Ringwood Rumble CANCELED!

Norm said:
RHCP for a concert after.
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This came up in my IG feed the other day and I nearly spit out my coffee

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Oh I love this! Make it a triple, I was there as well. TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS.

Yeah this was Jane’s in their heyday. When Perry didn’t start fist fights with his band members.

Perry & Ice-T doing the Don’t Call Me Whitey back & forth is a pretty memorable moment for me.

Anyway, bike racing.
 
I think racing died out for several reasons.

There was a time when being on a bike team was a way to be a part of a social group. You would get together regularly and race bikes. There are not many bike teams left.

With the popularity of social media, you dont need to join a bike team to fit into a social group. Groups like YDKS, Fun Bus, BikesMakeMeHappy, NJ Mountain Biking, Garden State Mountain Biking, get together and ride bikes for fun.

Racing is hard. The reason Ebikes are popular is because it made mtbing easier. People don't want to work that hard to have fun. Even the places we ride now are more tame with lots of flow. Riding technical trails is not as popular, even with better mtbs.

Trends come and go. Racing was a trend that has died out. I could see bike festivals being popular now. People still want to get together, socialize in large groups and ride fun trails non competitively.
 
Norm said:
To a point, yeah I agree. We had our moment in cross as well. Sure it was a long ass day to race 45 minutes. But when it was huge, we had the tent and at MINIMUM a dozen MTBNJ racers on any given day. Back when we used to do Nittany, we would have a white board with the times & the team members who were racing, plus a huge clock so everyone could stay in tune with the day. We'd have a dozen people there just cheering for whoever was on the course.

Fast forward to the end, when those numbers were nearly gone. I think one of the last doubles we did was Northampton. D and I went up, and tall Sean went up, separately. We talked for like 10 minutes before/after the race then went our own way. The magic of it all was long gone. That was the final nail in the proverbial coffin, I think.

To me it was a people-social thing. I mean we could take 12-20 people to a bowling alley, toss in a case or 2 of beer, and have a blast with it. In 2 months it'll boil down to 1 guy with a 40 oz of Colt 45 wondering where his life is going.
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You know where his life is going - to bowling a 300 - and the sign in the front of the building is going to let you know when he gets there.
 
Norm said:
To a point, yeah I agree. We had our moment in cross as well. Sure it was a long ass day to race 45 minutes. But when it was huge, we had the tent and at MINIMUM a dozen MTBNJ racers on any given day. Back when we used to do Nittany, we would have a white board with the times & the team members who were racing, plus a huge clock so everyone could stay in tune with the day. We'd have a dozen people there just cheering for whoever was on the course.

Fast forward to the end, when those numbers were nearly gone. I think one of the last doubles we did was Northampton. D and I went up, and tall Sean went up, separately. We talked for like 10 minutes before/after the race then went our own way. The magic of it all was long gone. That was the final nail in the proverbial coffin, I think.

To me it was a people-social thing. I mean we could take 12-20 people to a bowling alley, toss in a case or 2 of beer, and have a blast with it. In 2 months it'll boil down to 1 guy with a 40 oz of Colt 45 wondering where his life is going.
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Oh, and that blip that once was cyclocross! If I say "Cross is boss!" nowadays people think I'm some kind of Jesus freak. Or yell saying "It's GRAVEL!"
 
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I started out racing the old NJ points series in the 90s, never advancing past Sport class. I did it for the fun and to ride different places. The attitude was different. There'd be guys racing in flannel or even the occasional sport coat and tie. Mountain biking has always been about fun for me. Training, nutrition, coaching, etc. turns it into something like work. I still dabbled in racing off and on over the years, including when fatbike classes were added (fun). My last race was the final Woods Hollow race like 7 years ago, where I won my age bracket, lol. The social aspect was always the best part for me. Lots of laughs and new riding buddies.
 
Norm said:
To a point, yeah I agree. We had our moment in cross as well. Sure it was a long ass day to race 45 minutes. But when it was huge, we had the tent and at MINIMUM a dozen MTBNJ racers on any given day. Back when we used to do Nittany, we would have a white board with the times & the team members who were racing, plus a huge clock so everyone could stay in tune with the day. We'd have a dozen people there just cheering for whoever was on the course.

Fast forward to the end, when those numbers were nearly gone. I think one of the last doubles we did was Northampton. D and I went up, and tall Sean went up, separately. We talked for like 10 minutes before/after the race then went our own way. The magic of it all was long gone. That was the final nail in the proverbial coffin, I think.

To me it was a people-social thing. I mean we could take 12-20 people to a bowling alley, toss in a case or 2 of beer, and have a blast with it. In 2 months it'll boil down to 1 guy with a 40 oz of Colt 45 wondering where his life is going.
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I feel like cross had a moment 10-15 years ago. There was a wave of racers, myself included that got into riding bikes from fixed gear, naturally migrated to cross. I remember 150 plus fields at the UCI races. Most of the people I knew from that scene have since moved out of the area. Some doubled down on bikes and moved out west.

Both cross and xc was really fun but it’s too inconvenient for me at this point.
 
