To be fair, that's how these threads usually go, ad naseum, round and round.  But it does feel to me like it's about time to wrap this one up.

Done! Thanks for your time and good luck at TTW if you decide to go, it's pretty cool.

OK, I see what you are saying.  I've already agreed it's a good goal to strive toward.  I'm just not sure what that looks like.  I don't know where these public discussions should take place.  Only a small percentage of the community is on these forums or even knows about them.  Social media is not it.  I'm trying to imagine how a new racer can be directed to ask a question in a public place, and would they actually do it?  It's so much easier to just reach out by means that are private and then it becomes a big burden to try to present things assumed to be private into the public sphere.

If the issue moved to working out the practicalities, then that's great. There are public forums like this one. If pointed here, to a thread set up for that purpose, I don't see much problem with this. To the contrary, it's great that it's not a monstrous website like Facebook hosting these discussions - eliminating peoples hesitations to join in many cases. There are also other forms of discussions, e.g. IRC channel or something for discussing more transient matters would work OK I think. As for the cases who reach out in private - deflecting them to one of these places wouldn't work? Most likely, someone knowledgeable would help answer their questions without the RD having to type a single character. And for the few odd cases, the RD could chip in with a decision or something. It'd be more complicated than this in reality, I understand, but probably not much more? Over time, community could help compile a few kinds of FAQs (about rule clarifications; preemptive answers to personal questions e.g. deferrals for discreet reasons; organizational FAQs; etc.). The RD would basically move to a role of the editor for these places. If they don't want to read everything, others might be happy to help. Some such distributed approach I imagine would make the event even more community-like and it would help spread the organisational load? Then the RD would be left with "tough" decisions which have already been pre-discussed and the actual logistics of the race (routing, admin, ...). Plus if the website was moved to some wiki or Github-ish format -- this would allow changes to be sent as requests directly, leaving the RD with only the responsibility of review & approval. Reviews could also be multiple (by trusted moderators 1-2), taking even more burden off of the shoulders of the RD.  Anyways, these are just ideas - details would have to be worked out. But does it sound implausible/naive?

I'm curious, given what you know -- do you think the hard canceling was fair (justified) or not?  Why?  I don't really know what information is out there.

I listened to Gear Junkie podcast with Jay almost specifically about this (https://gearjunkie.com/podcast/jay-petervary), I read articles in Radavist by Rue, as the TD19 was happening. And I saw Rue's movie from that year's TD. The rest of the info I have is second-hand, so best discarded I assume. Anyways, from this, I did think the consequence was harsh but I don't think it was unfair.  Unless they treated a similar case differently before/after this one (that would be bad). A person whose status in the community depends a fair bit on endorsements used that status to weigh in on an issue in an unfortunate way (my email to Lael would not even make it past the spam filter, so that status matters). That salsa wanted to distance themselves from this isn't all that surprising I think. But yes, I only know very little from the public domain. If salsa was unhappy for other reasons and only used this as a pretext, then that's unfair. And there could be 1000 other ways in which it could've been unfair. I wouldn't know. It just doesn't seem necessarily unfair from what's easily findable online.

Careful, I never said anyone made a false claim.  Let's not jump recklessly between generalities and specific cases, please. 

I don't think I said that you referred to someone's (Lael's) claim as false. I just applied your general statements to that particular case and made my point on that example. But as you say, let's keep general and specific points separate, I agree that that's wise. Let me quote what I was referring to:

On the other hand, a volunteer RD is forced to respond when an inaccurate or dishonest claim is made.  An athlete making a claim potentially gets exposure and money.  An RD responding at best maintains the integrity of a free event -- they put their neck out just to protect something they believe in.  I still stand by my statement that the expectations should be much higher on the athlete.

