Iniquities of Racing
Many things aren't fair.
Some people are born good looking, or to wealthy families or are endowed with special talents. I'm pretty sure I was born to be a mountain bike racer. Too bad it took me almost thirty years to figure that out. At the time, that seemed a little unfair.
This past weekend I raced the "All Mountain Pro" event at the Downieville Classic. This combines Saturday's downhill with Sunday's cross country to crown one person as the "All Mountain Pro" winner.
In an effort to make the combined effort fair to downhill freaks and cross country geeks, the organizer introduced a uniquely equalizing concept. Both the DH and XC had to be raced on the same bike.
Same bike. Same tires. Same forks, wheels, shocks, same everything. I even heard that before each event the bikes would be weighed and verified by a disgruntled worker for the California Bureau of Standards, Weights, and Measures. But I think a volunteer just did it.
The whole idea of the All-Mountain Pro category was an attempt of fairness.
But, as all racers know, there is nothing completely fair about a mountain bike race.
THe world famous Downieville Downhill zigzags over and along the Yuba River, which seems unfair as we rode it because the temperature never dipped below 100 degrees, torturing us racers by the prospect of a river dip.
View From the Top...
I raced on my xc bike, the Blur, with light Mavic wheels and xc Maxxis tires (on esemi-slick). My only DH concession was a slightly beafier Fox Talus. The fork was all-adjustable, even the head angle, and I'm sure the other racers thought that was a bit unfair.
My DH run lasted for about 47 minutes (a little longer than the men's winner and NorCal demi-god Mark Weir). As it turned out, the timing system might have had some iniquity issues itself, because my watch had me winning by over a minute, but I ended up only winning by one second!
Sunday's XC would be a two and a half hour furnace fest. Seeking every unfair advantage, the night before I filled my hydration system with water and stuffed it into the freezer so it would turn into a block of ice.
Good idea, huh! Poor execution though because I realized moments before the start that the block of ice on my back wouldn't be doing me much good until I cut away all of the Kelty Bag's insulation.
I zipped back to my bus, snatched the scissors and started snipping away. The result: A missed start. My sneaky trick backfired on me. How unfair!
Even more unfair was how I fought my way up the climb for hours through most of the field and just as the course began to descend, I double-flatted. Now that was really unfair.
But the whole weekend was really fun. Cool concept, well organized, lots of friends, and abundant waterfalls.
Just one more iniquity I should mention. Mark Weir won the men's downhill and a $5,000 purse. I won the women's downhill and what I thought was a $500 purse.
During the drive home, I looked at the check and noticed it was only for $300!
That's pro mountain bike racing and I love it. But how fair would it be if everything was equal?
Some people are born good looking, or to wealthy families or are endowed with special talents. I'm pretty sure I was born to be a mountain bike racer. Too bad it took me almost thirty years to figure that out. At the time, that seemed a little unfair.
This past weekend I raced the "All Mountain Pro" event at the Downieville Classic. This combines Saturday's downhill with Sunday's cross country to crown one person as the "All Mountain Pro" winner.
In an effort to make the combined effort fair to downhill freaks and cross country geeks, the organizer introduced a uniquely equalizing concept. Both the DH and XC had to be raced on the same bike.
Same bike. Same tires. Same forks, wheels, shocks, same everything. I even heard that before each event the bikes would be weighed and verified by a disgruntled worker for the California Bureau of Standards, Weights, and Measures. But I think a volunteer just did it.
The whole idea of the All-Mountain Pro category was an attempt of fairness.
But, as all racers know, there is nothing completely fair about a mountain bike race.
THe world famous Downieville Downhill zigzags over and along the Yuba River, which seems unfair as we rode it because the temperature never dipped below 100 degrees, torturing us racers by the prospect of a river dip.
View From the Top...
I raced on my xc bike, the Blur, with light Mavic wheels and xc Maxxis tires (on esemi-slick). My only DH concession was a slightly beafier Fox Talus. The fork was all-adjustable, even the head angle, and I'm sure the other racers thought that was a bit unfair.
My DH run lasted for about 47 minutes (a little longer than the men's winner and NorCal demi-god Mark Weir). As it turned out, the timing system might have had some iniquity issues itself, because my watch had me winning by over a minute, but I ended up only winning by one second!
Sunday's XC would be a two and a half hour furnace fest. Seeking every unfair advantage, the night before I filled my hydration system with water and stuffed it into the freezer so it would turn into a block of ice.
Good idea, huh! Poor execution though because I realized moments before the start that the block of ice on my back wouldn't be doing me much good until I cut away all of the Kelty Bag's insulation.
I zipped back to my bus, snatched the scissors and started snipping away. The result: A missed start. My sneaky trick backfired on me. How unfair!
Even more unfair was how I fought my way up the climb for hours through most of the field and just as the course began to descend, I double-flatted. Now that was really unfair.
But the whole weekend was really fun. Cool concept, well organized, lots of friends, and abundant waterfalls.