I'll add to the "what killed MTB racing in NJ" thoughts. In the late 2000's thru 2010's the H2H had at least 8 race venues. I just looked at the CAT1 40-49 2010 Ringwood race. We had 23 pre-reg with a near even split between NY & NJ people. The NYS MTB series was the nail in the coffin. Numbers were already waning, and then the NY series split the racers. Throw in MASS & the advent of the endurance races, it became a supply & demand problem. @Norm mentioned it was as much the community that drove the race attendance as the race itself. We all started doing different series & race types. Less adhesion.

Even for me, recently, it's just easier to do enduro races. I simply don't need to put in the saddle time like i did for XC. Plus, I get to do weights, climb, yoga now that I'm not trying to get 8-12 hrs of pedalling. But Enduro is not everyone's cup of tea.
 
Change is good.

Novelty is good.

I seem to recall the ‘cross dialog from 15 years ago was that some of the race classifications were too crowded for course and also the never ending number of road CAT 1 or CAT 2 racers dabbling with cross by slaughtering the slower category ‘cross races until they were forced to upgrade. 😆

W
 
Everyone keeps waiting for the NICA wave and it is kind of there but kind of not? NJ is on 10? year and PA one more year than that. PA has averaged 1200-1400 kids, where a big percentage of that is Southest PA, however 50%+ of that is middle school kids and another 30%+ never race or race one and not again. I think NJ's numbers are similar to SE PA. In any case, by the time you get to varsity (the kids that are actually fast and likely the ones racing MASS / HMH) the numbers are really small. NJ's last race was 10 Varsity girls and 15 varsity boys, not exactly huge numbers.

And then they graduate HS, and many will go to college and have limited ability to drive to a race and maybe pay for one. Then starting a career and thinking you need to work alot, etc.

We have another 5 to 10 years until the first round of Nica kids for PA and NJ turn 30, maybe are married and have a kid, or are thinking about it, and they are trying to find something to keep them young. Maybe then we see the wave back into racing.
 
Jeremy said:
That race used to get close to 1000 iirc. It was one of, if not the biggest race in the area
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Correct. I started racing in the MASS series in 2008 and it was called the Bike Line Race at Fair Hill. Always was the biggest race. The Bike Line team was huge with like 90 team members. After a few years, the MASS series changed the scoring template to allow other teams to be competitive in the Team Standings. Here's results from the 2008 race. I see some very familiar names lists throughout the results.


I also remember when some MASS race locations would be a whole weekend with Short Track the day before XC and Endurance.

Found some more MASS results. http://www.proracingtiming.com/
 
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ok I have to respectively disagree with @Steve Vai a little....Me personally, when they switched to the 3 lap ~90-120min ish format, I could not have been happier...Doing 5 laps of lewmo in 90+ degrees sucked out loud....So I feel that was a wash...I mean I remember the transition well and thats not when the attendance starting falling apart.

While I feel like NICA is great and showing all kinds of kids how to have fun with bikes....I dont think its turning the masses of them into future XC racers.....Certainly some of them, but they are the ones who are motivated to do xc training outside of typical NICA practices. And having done that training for years....you have to LOVE it or its not going to work. The NICA races are really well attended and the kids have a blast from what I witness....But I think alot of them just enjoy being with the other kids and the whole scene....My son is a good example...Loves going to the races to hang with his creek friends and work on jumps in the skills park. When he's out there racing he likes it enough...He does ok at the races and bc he's young and rides with me alot,.....but he would have a meltdown if I ever asked him to do an H2H race...ZERO interest. Do jumps, ride tech, do more jumps. When he gets older and has to train to be competitive at NICA races? We'll see...you either want to do it or you don't.

I gave XC 13 years, and by then I just had enough of it and I did everything I wanted to do.....Then I found enduro which was a entirely different challenge to keep me entertained. Plus you can wing enduro fitness training WAY WAY more than XC training...(can't wing your bike skills, but they are more fun to train) especially if you already have an XC background.

The other is that bikes are just really good now and really fun...we have an abundance of trails in NJ...You dont have to race to enjoy the sport. I feel like I saw this in motocross with the rise of the practice tracks. If you wanted to ride an MX track, you had to enter a race....then they started opening practice tracks...way less expensive, way more chill, way more fun. When I first started riding in NJ, I feel like most of the parks had a "race" loop and when I went there, thats what we rode. I always liked the tech, but its just gotten better and better now that the bikes are more capable then ever. XC bikes are great, but they are great at XC racing...for everything that isnt xc racing, you would probably have more fun on "X".....and this "X" bike will absolutely SUCK in an XC race.

could not agree more with @Norm regarding promoting....I mean every race was essentially like putting on a wedding. I think I spent MILES behind a lawn mower at stewart mowing poison ivy....I loved it and I loved that we had some great races, but it was exhausting.
 
I guess I will chime in...

I spent a few years training and racing XC and CX. So did Lance, so our schedules somewhat aligned. I enjoyed the team aspect - before all these FB groups popped up and social media.

Honestly I got burned out and bored training for XC and CX. Lining up, I sort of knew how things would go. Then I tried Enduro and DH for a short period of time - then #bumthumb. I did the whole NICA thing...

As with most things in life, I've moved on...I don't enjoy racing nor do I want to put in the time to be a "decent" racer again. I like my time just riding, goats and CrossFit.
 
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