Now let me rephrase what I wrote to a theoretical form:
"I think it actually matters what the false inaccurate or dishonest claim is about. Imagine Lael a racer would use an e-bike to do an FKT. When she they'd be called out, everyone would just laugh at her them for thinking that it could possibly count as a self-supported FKT. Nobody would say a word about the rules or the RD. But she was if they were called out because there was a media crew meeting herthem at various points on the route (not providing her them with any tangible support, as far as we know). Why didn't her "false claim" seem absurd to everyone? We know from a specific example that such a claim didn't seem absurd to many people. Could it be that we're taking ourselves too seriously in our bubble with these emotional support rules? And the rules seem more absurd than the athlete's claim? I think athlete can lose reputation big time if the false claim is significantly false. Plus they can lose sponsorship = livelihood, as you said. So there's a lot at stake for the athlete, provided the rules don't come across more absurd than the transgression. ..."

All you are saying here is that there were nuances to Lael's ride and it wasn't clear.  We all agree on that.  99% of support wasn't on either side. 

I was rather trying to use the fallout as evidence that maybe we're losing the big picture and getting caught in details of self-support that seem unnatural from afar.

BTW, I did the homework and listened to the podcast with John Stamstad. Two ideas stood out. One was his view on the style of ITTs as you pointed out, and the other was on "the experience of TD" (or other similar races). I largely agree with how ITTs should be done, but that doesn't help here because it's exactly in the grey area what the problems arise. I don't see how "doing it the same or harder way" as the previous FKT holder is sustainable. I am always going to take a rain jacket, regardless of the mistakes of the previous person. I won't only ride vegan, even if the previous holder did that (and it might be harder!), and I won't stop for prayers 2x a day even if that was the restriction for the previous person. I also won't ride it singlespeed, etc. It's about drawing lines -- what has an impact on the FKT and what doesn't, but also, what is a reasonable restriction to dwell on, and what isn't. The other point that I remember John made was along the lines of having some of the rules in place to ensure people have the right experience of the race. I've seen this elsewhere (podcast with Jefe?) and frankly, I don't understand why it's a good thing. Everyone can have any experience they want, as long as they don't spoil others' experiences -- I'd think. Yet some of the self-support rules are trying to ensure that people feel sufficiently alone and remote in the race. If I want to feel truly solo, I don't jump into a grand depart with over 100 people. As usual, there can be no visitors in order for racers to be forced to behave responsibly (no worst-case scenario back-ups), but it's OK to know the whole race that you have heaps of people (other racers) that will find you within hours if you need help on the route. So yes, these were the two things that I couldn't resolve easily after listening to the podcast. Thanks for the tip, John is nice to listen to.

I never suggested that RDs can do no wrong. 

Not explicitly, no.

You just seem unable to grasp how unrealistic and entitled your expectations are, and I'm done trying.  You want 100% consistency (look at how absurdly you called Brian out just now) and I'm fine with ~90% (for everyone, RD, athlete, commentator), allowing for human error. 

My expectations are intentionally comical for the sake of the discussion. I think the community is not getting how ridiculous these visitation and emotional support rules look/are. So if RDs try to oversee such minute details of people's races via rules, then let's also look at the minute details of how the RDs are applying them, for instance. But then that's called "unrealistic" and "entitled".

But let's unpack it a bit.  Brian's comment to the wife was aimed at getting her to stop physically following the race, that they avoid the appearance that the rider is getting support on route.  The rules say to avoid such things.  The rules for TTW and TD say nothing about sending supportive internet messages from a different continent.  Brian also never said all forms of emotional support are banned, right?  In fact in his supposed "scolding" he didn't even mention emotional support.
I really think you need to dial down your inconsistency detector.  This one is especially weak and irrelevant.

