Interesting for a novice like me to see the suggestions, since I don't know the norms.

Aid Stations A Luxury: I didn't even know there would be any. My 50-60 mile training loops were done without any, and I assumed this would be the same. Coming from Alaska, I thought people just carried purifiers. Hearing that aid stations even existed was a pleasant surprise. Pretty cool - a place to fill my water bottles. And then to hear I could actually have my own bags show up there? Luxurious! No need to change anything there.

Mileage Markers IMO: Bet there are different views on this. I would really hate to see the miles ticking by. If you want that, that's what your cyclocomputer is for. Or roads. The idea is to ride on great wild trails, not to make a developed course out of it.

Ed

As a racer something just came to me and thought I would post it here since TRP is using this forum to make things better in 2011. In EFTA racing all the routes off course have a red X meaning wrong way about 100 years yards down the trail. I have mentioned this before and I can say that when I was racing out yonder those red Xs showed me (and trained me) to improve my route decision processing.

And a note to racers. What I have found to be very useful is to make metal notes of each marking and look forward to the next. When it has been a minute without seeing the next one STOP. Assess the situation, and go back to the one last seen. This can be done very quickly and could keep you from getting lost in every instance. It happened this year. I was bombing down the "Pig Ride" section and Ben (after flatting) was right with me ready to pass. I stopped and he said, "whats up". I said I don't see markers. He stayed but and I went down just a little further. Sure enough I spotted the next one and yelled back. He continued to pass me and win the race. We both finished without getting lost.

My first Butte 50 and only my second MTB race. Thanks for everything Bob, Gina, Sean, Guy, and all volunteers.

My thoughts on all the post-race chatter: it's about growing pains, and also what you want the experience to be.

Growing pains: you've had rapid growth in participation, and some of the experiences stem from that. It's tough to ramp up the volunteers, and to move to more of a decentralized structure - delegating more to more people.

What you want to be: Like any organization, improvement comes from listening to the feedback and then, most important, knowing where you want to go and using the feedback to get there. There's talk in here about "if you want to be the next Leadville". Well I don't know if that's your strategic vision, or what that vision is, but the feedback has to be put through that filter. Like a ski area: we can give feedback to Snowbowl or Discovery - and people can talk about "if you want to be the next Big Sky"...but many of us don't want Discovery or Snowbowl to be the next Big Sky. So need to look at the feedback in the context of where you're trying to go, but also where you're trying NOT to go.

I for one like Montana mom & pop ski areas more than Big Sky, and hope Butte 50/100 can remain in that flavor: tough, personable, casual, well run but quirky, safe but rough around the edges.

There is great feedback here to help you take this to where you want it to go.

Thanks for giving me an opportunity to push my limits at my age (over 50).

Ed

Let me start by saying thank you for all of the fair and constructive criticism. Having been part of the flagging team at the turn that was responsible for the majority of complaints I feel very bad. I do not know for sure that the flagging wasn’t altered but I do know that when I went through there it looked more or less like when we flagged it. At the time of marking the course both of us there took a critical look at it and truly thought it was o.k. Clearly it could have been better (i.e. using signs with “right turn” arrows or blocking the main trail the morning of the event). While perhaps part of the problem was people getting to the turn in a large group and just following the leaders the lesson learned is that no turn or trail can be overmarked. There are also other improvements that can be made here and there with fre3quency of flagging, website information/design and aid stations. Again, all of your suggestions and recommendations from what has worked at previous events is helpful.

One of the positives I take away from all of this is that 85% of the complaints of the race are very easily correctable as almost all have to do with just one or two turns. Nevertheless, rest assured that we appreciate all the constructive criticism and take it to heart. Just think how awesome this race will be when these flaws are corrected, which they will be. We will be getting together soon to debrief, review what worked well, what didn’t and what we can do about it. While nothing may ever be perfect and you can never please everybody it is certainly out goal to put on a smoothly coordinated, well organized and hard as hell race. I believe we are closer to that than ever before.

Thanks,
Sean