Silk Road Mountain Race (SRMR)

It'd be pretty tricky dropping a rested rider up the course amongst the front runners, no matter what the reason for them pulling back.

I don't know skinny, but that sounds like the kind of thing he's dead against from various comments he's made on here. If he keeps going, it'll be on the bike.

I guess the argument for it would be that it was a malicious disadvantage to a single rider, not something that affects anyone else. Driving him back to where he had to turn back isn't giving him any advantage, just putting him in the same place (still with lost time because of the incident).
I see how it becomes a grey area of when to give assistance in similar cases though. This is very much the extreme of things you cannot prepare for

Yeah of course. I still back him to be in with a chance of a win if he does carry on!

Part of these races is overcoming the unexpected. This is the extreme end of course. You’ll struggle to meet two riders who had the same experience on a race.

Hang on a second. Lael has passed Jakub!?

Edit. Jakub's tracker not updated in 3+hrs, so that's probably the issue.

Further edit: She's put about 7km between her and Jay which is impressive.

This was the reason I had big fears when the dots showed he got in the control car. Then the cryptic early insta message. This is terrible of course, but Skinny has been through hard shit in these races and thankfully it's a scare rather than an accident.

There's always a big element of luck.

He was in the wrong place at the wrong time to have met the robbers. But the same applies when you get the worst of a storm, encounter a bad driver, run over an invisible spike that wrecks your tyre, or your bike frame suddenly falls apart underneath you.

In that sense this is similar. You hope that luck averages out over an event and that the difference is how riders deal with the setbacks. But doesn't always work like that.

Who is Fixie Dave? I'd like to know more!

But the same applies when you snap the pedal insert out of your spendy carbon cranks

me too :)

Over 4 hours now without an update to his tracker. Run out of battery?

I thought it must be something like that, or weather issues, when skinny turned around, as I didn't think it was likely to have been a wild animal. Glad he got away.

It puts a question over the viability of the event.

I don't think a single incident does. Obviously, that's a problem, but in general people are overwhelmingly helpful and hospitable to strangers. Two friends of mine were on a long bike trip a few years ago in which the only places they hitched motorised rides across were war zones. There was one incident in which they were robbed by some locals, but when they reported it the whole of the nearby town was deeply ashamed and went out of its way to make them feel immensely welcome, deal with the perpetrators, and send them on their way cheered, strengthened, and refreshed.

You can't eliminate all risk, and I'm sure everyone who enters something like this knows it's not a package holiday.

I think when you have so many riders riding for so long across such a large area, it's inevitable that sooner or later someone will encounter a really crappy situation. It's the outcome that's important and with skinny safe, it's a decent outcome.

The greatest threat to these races seems to be insurance, either the events own (gaining it) or a riders insurer pursuing a claim.

Individual incidents can potentially adversely and disproportionately effect that I’d imagine.

Lael 9km ahead of Jay (who knows where Jakub is?) but on the downhill into a valley now. She could put good distance between them in the next 4-5hrs.

Great comparison to give context of how brutal this race is: https://twitter.com/jitensha_oni/status/1163898536687218688

The blue tour line seems a little disingenuous.
Edit Galibier is also only a bit over 2.5k!?

This race is full on though, huge respect to anyone on the start line.

Er oops ...

I hope James is alright and knows he can stop riding with his head held high if that's what his head is telling him to do.

I also hope the other riders don't encounter the same issue - presumably the would-be thieves have seen that there are tired, well-supplied riders struggling up a hill who could be easy prey. I hope the organisers step in if needed.

?

I didn't realise it had a profile like that.

skinny always makes it look so easy. :)

I see. I think the first 50km would be my limit (and I might be flattering myself at that).

Lael getting some good speed on the flatter valley sections and Jay still has a fair bit of technical descending to do. Looks like she could open up a decent gap. Be interesting to see where Jakub is, hasn't updated/mover in 5+ hrs.

Lael's opened up a gap of 36km on Jay. He's getting into the valley too so will pick up speed.

Jakub hasn't moved or updated in 7 hours which is probably a tracker issue, but a possible concern.