Brian was originally given as an example of how having a visitation rule leads to very awkward situations (imo) if you mismanage it: (1) he was racing, his wife met us (also him) on the course multiple times, and (2) some guy racing, and his wife met (not him) us on the course. (1) was ok, (2) was called out. Over here, this was brushed off by saying that he's neutral as an RD (clearly not if he's racing; but RD can do no wrong). So when I came across more background I pointed it out to suggest that it is not unlikely he was actually inconsistent by calling out that lady. He did that with something like "we don't want people to suspect you of helping your husband" (there's a FB link higher in the discussion already). Surely then, messaging a TD leader would warrant a comment along the lines of "we don't want people suspecting you of passing vital route information to your friend". I don't see how this line of argument is "absurd", it's analogous if anything. And saying that TD doesn't have any rule about messages is besides the point -- it was said here 100x that it's the "spirit" of the rules that matters. And "no outside support" means no intel on the conditions, route, state of other racers, and as it turns out, no emotional support either. All of these can be passed on by a text message from the other side of the world. If you don't like the "emotional support" part of he story, the analogy still works even without this sub-point. That said, I think if emotional support in general is curtailed in some forms at TD (which it is), then surely he should've refrained from messaging -- he knows better than a first-time dotwatcher. BTW, my family are instructed to use separate group chats (without me) when I race so they can freely discuss things without worrying that some useful info would leak to me. And I definitely hold others to lower standards than Brian does, i.e. I would forbid a strict subset of what he forbids, or I would never scold that lady.

In hindsight, I made a mistake by bringing this topic back. It's too much discussion about Brian - almost looks personal! And the inconsistency was trivialized then, so I'm not sure why I thought this new story would sway it.

Back to the main point at hand, I now think it's not that relevant whether expectations are higher of an athlete or RD.  Both should communicate effectively and behave honorably in an ideal world.  Let's agree on that and move on.

Great, thanks.

I'll answer your questions in the morning, 1am here.

I would be great if the RD could get the same level of hero worship, can do no wrong, admiration that is given to the riders. 

My feeling is that admiration and can do no wrong perception of RDs are definitely strong within the community. The traces of this can actually be found throughout all of the above discussion. When Scott says that my expectations are to high (to an objection of a very obvious inconsistency), it's just a rephrasing of the "RD can do no wrong" attitude. But it's not just from him (an RD himself, or former). There are also many instances of admiration showing through, e.g. the fact that unless you begin a paragraph with thanks to the RD, you get reminded that RD puts huge amount of their own time and effort into a volunteering position. We could go on. I am actually pretty impressed by how respected an RD role is in the community.

To me transparency takes *a lot* of extra work.  There are so many communications and decisions that by nature are not public (not intentionally hidden, they just take place in private).  To communicate all of them effectively and without cause for controversy (being careful of wording, misinterpretation) takes time and effort.  I'm going to have to disagree strongly here.  It's as if you really aren't able to imagine what it is like to be in an RD's shoes, or to be an advisor to an RD.

I think the trick is in the quantifiers here. I said that transparency *often* doesn't come at extra cost. You're saying that "*so many* communications and decisions are by nature not public". I think our disagreement is over a much smaller portion of the situations than it seems. For instance, I don't see how a rider ever has to ask the RD any private questions. Similarly, requesting decisions e.g. about camera crews, never needs to be done privately. Rule changes or race detail changes should probably always be "necessary" if they are made, so pointing to a source of the necessity is likely not hard when making those changes (especially since this shouldn't happen often). Nobody is asking for extreme transparency, just some common sense things, such as this discussion needs to be had in the open and not 1-on-1 with John.

I didn't say it was either fair or unfair, just that the potential *significant* consequence is there. 

If that significant consequence is fair and to-be-expected, then isn't it good if it deters people from behaving in unacceptable ways? You said that some people might be worried to speak up publicly because they could be cancelled. Then you gave an example of someone being cancelled hard. So... if the cancellation was justified (fair), then why would that cause anyone to be afraid of being cancelled unfairly? If your comment is to make sense, it does imply that either the cancellation was unfair, or that a fair cancellation can make people afraid of being cancelled unfairly -- which doesn't seem likely. Also, and this would be ironic, I wonder whether the content of the exchange would be the different if it had been public (e.g. here) and whether it would then lead to cancellation. I suspect not, but that's just speculation of course. 

