSs. That's only $20 at each one. It would be like sending me to visit 20 chocolatiers, except that I would have material to supply many more hat and scarf and baby blanket victims instead of just more fat to drag up climbs.
The good thing about this is that it makes the perfect alibi for missing the new/old Enumclaw omnium. I could even make it a training weekend: take the train to Bellingham and ride my way south, visiting all the LYSs along the way. Ideally, the training would be on the tandem, but I can't think of a single one of my tandem partners who would be remotely interested in this pursuit.
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9 comments:
Woah.
Yarny.
On the plus side, at least it sounds more exciting than the neo 'claw, which appears to have lost its edge. Omnium? And, I hear, different course with no Mud Mtn, though that's yet to be confirmed on their website...
Exciting....probably not. Have you ever been to a LYS? It's more like sensory overload. Yeah, MOE's an omnium, where you can't win anything if you don't pay for all 3 stages. So just make it a SR. Oh yeah, that's too much work to score/time....
The MOE thing is funny. I'm shocked by how many people are upset about it (I’m on multiple NW cycling lists and there is a fair amount of complaining). To me, it makes sense. The turnout last year was WAY down. I think they changed it to an omnium for a couple reasons.
1) It allows people to race their bikes for one event only (similar to the Wenasty omnium...and a fair amount of people there do only one event).
2) It is easier on the promoter. I can't bash them there, nor should others unless their own club is promoting a timed stage race (one of the groups “bashing” the format does not really promote any of their own races, they just help David out with a certain race).
With the exception of Walla Walla I don't think there are any more timed stage races in WA. We all need to go to Oregon now for that. We will see what happens with Methow, hopefully they can make that into a timed event.
As far as changing the course. Good for them. From what I have heard it is a fantastic course. I'm not sure what the fascination with Mud Mountain was. Circuit races get really boring really quick. Mud Mountain will still be used, just not 5-8 times.
I spoke with a cat2 "old-timer" from WOW that us cat3s swallowed up while racing at Independence Valley. He reminisced of the old days (when he found out I live on the East side of that state) about all the great courses and stage races that used to be (Spokane, Lewiston, Moses Lake, Yakima). He came to the conclusion that people used to be willing to drive and now people won't. A prime example of this is the Rosalia Rock lake race which has a fantastic course that is ONE loop. No one came over. It really was too bad.
I guess I should step off my soapbox now...sorry about plugging up your comment area.
For the record, both Allison and I are VERY unhappy that MOE is now an omnium...but we understand. We’ll be there.
Change is good!
MOE needed a change as participation was going down. A new road coarse is perfect. It is still a climbers race.
I am personally in favor of ominimums as it is in my favor!
If we'd ever get our act together as a collective we could have more stage races/omniums using individually promoted races and such. Vision first, then planning, then executing... I'm fine with the Enumscratch Omniscratch... I could never do that RR... friggin MudMtn. We have an oppotunity to create something good for each other here if work together.
On a side note... there use to be an exceptional RR-Circuit Race 2 day combo in the Tri-Cities... I can't for the life of me remember the name of each... Paul Clement and Beau might remember it. I miss stuff like that.
Just to further this discussion more...Allison and I were talking last night how GREAT it would be if we had TST on Saturday followed by the Brad Lewis memorial (Boat street crit)on Sunday. We could get those ludicrously fast Canucks at both races.
Not a stage race or omnium but two of the bigger races in the NW back to back.
What I would hate to see around here is what George's does down in Boise with their "stage-race" that is spread over 6 or 8 weekends all based on elapsed time (i.e. you miss one race in the series and you are out of GC contention).
The Tumbleweed SR. I hold the women's course record for the hillclimb/prologue on Coffin Road (because it's only been held once!). Road race at Hanford where you REALLY don't want to go offroad. Still miss the courses in Yakima, too. And Ted was absolutely right about the Rosalia course. And the Lewiston SR.... I'm feeling old now....
No, i think 'ol Curls goes further back than that. I believe he's talking about the TreeTop Classic in Yaksville
Yes.. Tumbleweed is correct... although I remember the Tree Top Classic as well. AND Spokane River RR, and Malaga...
I want Tumbleweed back...
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