When To "Pull The Plug"

Scene from Trans Iowa v6. Image by Steve Fuller.

 It was about 6:30pm on Saturday April 24th, 2010. My co-director of Trans Iowa, David Pals, and I were scrambling around Iowa County trying to re-route the course to eliminate about four sections of Level B Maintenance roads on the original course that would have been unrideable. 

This was a full 14 hours after we had already experienced a massive thunderstorm before the Sun rose which dumped about two inches of rain in a little more than an hour's time accompanied by copious amounts of ground to cloud lightning which had competitors scrambling for cover in muddy ditches. 

A respite of cloudy skies, but no rain, then ensued until late afternoon when the storms came back with redoubled strength, In the meantime, David and I had been redirecting the course around several mud-laden roads and we were making our way toward our next checkpoint in Tama County when we got word from our volunteer, Paul Buchanan, that the road leading to the checkpoint was impassable and under several feet of flood water. 

David and I were at the end of our ropes. We were frazzled, tired, and not just a little scared. Scared for the riders, since it was under our directives that they would be put in some amount of peril going forward. We thought we might be able to save the event from being truncated, so we settled on putting the riders on a paved blacktop road to traverse around the carnage. On our way to check out this possibility, we were stopped dead in our tracks by rain coming down so furiously that we had to stop the car because we were blinded. 

I sat there listening to the fury of that storm briefly. My mind was racing. Should we keep pressing on or should we call this madness off. The car had nearly been blown off the road a few times and the gravel was so soft the car was nearly put into the ditch. The riders were in danger. We were in danger!

I looked at David and asked, "Do you really want to keep driving in this stuff?" And he looked at me and said , "No!", with no hesitation. And that was the moment when we decided to end Trans Iowa v6 at North English, Iowa. 

David Pals, (R) with Travis Braun at the makeshift ending of T.I.v6

It was interesting as we pulled the remaining riders off the road in North English. Some were thankful to make an end of a miserable day. But a few were dismayed that they weren't being allowed to continue. None more so than Jay Petervary. 

It took a little convincing, but he finally saw the logic in what we had decided. Besides, it was what it was. No reason to continue to argue about it.

This subject, the cancellation or ending of an event, has cropped up again with the cancellation of the Traka Gravel Adventure Race in Girona, Spain due to flooding. An article in "Bikepacking.com" entitled "Should Bikepacking Races Be Cancelled Due To Weather?" has stirred up debate on this topic. Thoughts range from agreement, to downright disdain for anyone thinking that an event of this nature should be cancelled. 

Even Jay Petervary has weighed in with his opinion that riders should have a final say in what they can handle or not, to a degree. (I am paraphrasing severely for the sake of brevity here) However; I feel that there is much more complexity to this subject than many are willing to consider here. And to be completely fair, even JP has voiced that this is much more nuanced than some make it out to be. 

I feel I have a unique perspective regarding this subject having run an event of like distance to the Traka Gravel Race which is listed as being about 349 miles in length. Some Trans Iowa courses were right around that figure as well. And of course, as I have outlined above, we had to deal with weather issues, flooding, and more over the course of 14 years of running that event. So, I will say a few words about this based upon my observations and experiences.

Trans Iowa v11 by Wally Kilburg

First of all, you have the rider's side of the story. Athletes who have invested copious amounts of time, effort, money, and thought into a singular event attempt. To have that ripped away from them by a cancellation or by a truncated course is a hard, hard pill to swallow. 

Sometimes the bitter taste of that pill should have been expected. Take the uproar over last season's Unbound where a muddy three mile stretch of road a short way into the 200 mile course ended a lot of folks days. The riders who damaged equipment there were livid and majorly disappointed. No wonder, since they had spent a large sum of money just to get there only to have it all dashed away by the course being routed on an unrideable section of road. I understand that 100%, but again, this is gravel and that does happen at gravel events like Unbound. So, there is a level of responsibility placed on the riders to understand what they are getting into. 

In the case of the Traka Gravel Race, the event was cancelled before anyone even had a chance to ride any miles. That makes that a different thing in the minds of many. But on the other hand, not a lot of that matters to a Race Director, or organization, as long as it is being run by people that care about the well-being of others. Derailleurs can be replaced. You can always try the event again someday. But loss of life, or the high probability of that happening? That's a tough balancing act for any race RD. 

Speaking only for myself, I was willing to take the heat from disappointed racers if I pulled the plug on any event I was involved in. I had to pull the plug on the Big Wheeled Ballyhoo in 2008, as an example, due to flooding, before the event happened. I've had to cancel an event due to a pandemic. So, yeah, I have been there, done that. I took some heat in both instances, but I don't care. At least I could go to sleep at night afterward knowing nothing could happen to people because I did not insist that "the show must go on". 

Dan Hughes marching up a muddy Level B Road during T.I.v13

However; sometime the show does go on. As has been stated, this is a nuanced subject. I've also been in charge of running an event which was on the knife edge of insanity and reason, as an example. I just wrote about such a thing recently here on the blog. You've got to have a stomach for gambling at times as an RD in these sorts of events to allow for competitors to have those experiences that, maybe, should not be allowed. But you roll the dice, no one gets killed, and the people all hold the event in legendary status. However; if one thing goes wrong and someone does die?

Yeah, nobody wants that. So, can you blame RD's for cancelling an event a bit prematurely if you are an adventurous soul? You have to allow for the fact that not everyone is as crazy as you are. And that has to be okay. You don't go to bed at night hearing the voices in their head asking why they didn't do this or that after something goes wrong. The RD that cancels an event in stead of risking it all is only trying to keep their sanity and peace of mind so that they can live at peace and put on an event again in the future. 

Of course, if you do not agree with that you have options as a rider. You do not have to go to those events. And if you do, I would suggest that a little empathy for the race directors in any adverse situation that might arise is a good thing. There is a LOT more going on than you might think, and you may only know a small percentage of that. 

That's my take, but let me know what you think in the comments.