I'm struck by how keen your sense of inconsistency is. Methinks you have too high expectations.... of the rules, of everyone.  Humans are, by their very nature, walking and talking bags of inconsistency.

Humans are many things, yet I would expect the RD to avoid being all of them. It's just bizarre for me: imagine you care about self-support so much that you scold a stranger for an inconsequential nonsense, yet you yourself do the same in the same race and then ignore self-support ethics on other occasions. Surely you can't think self-support is the ultimate thing on Thursdays and completely forget about it on the other days of the week...Let me stress it again: this is just an example - there's nothing interesting about this case, just that it's on record so we can discuss it.

Re: Pro vs volunteer: the onus is on the person making the claim of an FKT or a new route, to make an honest claim, an accurate claim and to pay respect to those that came before.  Doesn't really matter if they are pro or not.

I thought it mattered that one person does it for a living -- that's what I was addressing:

I guess when I hear high expectations like these being applied to RDs who are doing this as a service to a community vs. a rider who is doing it for a living (with a large following and therefore a large responsibility), well, the comparison breaks down a little.

Anyways, I will definitely listen to the podcast with John Stamstad, thanks.

On the other hand, a volunteer RD is forced to respond when an inaccurate or dishonest claim is made.  An athlete making a claim potentially gets exposure and money.  An RD responding at best maintains the integrity of a free event -- they put their neck out just to protect something they believe in.  I still stand by my statement that the expectations should be much higher on the athlete.

I think it actually matters what the false claim was about. Imagine Lael would use e-bike to do an FKT. When she'd be called out, everyone would just laugh at her for thinking that it could possibly count as a self-supported FKT. Nobody would say a word about the rules or the RD. But she was called out because there was a media crew meeting her at various points on the route (not providing her with any tangible support, as far as we know). Why didn't her "false claim" seem absurd to everyone? Could it be that we're taking ourselves too seriously in our bubble with these emotional support rules? And the rules seem more absurd than the athlete's claim? I think athlete can lose reputation big time if the false claim is significantly false. Plus they can lose sponsorship = livelihood, as you said. So there's a lot at stake for the athlete, provided the rules don't come across more absurd than the transgression. I don't know if like that expectations are much greater on the athlete. I do agree, however, that if you (whoever you migh be) are making a claim, you have the responsibility to be able to support it.

I feel angry and sad for the dark cloud controversy that has occurred because of one person's ride and the the choices that were made on how to ride it. 

I think everyone feels sad that the controversy occurred -- that's why we're here discussing it. The fact that you readily have a reason for it probably helps it being a controversy. The fact that Lael could've done things better in many ways is not disputed here - I think we all agree on that. The issue from the event's perspective, I think, is how to help prevent this for the future (whether it involves Lael1, Lael2, Josh3, or anyone else).

Can't imagine my fiance showing up to meet me daily for a video.

I can't imagine it either. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that it should be forbidden or even that it's bad in general.

After reading that article and these posts I think way too much attention is cast on the rules and not enough on one persons self promotion attempts and ego.

Placing emphasis on someone's ego or their self-promotion efforts is only helpful if we come up with ways to lessen the controversy via these things. I think in this regard, there's much more success to be had by revising the necessity of the existing rules and how they're communicated and applied.

BTW, it would seem from where I sit, that many more egos were hurt by Lael claiming the FKT. The egos of the tough, self-sufficient, mentally strong, and true bikepackers who have to earn their living with a day job and race at their own expense. I am not saying all criticisms of her actions come from this, but it does permeate various discussions.

Sorry, I meant to respond to this earlier but didn't know what to write re:cancelling so I sat on it for a while...

