So there are a fair amount of people who think that illegal underground racing is awesome and a great way to progress the sport and help the community around the world. Our good friends to the north had a group of people that held a race on Burnaby Mountain.
For those of you that don't know, Burnaby is a very careful balancing act between the trail builders and the land owners. There are very few trails that are allowed on Burnaby and they are only allowed if they adhear to a strict set of rules put in place by the land owners.
A local group of people who were all about racing decided to hold a race there. Not that bad right? Wrong. Not only were they holding an illegal race on land that could easily be shut down by the land owners, they got the brilliant idea to hold it on a trail that was shut down to mountain bikes all together. A large group of people isn't bad right? Just 20 or 30 riders isn't that bad right? They also posted video and pictures online for everyone to see how "awesome" they were and how well it all went.
Little did they realize how much the rest of the bike comunity now hates them all for puting the entire trail system on Burnaby at risk of closure to mountain bikes.
We should view this as a lesson. Illegal racing is not benificial to anyone but those that are puting it on. Sooner or later it will come back to bike them in the ass... Looks like it happened sooner than expected for those guys.
You can read the local Canadian thread about this on NSMB.
For those of you that don't know, Burnaby is a very careful balancing act between the trail builders and the land owners. There are very few trails that are allowed on Burnaby and they are only allowed if they adhear to a strict set of rules put in place by the land owners.
A local group of people who were all about racing decided to hold a race there. Not that bad right? Wrong. Not only were they holding an illegal race on land that could easily be shut down by the land owners, they got the brilliant idea to hold it on a trail that was shut down to mountain bikes all together. A large group of people isn't bad right? Just 20 or 30 riders isn't that bad right? They also posted video and pictures online for everyone to see how "awesome" they were and how well it all went.
Little did they realize how much the rest of the bike comunity now hates them all for puting the entire trail system on Burnaby at risk of closure to mountain bikes.
We should view this as a lesson. Illegal racing is not benificial to anyone but those that are puting it on. Sooner or later it will come back to bike them in the ass... Looks like it happened sooner than expected for those guys.
You can read the local Canadian thread about this on NSMB.