In the icup, my favorite courses are Solitude, Sundance, Deer Valley, Tetons, and St. George. All of these are great places to ride outside of a race. I’ve started skipping 5 Mile and Hurricane altogether. I wouldn’t ride there, so why would I race there?

I’ve had very few passing issues. Most people are super cool about it. The few issues I’ve had have maybe moved me from 10th to 12th place, and who really cares?

Over 75 miles of racing on Sat, I had exactly 0 passing issues. I didn’t pass much on Round Valley,

I’ve also found that most passing issues can be resolved by moving up to the next class. Just sayin’.

I PLEDGE: to never do a race that has less than 50% singletrack.

A nice road section is great for eating and drinking and regrouping. I thought the PCPP had enough road or wide, steady trail that eating and such was never a big deal. And I don’t mind racing dirt roads at all. But when the trail is absolutely incredible, it only adds to the experience as a whole.

A larger issue with the one-track racing would be field size. It is pretty easy to accommodate 170 people at the PC resorts. But above 300 or so and I think you’d start to see issues.

1300 like Leadville? Fuggetaboudit.

I am 100% with you that riding singletrack is fun, more fun than riding fire roads by several orders of magnitude. But riding and racing are two very different things. At Leadville, and I imagine other endurance events being similar, I was grateful that the last climb up St. Kevin’s was paved most of the way up and that I got to ride a good chunk of pavement before the finish. After that many hours in the saddle, smooth roads are a welcome respite.

I’m not ever thinking, “gee, this is a fun trail” during a race. I’m just trying to go as fast as I can and avoid being consumed by the pain of my ears bleeding.