You are right that things on the RD/community side could have been handled better and more transparency would help.  We do have more control than we admit, absolutely.  I guess when I hear high expectations like these being applied to RDs who are doing this as a service to a community vs. a rider who is doing it for a living (with a large following and therefore a large responsibility), well, the comparison breaks down a little.  But I agree otherwise with what you're saying.

I see your point about voluntary vs pro. That said, transparency often doesn't cost extra work and comes quite handy when something is done imperfectly (e.g. when a volunteer doesn't have enough time to tie all the ends, or simply makes a mistake, or is misunderstood, etc.).

I might agree with this except that one rider lost his sponsorship / livelihood as a result of the canceling.  

I think boycotting someone or cutting them off can be a fair discussion tool in general. Cancelling has bad connotations recently (and that might be justified), but based on publicly available info, I don't see why you'd consider the cancelling in question a bad thing. Maybe you have more information than the internets hold.

Btw, assuming he was cancelled unfairly... Just above you expressed that being a pro should mean that higher standards might apply to you (as opposed to a volunteer). Here you're saying that pro's hands might be tied behind their back via their sponsors holding their income hostage (in a myriad of ways, e.g. by a threat of cancelling for speaking up). These two beliefs seem to be at odds with each other. If it's harder for the pros to behave independently, then why should we expect a more ethical behavior from them than from "free" people?

I was happy that the Fernie 'press' there was quite right to point out that the event provides no support (and thus no responsibility) -- that riders are fully on their own when out there.

While no support from the "organizer" matters, I was worried it'd be pointed out that such number of people were unlikely to need help at the same time unless their presence at the same place at the same time was "organized" -- and grand depart date is basically the only thing that the "organizer" claims to set. Fortunately, that went unmentioned.

Going back to one of the previous sub-discussions, I recently listened to Sofiane speaking about his TD https://open.spotify.com/episode/1iulUFPQh5TdiBAUc3Gfs0. The part relevant to what we discussed here starts around 49m30s into the podcast. In particular, the part where he mentions that Brian Alder was sending him encouraging messages during the run. Let me reiterate that I think this is inconsequential and shouldn't be a subject of any self-support discussion. It's just too petty. But... Given that Brian scolded that lady at TTW (in the name of self-support) who took a few fly-by photos, I find it particularly inconsistent that he's messaging a leading cyclist (his acquaintance) at TD with encouragement, during the event. Did he send those messages to all people on the course? And even if he had, he doesn't have the same relationship with all of them, so it wouldn't have been equally supportive for each individual. I think it was generous from you to give him such amount of benefit of the doubt (around TTW), but I also think it's more likely that the emotional self-support is only brought up when it suits people, for whatever reasons.

I think he is teasing, since he has only slept at the Llama Ranch and Red Hawk Lodge so far

I don't think that's the point though. While it matters what he does, it matters more what he advertises (24k followers). He can probably sleep in a post office secretly (in at 1am out at 4am... noone even notices). It's the normalization of the thing for the public that creates the footprint I think. Next thing you know, someone down the field will be brewing coffee at the post office at 7am (exaggeration of course, but that sort of thing).

The footprint of this year's TD is sizeable already in the first week: https://fernie.com/blog/bike-race-consumes-search-and-rescue/. On top of that some are normalizing sleeping in post offices (as something we all do, which we don't) https://www.instagram.com/p/CeyhsaSLRAe/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=.

Let's see what the 2nd week brings...

I'm considering the implications of relaxing the rule about helping other racers.  The good Samaritan in me wants to never discourage anyone from helping, period.

I've thought about this a little, but the most serious issue I can find is that people would team up, e.g. lending a tool to a friend and not to someone else.

Transparency is another ideal to strive towards but we will always fall short.

While true, the amount of misunderstanding around RD's decisions is probably correlated with how far from transparent they are. And more generally, I think we have way more control over these "shit storms" than we admit. From the way things are communicated, to the processes around these decisions, to the underlying rules, etc. Who knows how many unpleasant situations could have been prevented regardless of what the rider did. I am saying this because there were suggestions in this thread that Lael should've communicated things better to her fan base, that she could've been more transparent about her intentions, etc. As valid as those demands are, I don't see many such questions being asked inward: was the relegation communicated/explained well? Was the decision transparent enough? Etc.

I'm afraid to say that a big part of the problem here is the fear of being 'canceled'.  That has a huge affect on making people not want to speak publicly about things.

I've heard this before, yes. That said, I am unsure whether it's a justified fear (in the scheme of things). Who cares about the opinions of uninformed internet trolls? The rest seems quite civilized - not always pleasant, but civilized enough.

TD would very much like for the FB group to go away.  It helps in some areas and causes issues in others.  But yes, I would like to see something worked out where open source results (and rules?) can be out there with some authority but not too much authority.  It's tricky.

I will be interested to see if and how this evolves.

For example this year Parks Canada is requiring start waves and we're hoping everyone will comply, for the future of TD.

Interesting. Good to know.

Not a bad idea.  Matthew likes that the website is out of date and results are not officially published.  It keeps the event underground to a certain extent.  I don't necessarily agree because it has other consequences, some of which we've discussed here.

I see, it's probably an effective trick too. Although, FB group might provide the event with more exposure than a small website. So the key difference is then probably that it isn't run by the RD. Maybe the same thing could work with a website. It would be on others (us) to run it then. Though results would be hard to publish without a word from the RD... So it might not be such a good plan. Don't know.

Huh, and yet when she was asked about it that wasn't mentioned.  It would be nice if you didn't keep repeating things for which you have no evidence.  Or at least state them as such -- a mere possibility, and an unlikely one at that..

I don't think I commented on why they did what they did. I only use publicly available info and I wrote that extremely similar situations led to vastly different outcomes. So the consequences are very hard to predict. Hence it's not exactly fair to ask "what were they thinking?!". It's hard to know what to think...

One thing that keeps dragging with us is that decisions and actions are justified by private information. Why are we then surprised that the general public isn't understanding of the situation? Maybe it isn't so much the rules but the overall non transparency in the process that's causing friction? Don't know, just thinking.

In other news, from TD 2022, in all CAPS!

IMPORTANT: SINCE 2019 EDITION OF TD, MUCH HAS BEEN DEBATED OVER THE ROLE OF MEDIA (ON COURSE) IN SELF-SUPPORTED DIVIDE RACING. WHILE TD IS NOT YET READY TO BAN ALL MEDIA, ENTIRELY, FOR GRAND DEPARTS, PERSONAL MEDIA TEAMS FOCUSING ON AN INDIVIDUAL RIDER WITH INTENT TO FOLLOW THEM ON COURSE CAN INJECT UNDUE MORAL HAZARD INTO THE EQUATION. IT HAS THE NET EFFECT OF SECURITY BLANKET FOR A RIDER ON THE EDGE, AND THUS POSES ARTIFICIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL UPLIFT.  THEREFORE, IT WILL BE DEEMED AS A FORM OF SUPPORT GOING FORWARD. TRUE ALONENESS IS PRIMARY TO THE TD CHALLENGE AND A PERSONAL MEDIA TEAM CONFLICTS WITH THIS TENET.

Edit: these are not my words.  I wouldn't write in all caps.  They were attributed to me on the TD FB group where some discussion has ensued, mostly in support.

I have to say this is pretty clear with regards to personal vs neutral media. So that's undoubtedly good. Apart from that, it's all about the self support angle. I guess the TD doesn't worry too much about the footprint as it has loads of road sections.

On a related note, did anyone think of setting up a TD website as GitHub page? All changes would be logged and timestamped, changes can be submitted by anyone, discussions can be had there directly, etc. Maintenance minimal. And everything would be public (if you train for 2 years to do a TD, it's kind of late to be presented with the rules at the sign up to trackleaders, imo) so people know what they are heading into. Results should also be public, otherwise breaking rules doesn't have visible consequences in most cases. Anyways, just an idea.

