gonna have to postpone it for now.

lack of support is one thing .. the other is that, at 6.4, it's over the high end i set.

I know my friend Rob Mckibbin was out there.

Hmm .... I have never heard Rob use such language unless the person is present, although one time he did call this kid a dirty weaping pussy for running some little waterfall sloppy and breaking a paddle, other than that and another time we were at a truckstop looking for dates such foul language has never been Robs likelyness, unless your camping, or boating, or maybe just hanging out.

It's a bummer that the race had to be postponed,  i hope we can pull together and reschedule, i had a great time last year, and i'm sure this year will be even better! 




Edited by Fish - 19 May 2009 at 10:01am

Oh yeah, Robe Race.. Jeez Brett! always trying to veer off the subject with some stupid comment.. What I meant to say is hopefully the robe race is the weekend after memorial. If so I could come out and help with safety, I would like to do some filming as well but I could definitely be of some help. anyway, Leavenworth this weekend! see ya'll there, lots o water, lots of bikin, lots o vagina.... oh and beer!

yep

Todd,
I really appreciate all your effort to put this race together again.  I know JP and I were pretty stoked to race on Sunday, but with thewater levels well over 6 feet, and lack of safety support,  my motivated disipated, cant speak for JP.    In my email to you prior to the race, i stated my concerns about the lack of safety volunteers for the race, and that strongly influenced my decision personally. 

Todd,

well said, Joe. I've found May to be a tough time of year to pin people down. There are so many options this time of year (yes we are VERY spoiled here in the PNW). Often I don't know my weekend plans until very late on Friday because everyone waits till the last minute to show their hand.

 

Edited by leifkirchoff - 19 May 2009 at 10:25am

i'll try to respond to everyone briefly.

brett -- didn't mean to "slam" you. just was kind of bummed that you had no interest in this thread or the concept of the race, until a day after race day, & only then for the reason of talking about your friend who was one of numerous people running robe at high flow. think about it. but no big deal man, i'm just offloading some steam.

joe -- if you weren't planning to race or volunteer, then no explanation needed. but i appreciate the thoughts just the same!

JP -- hate to hear about your situation, that totally blows. unfortunately, lots of ppl in the same boat at the moment. lemme know if i can help .. at least with beer :) & again, never intended to run the race at 6.4, so no need for anyone to explain about not wanting to race at 6.4. but had we woken up to 5.9, as of 2 am the night before when i finally got to sleep, i had next to no commitments from people & a whole lot of silence.

zen -- well said. this is what i was getting at in the "3 questions" email/post. the main thing too, is that i really need to be more proactive on the volunteer thing, & get solid commitments from people who are psyched to do it.

leif -- i'm aware of the wide range of paddlers who frequent this site. i'm also aware that it's a great "shotgun" approach to reaching a wider audience than i'd be able to hit with just my email contacts. it's also the only real NW-only forum, so it makes sense to post here. don't think this is the only outlet i utilized for promoting this. your advice would be spot on if i just loved doing event planning & i wanted to create an event just for having an event's sake, or one just for PP members. that's not the case. robe canyon, whether or not it smacks of "elitism", is one of the best stretches of class V whitewater in the country. class V kayakers like to race class V whitewater. it happens all over the world. i wanted to create a totally one-of-a-kind, grassroots-oriented race, that screams "northwest" not "elitism". robe is that race. it's an hour out of seattle & is very well suited to the race format we've set up. but to do that, to really pull off a successful event, i need the buy-in of racers (which we had) & volunteers (which we did not have). it's not a race for the "rank & file" & i don't expect this event to cater to everyone or even half of everyone .. but the spectator-friendly nature of robe, the nearby class IV options, & the free beer are things that even the "rank & file" can enjoy on a sunny sunday afternoon, as evidenced by last year's event. but to joe's point, maybe there were just too many other options for people to choose from. i just expected better communication from those who were supposed to participate.

fiddle/ben -- the race maybe "should" be held at low flow, but it is what it is. guessing what ma nature is gonna do is extraordinarily difficult, as you know. we based these dates off long-range weather forecasts & snotel data, a month or two out. we ALMOST nailed it. it got warmer than even the meteorologists predicted 36 hrs out .. shit! & think about the racer backlash if we postponed or canceled race day because it was running 5.8, not 5.5 or whatever.

as ben mentioned, we're almost certainly in the upswing to peak. as such it makes sense to try to plan the race for the back side of the bell curve .. which is going to be even tougher.

the new strategy is 666, the number of the beast. for the race to happen, i need a minimum of 6 committed volunteers, a minimum of 6 teams who will race on race day at a maximum of 6 feet on the gauge. this whole thing is a learning process for me & one conclusion i've come to is that i'm gonna build the volunteer army out of non-kayakers! these people are unsullied by whitewater insecurity, flow concerns & the threat of class V elitism .. i just thought all along that kayakers who didn't want to race would have an interest in helping out.

thanks for taking the time to weigh in & for reading this far, if you actually made it!

t

edit: i think on thursday i actually said to somebody, "i'm beyond confident that we'll have perfect flows on sunday!" karma's a beeyotch, eh?

Edited by toddg - 18 May 2009 at 11:54pm

Ben brought up a good point, why not just have the race in the Fall?

There's much less boating options during that time and the flows are much more predictable, this could even lead to it being a boating destination during that time of the year since there's few other choices for class V.

Todd, I know how much of a bitch putting on an event can be.  It's almost impossible to know if people are going to show up, no one commits to anything, and your stuck holding the bill.  None of it's personal, kayakers are flaky, non-committal, cheap dirtbags. 

Best thing to do, pick a date, tell people, put it on regardless if people are showing up or not.  My take is that I'm going to have a great time regardless if anyone else shows up.

First year we did the race down Burnt Ranch we had only 3 people (Hawthorne, Wolfgram, and I) race at a flow of 3,700 (far higher than when most people paddle the Ranch let alone race), with no safety. That said it is still one of the most fun days of racing I've had, not my fault no one else rallied.

Best of luck w/ the race nonsense.  Everyone appreciates your efforts.