Congrats and a Rough Start
First and foremost, I’d like to give a big congratulation to Laura Van Gilder for winning the Eastern PA Best Rider March Madness p/b the Frying Dutchman Donut Shop & School House Coffee competition! She’s a pure class act and I’m happy to see her have won. Thanks again to everyone who voted. I will announce winners of coffee & donut prizes soon…stay tuned.
Next up – racing this past weekend, or should I say lack thereof. Rich Ruoff and his Road Cycling League looked to kick of their season of redemption, as well as his Super Series, this past Sat with the Yellow Springs Road Race. Despite having a decent number of preregs, especially for March, the notice went out Thu evening shortly before prereg was to close:
Ruoff, Ruoff, Ruoff. Here we go again. There are several theories floating around as to why he cancelled
I went back and looked at the map I used last year in planning the course to see why I didn’t see it. On the map I used, townships are divided by color. Unfortunately two townships share a similar color and I’m color blind. I just did not notice it!
I still shake my head and laugh, no matter how many times I’ve read that. I’m sorry; it’s just a lame excuse. Even if that were the case, it’s poor planning on his part. As a promoter it is his responsibility to make sure that all permits are in place long before the race is scheduled to go off. And considering that Ruoff is fighting a difficult battle to regain the trust of local racers, he damn well should have had his I’s dotted and T’s crossed. But he dropped the ball, big time.
Or did he? Some people think that he shut it down because he didn’t have enough preregs. This is possible; we’ve seen it done many times in the past. But as one seasoned rider pointed out, in early season it’s difficult to prereg due to crazy weather changes. The forecast for the Sat was sunny and dry so undoubtedly more people would have registered day-off.
Another theory is that the permit thing *is* true, however he knew about it longer than he let on. Knowing that the race couldn’t go off, he still let prereg run its course and then notified people. This allowed him to lock in those racers already registered for his next race. An interesting theory for sure, but it’s also plausible.
We may never know the real story behind Yellow Sping, but this much is true – Ruoff did himself no favor by cancelling that race. Good luck with the rest of the season and your Super Series, just don’t be surprised if you don’t get the support you hoped for. Sad to say, but I think the win goes to Butterworth for that gran fondo he put on this past weekend; at least he didn’t cancel it.
You know what they say, Ruoff: fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…
It’s no secret that I’m a guy who makes a lot of excuses and this one seems pretty lame even to me. I cannot see a situation where I would ever do a Ruoff or Butternuts race again. Those two really should just hang it up and go away.
Color-blindness does seem like a pretty lame excuse– and you would think that with a lot of money getting thrown behind this, there would be double and triple-checking of maps, permits, etc. To Ruoff’s credit, however, he did offer full refunds of race reg fees– not just credit toward future races. Simply because I *really* want to see more local stage races, I will give Rich a pass on this one and reg for Ephrata and Coatesville down the line.
re: cancellation
It definitely sucks. The teams that pay their membership dollars to the PA Bar assoc. should really be pissed about the history of these cancellations, because on the surface it seems like nothing is being done to stabilize the racing calender here in PA.
It’s really hurting the “scene” in PA.
But…I’m with Shovel…I don’t really care. The days of me racing every weekend are long gone.
Spice – exactly, this kind of thing hurts the whole PA scene and the teams that put hard work in to promote a single race should be upset.
Matt – I think everyone wants to see the racing scene get better, especially in PA, so I do want Ruoff do better. But you can only give him so many passes. We’ll see what happens down the road with him.
Shovel – you make a lot of excuses? Hadn’t noticed.
I don’t buy the color blind bs, maybe I’m wrong but wouldn’t someone else have looked at the course and said, “hey Rich, your course runs through a 3rd township, you better get a permit from them”? And the weather for last saturday looked iffy until mid week. I was going to pre reg thus. nite, I bet there would have been a decent number of day-of’s as well.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Ephrata or Coatesville never happen.
I will think long and hard before I reg. for a Ruoff race
The race cancelation was due to human error and not pulling the plug due to low race numbers. The moeny is there for this series! So, unless you want to do 98% crits in pa it would be best to register or show up and race. Or, teams/clubs in PA could actually put on more races rather than have 5 team/clubs claim one race like the state road race.
Ruoff is going to have to do a LOT to regain the trust and confidence of the racers in PA and surrounding areas. Human error or not, it was a poorly executed plan. He’s been promoting races for a few decades, he should know better than to make sure a *simple* human error.
Regardless, I wouldn’t expect a huge amount of preregs for the next race from him. People don’t trust him. They’ll wait til day off. Will Ruoff be willing to face low prereg numbers? We’ll see.
there’s enough races out there that do not have the RR or Butternutz seal of approval on them and they’re pretty decent. road races and crits as well as stage races. i’ve raced or should i say “started” around 100-110 races over the last 3 seasons and i’d say 3-4 were RR events and non were from Butternutz.
Hey EMK,
IF the money is there for Rich, he should pay back all the rubber prize money checks he gave out. Alot of people lost a lot money from checks Ruoff wrote that couldn’t be cashed.
Bad karma will continue.
That is an EXCELLENT point. Not only the rubber checks, but the ones that never got mailed out.
I know a few people still waiting on prize money they were never given. Actually I shouldn’t say they’re waiting on it; pretty sure they’ve come to realize they aren’t getting it by now.
I have no problem with racing crits that actually happen and are USAC permitted. I was going to pre-reg for yellow-springs on thursday evening before the plug was pulled and I know a few who were going to do day of.
Hey maybe it really was a color blind issue, though I doubt it. I am sure everyone who reads this blog wants nothing more then a chance to race decent events on the weekends, but it doesn’t mean we will blindly throw money at All That Is Good, I mean the Road Cycling League given the antics by Ruoff the past few years. I hope he proves us wrong but I’m not holding my breath.
I guess I have been lucky to not have been burned by either guy but I do understand why people feel the way they do. I will say that it went on bikereg this morning to check out the Salisbury Road Race and the 1,2,3 race says it is closed but only 15 riders are registered. Not sure what that is about? I guess the power of positive thinking doesn’t always work! I guess that means driving to jersey to race this weekend.
You see, there goes Butterworth proving that he’s up to his old antics too. The flyer says the elite race will be cancelled if it doesn’t hit its minimum of 20 by end of standard prereg, which is TOMORROW. He’s already closed it.
Same sh** in the Lancaster road race scene. Like I said, Lancaster deserved a better class of promoter than Ruoff and Butterworth. They had their chances; time to step aside.
Only 1 of the riders registered for Salisbury in the 1/2/3 out of 18 riders is a local rider. Interesting.