My biggest head scratcher... after all the "media BS" that happened on the divide, she and her team knew (very well) what kind of hornets nest they would stir up filming this!! you cant tell me they didn't know the rules and the controversy.

I've said this a few times already, but let me repeat. They pretty much did what Josh Ibbett had done at TD19. If he was ever relegated as Scott said, it has not been publicly recorded anywhere (so nobody knows about it, including them presumably). All public records suggest or state he finished fifth (not relegated finish). There was no major, or even minor, outrage about it. What they did at AZTR22 had worked at TD19.

[ideals]

As a stand alone statement I wanted to comment on the irony of this comment being used but someone else did and it went unheralded and I cannot find it again to quote them and say touche/well done sir.

It's hard to guess what you want to say here. But do notice that the context I referred to was the specific ruleset that was being discussed back there while the context you refer to is the wide history of the event (unavailable to everyone, near impossible to dig up from the depths of unindexed internet in less than a week, etc.).

The ethos, spirit, ideals, and origins of the bike packing races in North America are unique to that area. While they are under the umbrella term bike packing and share many of the same rules they have a definite feel and uniqueness you don't get other places and the rules (in their limited form) are a big part of this. This hands off, honour system, doing something truely mentally and physically draining is the reason many of us travel there to race/suffer. It would be heartily disappointing if the AZTR turned into every other generic mountain bike race. Thankfully there is a wealth of people here with much more pull and acumen to keep the race from falling into a shit show.

Having clear and transparent rules that do not rely on unknown amount of buried information doesn't turn an event into a generic mtb race or a shit show. Thanks.

The system is only "hands off" in some areas (which I support of course). However, managing someone's emotions (via e.g. restrictions to emotional support) in 2022 does not seem like hands off to me.

Ideals are great, but by their very definition often unattainable. Hence the discussions about where to draw the lines.

While deep diving down into the minutiae of the rules has been interesting to a limited extent I feel it is akin to a meeting making amendments to a 30 page definition on what the missionary position is. 99.99% of us would understand a one sentence explanation and have adequate gumption to at least get the basics right to achieve the desired goal.

I know. There isn't any ambiguity in the rules, everything is clear to everyone and nothing can be improved. Case closed. Thanks davew.

Maybe we could have a Rules Discussion sticky thread and start it with links to previous threads for a historical perspective.

Sounds like a good idea at first, but then you realize that people aren't willing to read novels in just one of those threads (right?) and will assume they know everything without reading stuff. I still think this is a good idea.

Scott banned people from caching from the start of the event, that's always been a rule. However as the event grew someone has pre stocked and sometimes re stocked the Freeman rd Cache. And that's the only one you need. Hikers end up using way more nasty water sources then riders, the first cache she comes to is only 4 miles from a spigot and less then 14 past a flowing year round creek there's no reason for racers to take any water there. Also a lot of these boxes only went in in the last 5 years or so, we got by without them for years and no one had to have a 911 water drop. In the Outside article she claims to have been out of water for 5 hours when she met John out side of Picket Post, it's only 11 miles from the Gila River to PP and there's a rain water collector just off the trail about 7 miles from PP. After Picket Post it's a long run to Queen Valley and out of the way to go to the Arboretum or the town of Superior, but there's no reason anyone should have gone 5 hours without water.

I can't really tell what water caches Lael was using or why. The topic just made me think about a hypothetical scenario of re-stocking/pre-stocking the cache. In which case it wouldn't be selfish to use it. Caches in general are forbidden though, so it seems like a bad idea. But then water caches are exempted. So that's what made me ask.

