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| This road is on the Victory Ride route. |
As of right now I believe we will have about ten folks on this Victory Ride that have contacted me and committed to being there. A few are from pretty far away, so I have to say "Thank You" for making the sacrifices you are making to show up. I sure hope that everything measures up for you all that plan on being there.
It is hard to say what the weather will be, but the ten day forecast says Saturday the 15th will be a pretty typical Summer day in Iowa for June. Mid 80's, lots of Sunshine, and winds out of the South-Southwest at 10 - 15mph. (Then a day later it changed to cloudy, 80's, and rain in the afternoon, then the day after THAT it flipped back!) Whatever happens with the weather, we are riding unless it is severe weather or lightning out.
Please be prepared with Sunscreen, lip balm, water, and food to eat. We don't want anyone bonking out there! Just a reminder that we should have a few opportunities for water, at least one stop where food could be had, and several stops along the 50+ mile loop N.Y. Roll plotted out for this thing.
About that course, it hasn't been 100% reconned. Parts have been ridden by either N.Y. Roll or myself, so we're fairly confident that the roads are there. However; surprises happen and I don't want anyone to think that there may not be any reroutes on the fly. Please be patient if something comes up where we have to do some on-the-route routing. Consider this an adventure ride.
And as a reminder, Warren is bringing a stencil and paint. If you bring a light colored or white t-shirt he can spray paint you a special t-shirt as a commemorative souvenir for this ride.
Okay, that's all for now on that....
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| Image courtesy of Life Time/Unbound |
The Gravel Is Not Made For TV:
I saw an article posted on social media that had a headline telling us all that saw it that a certain editor wasn't all that excited about Unbound because it wasn't broadcast so he could watch it.
Let me first say that, "Nobody likes a whiner", and that sounded like whining to me.
I also am assuming that what really was the problem here wasn't that this individual couldn't "see what happened" because it was all over social media, You Tube, and elsewhere after the event. Even Instagram stories were being posted pretty much as things were going down. No, what the issue stems from is not being able to see a live broadcast with commentary as the event unfolds.
Man! Are we that spoiled? Can't a race unfold without all that necessary hoopla, money, and danger to the riders that live broadcasting of such an event would certainly cause/entail? Do we really need this?
Ultimately, that is not up to me. Life Time will do whatever they want to do. But if I had any say in the matter there would never be any such thing happening at all for any gravel event. Gravel events don't need to be live broadcast, we spoiled brats just feel entitled and if we are willing to fork over some bucks to stream it, we will "be entertained" at the expense of athlete's safety and at the expense of fairness.
We've already seen multiple instances of motos and cars taking out riders during events and multiple instances of riders drafting off vehicles. Why? So someone can turn out a few more bucks so we can be entertained?
Lame.
Can you imagine riding through the dust kicked up by camera motorcycles or cars on dry days, or the muddy ruts left at times if it was wet?! I guess filming could all be by drones or helicopters but that just seems weird, like someone is disturbing the peace looking for fugitives in the countryside! I agree that not watching a live broadcast is fine, there is enough on social media already. But in five or ten years maybe there will be cameras on the competitor’s bikes, like NASCAR or Indy has on each car. Oh well.
ReplyDelete@tntmoriv - Exactly. I think what is missing in most every take I see on this year's Unbound is that the weather was PERFECT. That is not going to happen every year, or again, maybe ever.
ReplyDeleteI'll add to you dust and mud the wind. Imagine those motos trying to navigate filming Lachlan and Chad Haga duking it out with a 20mph crosswind. Yeah..... And if you saw the final miles into Emporia, you would have also noted that they were passing a fair number of slower, lower class riders and imagine if they were dealing with wind as well. It would have been a LOT more dicey.
Cameras on the cyclists is another interesting idea. Wasn't that a thing for a while? I find it curious that we did not notice a lot of that this year. GoPro cameras seem to be less prevalent these days. Perhaps people got tired of that sort of viewpoint and moved on? Maybe it is still a thing but we are not noticing it as much?
I had a person post a link to a stop action video they had taken during the Trans Iowa v10 which was done using a camera that took a random image at predetermined intervals. The video was then set to a music track. Kind of herky-jerky to watch. But it reminded me of how that was a popular thing around 2014 or so. Maybe GoPro cameras have become kind of out of vogue for similar reasons?
UCI World Cup XC is live streamed with riders on E-Bikes and a partnership woth GoPro. There are even volunteer drone operators. It reminds me of the old days of H.A.M operators and trackside bivy campers. It is possible.
ReplyDeleteTrackside Bivy Campers is a great band name…
ReplyDeleteAny chance that the route can be shared so we can make sure we have it on our device of choice?
ReplyDelete@Rydn9ers - Try copying and pasting this link to Ride With GPS : https://ridewithgps.com/routes/46634460
ReplyDeleteI *think* that is the final route N.Y. Roll came up with. I'll repost a link if I find out that isn't it after talking with him today.
Worked like a charm. Thanks
ReplyDeleteI got it downloaded too… Thank you!!
ReplyDelete