Anyone know why race director Ben Sachs was removed just weeks before the event?
lots of big changes announced when routes were released for this year's event including amateurs no longer being able to finish in the same chute as the pros and big delays between the elite rider start and the start time for amateurs
interesting piece on the subject here:
https://g-tedproductions.blogspot.com/2024/05/unbounds-evolutionary-changes-further.html
by drkodos
10 Comments
I can’t speak to the RD swap, but the other changes seem good. I forget which recent race it was, but it was a sprint finish and it looked super-unsafe having pros coming through the finish line at 35 mph, weaving through amateurs doing 12 mph. Makes sense to me having the finish line split into two chutes.
Ben’s been out for a while. It just maybe didn’t make your ears until recently. He had a job position change almost immediately after the 2023 event. As far as different finishing chutes. Again not a surprise. Given the pro sprints over the past 3 years they needed to fix it. They will both still finish down commercial. It’s a wide road. Just two separate chutes.
The chaos of the pros sprint finishes the last 2 years is very dangerous. They needed to do something before somebody got hurt.
How many amateurs actually end up riding down the chute with the pros? It’s not like they can time that exactly to happen.
At least for the 200 mile amateur riders and many of the 100 mile amateurs pros will be long finished so the crowds will have no pros to cheer for at that point
Met the new race director over the weekend. He’s a cool guy and seems like he will do good things. He’s going to be leading the little and big sugar races too.
I rode with Ben back in January and at that point he had already moved to a new position internally at lifetime but they had not yet chosen his replacement. They must have just finally got around to announcing the change.
1 month out is not last minute mate
Word on the street is that Ben Sachs quit due to over work and disagreements with Lifetime – so no longer an employee and going in a different direction. Last I knew he was overseeing two major races and collaborating on the rest of the series, which is a big job that probably doesn’t pay well and is high stress. The race is in a bit of chaos at the moment due to the changeover, so there likely won’t be a comment on his departure soon and possibly not at all as the departure was not on good terms.
It was a shit show last year, excited to see the chaos this year
I’ll be there riding the 50 as a first timer. I’m mostly worried there will be so many people there it will be more stress than fun.
The author used too many “quotation marks”.
That finishing chute had to change. They started using non-pros to block people from coming around and it was so sketchy.