And Welcome to Bikepacking.net I'm Tim, I'v been around here since the beginning. Being in the right place at the right time I got to be one of the first people to ride the whole AZT. The AZT is an amazing journey I hope you get to experience it someday. 

Thanks and thanks. I'm Jakub.

There are a whole lot of things they could have clarified to Lael's fan base that would have quelled the outrage, but they chose not to.

I suspect they don't understand the rules in depth. I was asking and reading answers about the rules for the past 6-7pages in this discussion, I read a good bunch of other discussions too, and I would still not have the audacity to interpret the nuances of the rules to the public. That's not to say more communication on their part wouldn't be beneficial. I am just saying that it takes a lot of studying and digging to get the sense of how literally or symbolically each rule is supposed to be taken, and what it tries to achieve. And I don't think they had the time to do that (I might be wrong).

The most amusing part is not pointing out to the fanbase that they are fawning over a FKT set in an event that is only a year old that only has 15 documented finishers so far.  That's not to say it wasn't an impressive ride - it definitely was.  But if you compare it to past ATZR750 results you can tell this FKT isn't going to stand for very long, asterisk or not.  I suspect there are going to be some very motivated racers lining up this fall.   

It might not be such a bad FKT* for the women's side of the event. Do you think it will be improved by another 1.5d next? I suspect the iterations might be closer to each other now. Besides, there already is one really proud FKT holder on the women's side, so the "excitement" over this FKT* doesn't really stand out.

First off to be an ambassador to the sport and claim to not have read the rules is a bit hard to believe.  There's a ton of research that goes along with preparing for a race/ride like this and you have to do your homework.

Whether she should've read the rules or not is one thing. But I think it's believable that she didn't read them. She had read them in 2015/6 and they did not include media clause (visitation rule was same/similar though; water caches too, etc.). And given her load of races and events that she does, I can imagine how it slipped. So I don't think she's dishonest about not having read them. And suspecting her of lying is a bit... where's the benefit of the doubt?

I honestly feel like it's pretty clear. Also it allows for people taking pictures in trail, doing interviews or whatever, just not "a camera crew to document your ride"
...
But back to the personal media crews, I feel like Johns rule as written actually covers that... AND allows other types of coverage.

This is a very "confident" reading of the rules, to put it nicely. A person who is new to these races will never dare to suspect that the rule below allows for neutral media crews. The first 2 sentences are ruthless. The rest of it reads like this: "Big/professional media crews are out of question as stated, but don't think you can get away with a personal crew either."

2. No support crews, this includes pre-arranged camera/media crews. The AZTR views this as support. Feel free to self-document all you like. If you want a camera crew to document your ride, either do it on your own or expect an *, no record times will be noted for media support.

By the way I believe that section of the AZTR rules that sounds more friendly to you (and indeed was quoted in the Outside article) was left out of John's site by mistake.  The header for it is there but the text somehow didn't make it.  I believe he intends to restore it.

I think that'll make some difference in terms of how welcoming the event seems. Nice.

I do think it's a fair point that the first part of the rules now comes off as a little abrasive and serious with the bolds and small percentages.  Thanks for that feedback.

Great - thanks.

It's a reasonable assumption: why else would anyone else care so much?  A Diogenes type person is very rare.

Hah. Though ideas are more interesting than one-offs (experiences).

That's a good point about affecting everyone's race and not having a mandate (as it respects to MikeC's original rules which allowed helping other racers).  Many of the same counter arguments you've given for visitation apply here: its affect is small, it's questionable self-support and bad vibes result from enforcement... so is it worth it?  That's something I'm trying to explore, trying to give your general arguments some credence.

Yeah, I agree that it's unclear whether it's worth it. But from my point of view it depends on the other rules in the ruleset - if self-support visitation rule is worth it, this is too (someone loses navigation and is given a new one by another rider... it is probably significant for their race). That said, I'm finding it hard to understand the importance of the distinction between "fairness" rules and "self-support" rules. So that might have an impact on my opinion here.