Just one more iniquity I should mention. Mark Weir won the men's downhill and a $5,000 purse. I won the women's downhill and what I thought was a $500 purse.
During the drive home, I looked at the check and noticed it was only for $300!
That's pro mountain bike racing and I love it. But how fair would it be if everything was equal?
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16 Comments:
Marla, Marla, Marla...sorry but I cannot leave your iniquity complaint regarding the purse money at Downieville alone. Rather than be bummed about your $300 payout you should be thrilled that you found a professional mtb event that even paid prize money! By the way the 5k payout was not men specific. It was open to anyone who could break the record. got nothing but love for ya...-Joe Lawwill
Hey, Marla, Jenn G. (formerly of McLean, VA) here. Thanks for doing your blog. First you give us a book, then a blog. Right on.
I have a blog, too. Having the guts to blog really opens one up to criticism, eh?
See you around, Wonder Woman!
sdf
Just curious, but what doew equitable prize money mean to you in the context of the Downieville downhill?
According to the results, there were 213 finishers, 26 (12.2%) of which were female. 187 (87.7%) were male. Would you be happy if the female racers got 12.2% of the prize money?
For the record, the men's total purse was $5,000. $2,500 was for first, with each sucessive place getting $500 less so that 5th place got $500. There was another $2,500 up for grabs if the previous course record was broken.
I have a friend who works for a company that employees roughly 100 people. Of those, 12 are female (12%). Based on the prize money logic, my friend's company should cut salaries for all the female employees since they only contribute to 12% of the work. I guess they should give smaller trophies to women also. I think women should have to ride smaller bikes that cost less to make and use cheaper parts. Save the good stuff for the men.
Question: Was there a female record and a male record, or was there only one record to shoot for male or female?
Equity matters.
Okay, here's my take on it.
If you want to crunch numbers, only the pro numbers should be considered. Pros are people that are trying to make a living from racing. Racing is our job.
There were 27 pro men, and 7 pro women. There were almost 4 times as many men as women competing.
The purse for the pro men was $7500 ($2500 for first, $2000 for second, and so on). The purse for the women was $300.
The women's purse should have been at least $1875 (a quarter of $7500). So logically, you must agree that $300 was quite an insult.
Marla
I think your example misses the point. To use your example, it sounds as folks want to divide the _total_ salaries equally between men and women. In your example, that would mean that the 12% of women get to split 50% of the total salaries, while 88% of the men get to split the other 50%. Doesn't sound that fair, does it?
Perhaps some of Marla's sponsors such as Oakley and Clif Bar should sponsor the women's class next year so that the women's purse can be larger. I'm sure the race organizers would welcome increased sponsorship of the women's downhill race.
There was only one record to shoot for male or female.
I would agree that sponsors should help drive up prize money. Regardless, I do think it should be divided evenly.
Why not even it up $3900 for men and $3900 for the women? Marla only thinks a quarter. I think half.
Let the people who think they can win decdide if they want to compete or not based on an equitable prize male and female. The majority of us turn out egardless of the cash. Prizes are only 1,2, and 3 deep. If $3900 is not enough for a pro male then find another race.
I enjoy the discussion, Anonymous.
300$ is lame, no matter how the topic is dissected...
_sigh_ Another spoiled pro whining about prize money. Apparently getting a great salary to ride and race bikes around the world isn't enough. Perhaps Marla's greed has affected her memory-she won more prize money at Downieville than she won last year at the NORBA Nationals, where there was no prize money awarded for the pro classes.
To Anonymous: Perhaps I wasn't clear for brevity's sake. I'm not complaining about Downieville prize money vs my salary vs NORBA prize money. What I was pointing out was the wide discrepency between the men's and women's purses at Downieville. Though NORBA has no prize money, at least it's equal for men and women. It was simply a question of fairness, or equity, thus the name of the blog...
-Marla
p.s. As far as a pro racer earning a salary, if we were greedy, we wouldn't be pro mountain bike racers. We'd be doing something with our education! And I don't know what the downhillers would do...
While Betties like Marla ride Blurs, I will never feel worthy of mine!!
However, I take comfort in the fact that the greats of MTB make the same mistakes I do. Specifically, the ice-block-in-the-Camelbak-when-you-need-it-the-most.
Filled mine at an ice machine the first day I owned it, for the AZSF'03. Luckily we were pre-riding a bit that day, not on an all-day ride.
Rock on Marla.
the new home in atlanta
the nonesell
personally, i never check what the men do, i am only ever interested in the female racers. i think the purses for the women should be higher!
"professional mountain bike racer" is an oxymoron. Folks, put on some clothes and get a real job. Then you can learn about real inequities that actually matter, like people twice your age making twice as much money to produce one fifth as much value as a talented hard working 30 something, which is fairly common in the corporate world. Or, talented women who get promoted twice as fast as talented men, so the corporation can point to a 50-50 mix of male and female executives, while only 5% of the company employees are female (because females don't apply), when a mulit-million dollar sexual discrimination civil suit is filed by some disgruntled female.
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