The Blue Butterfly Fund's Unbelievably Inaptly Named
Rocktober Challenge MTB Marathon
brought to you by visitPA.com and the visitPA.com MTB Team With help from Pennsylvania’s DCNR
Saturday May 16, 2009
RB Winter State Park and Bald Eagle State Forest

Dear Friends and Racers,

It is with much regret that I am canceling the Rocktober Challenge Marathon and XC events scheduled for this weekend.

Unfortunately this race takes a large number of volunteers to staff in order to keep everyone safe and on course and I can not ask thirty volunteers to give up their time for 30 racers. One solution would be to run with fewer volunteers, but the first time I ran this event I did it with a much smaller staff and had someone vandalize the course sending people in all directions through the forest in a pretty remote part of the state. That was not a good day. As you can imagine, I am not comfortable running the race with fewer staff and would rather cancel the race than run it with a skeleton crew and risk rider safety.

This is really tough for me because I love this race and this course and I truly believe it is one of the best places to mountain bike anywhere. Unfortunately I can not seem to convince many other people that the riding here is worth the drive.

The family and I are still be headed up to RB Winter this weekend as we have a campsite reserved and I'm planning to ride the wonderful trails anyway. Mike Faust and I are going to do a lap of the course on Saturday and you're welcome to join me for part or all of it. We're going to keep rolling, but certainly not at race pace - nice and steady pace. We just want to get out and enjoy the work we've done so far to get the trails in condition for the event. Please let me know if you're coming out and will be joining me for the lap so I know to expect you. The ride will depart at 9AM from the main pavilion if you're coming out.

Get out to RB Winter and Bald Eagle some time this summer. If you've not been there you're missing out. If you have get back and find some of the new trails we've opened because it doesn't get better than this. And, this race will be back in the future in some form - we're not leaving this place alone.

On a different note - look for Festival registration to open in the very near future - the next 48-72 hours and get on it quick for the special early registration offer.

Bummed,
Mike