i guess i look at races like i look at restaurants. some are around for a thousand years. but in socal, here, you see chefs opening restaurants, they're wildly successful, but in 10 years they're gone and onto something else. when it comes to entertainment and disposable dollars, there is some ratio of variety/newness juxtaposed with familiarity/predictability that seems to be the secret sauce.

i find that race directors are much more likely to offer the same experience year over year, but at a higher cost. the cost is the only thing that changes. what is the likely result?

i met derek bouchard-hall at interbike this year. impressive guy. he was CEO of USA cycling at that moment, but shortly thereafter announced his resignation. i told him at interbike that road cycling was dead in the US, and that the organization needed to find some way to embrace gravel. he disagreed that road cycling is dead. but i don't see how it isn't. gravel racing is brand spanking new, and yet a small gravel race in california (where we have no gravel) is the same size as a big road race. if you look at the gravel calendar in california, it's spacious. we have very little of a calendar. yet you go to a good gravel race and there's 1,200 or 1,400 athletes in it. i think there's a truth there, staring you in the face. but RDs don't like truth. they prefer their own mythology.

RDs don't like change. but their customers like change. delmo puts on a new race, just for women, pool swim, swim first, sells it out in year-1. 1,350. goes off without a hitch. what's delmo's magic? there is no magic. i promise you, delmo can tell you stories of his flops. his same careful attention goes into every race, but some flop. some go. just like restaurants.

what RDs need to do is take calculated risks, in my opinion. RDs can lay some of that risk on me. i'll take some of it. but RDs are, in our sport, as a group, risk averse, badly capitalized, and i therefore find them - again, as a group - a bad fit for my ambitions. which is odd. the occasional RD, yes. good fit. but i've reached the unfortunate conclusion that, in the main, i'm going to have to bring new partners for my ambitions in from outside the sport.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman