Well.... It will make training a lot easier! I was looking forward to it happening in April as it has become by kick off to spring event, but I feel it will probably be better for the area if it is moved.
Yeah, bummer about the trails, but our friends at Warrior's Society definitely made a good call here. I too used VQ as a kick start for the year and feel like I'll need to find another race to gear up for to get my butt in shape: http://www.mountainbikeradio.com/#.UoYVqGTXRO8
It was the most practical solution. We didn't want to completely cancel the event for 2015. Most people really didn't want to ride a modified course.....it is the VQ/CC....and skipping the first 20 miles would not be the VQ/CC. Doing the event in October, puts us about the same time around DST as it would in April...so the days are just about the same length. Most riders will be happy about the extra training time. A full summer of long days and nice weather to go out and train in. Biggest complaint I hear from people about having the event in March/April is how hard it is to train in the winter....so now they have no excuse.
The e-mail wasn't 100% clear so I have to ask, will the October route be the original route with MW up Maple or the announced modified route?
With 2015 being my first ever VQ, I'm happy I get additional time to train for it. I'm not sure if my wife is, seeing as how she's been letting me spend extra hours on my bike TO train for this and she's been saying that "once VQ is over" she'd reel in my riding hours some Now maybe I'll do the Ride for Rwanda as a good measure of my training progress.
Whether it was or not....some people are just never gonna be happy. Having the event in March/April....the common complaint I would always hear was, "it is too difficult to train during the winter...the days are too short/too cold/too wet." Now they have a summer of long, warm, dry days to train....and already the complaining has begun about it....probably by someone not even registered in the event.
Maybe you guys should move the event out of OC where riders aren't all wussies and/or fire road heros. Too hard to train in winter? BS... winter is prime Socal riding season. If it is cold just put more clothing on nancy! You can only take off so much clothing in summer. I've never had the desire to do VQ/CC because so much of the route is fire road and the descents not really worth the climbs IMO. Paying $$$ to ride fire road? No thanks..... Put it on some more worthwhile descents ala Push a Kona or Ultraquest and I would be more in. Up Trabuco, down Bell/Yeager, up HJ, down Coldwater, up ITT, down Joplin. Or up Trabuco, down Pinos, up SJT, down Bell. Now that will give people visions.....
Personally Like training whenever. The only real positive thing is I won't have to do as much training at night as I did before, but who am I kidding.... I'm probably going to ride just as much this spring anyway. I think it will also be cool to see what the event is like in October vs April. That's cool.... Keep the desire to do something else. This event sells out so fast we don't need any more competition trying to get in. In all seriousness though, this is a REALLY fun event overall. The first time I signed up it was because I didn't think I could finish it and wanted the challenge (made it no problem). Now I'm kind of hooked and look forward to the training and the chit chatting with people I don't know on the long climbs. I met mtnbikej when we climbed WHT together on last years ride, along with a few others. Like some many other great events, the Pow Wow becomes more about the experience, atmosphere, and people than about the course. Yeah, the climbs are fire roads, but at least you aren't stuck dealing with passing or getting passed on single track for the first 2 hours of the event. That's something I know people have struggled with at other big events (ex Whiskey).
FYI-Push-a-Kona and the UltraQuest are BOTH in Orange County. Also both events have roots from the Vision Quest. Just sayin
Date change should not matter, You should always be 85% fit year round for "any" event. One thing i learned, season change in California, is cake walk. None the less- in the off season, you should implement rigorous gym training (in the weight room) that of a controlled environment. OTH and VQ/CC are two different entities...... However, CC loop is the easy part, training for such event is the hard part. OTH was a bit more difficult- training during the series is easy, racing per individual event on Tuesday's was the hard part. Just a thought-
I got a call today from a buddy who said he got an email that the race was moved back to April? He was reading it on his phoen and was in the field so he said he may have misread something. I never received an email and told him I doubt it was moved again. Any truth to this? Did anyone else get an email?
We moved the 2015 event to October.....2016 event will go back to April. So, yes....if are lucky...you could get to do it twice in 6 months.