Tales from the SRAM Van-Racing

Why do people race? Of all the people that ride bikes in the world there's only a fraction of a percent who race. Why?
It's quite inexpensive to race. Oh wait a minute, no it isn't. Nothing about racing is inexpensive! (With the exception of the Whistler local races at $2 each with a free beer!) Lets start with getting there.
Say for example you're gonna follow the Canada Cup circut. Now that Jets-Go's out we're all hooped. So now your lookin' at at least $600 to fly to Quebec.
Where you gonna stay?How you gonna get there? Food?
Entry Fee? It's a good thing your bike never breaks when you're racing, cause that can be expensive to repair in a different town where you have no hook ups at all. Oh wait a minute, they do break, ALL THE f*ckIN TIME!But hold on! If you win the race it pays for everything! People race bikes because of all the money you can win. Oh wait a minute WRONG AGAIN! How much cash do you receive for winning a Professional Mens Downhill National race? The highest level of the sport in our country. About $1000. I just checked out the Canadian national darts web sight out of curiosity. It seems for winning a national darts competition you can win $1100. Darts. Of course these are highly conditioned athletes risking their lives for the sport they love. Oh.....wait a minute...no
they aren't. Darts break a lot and they're expensive
though. No they aren't. I guess we should consider ourselves lucky though, the NORBA series gave NO prize money last year. NONE!
So we don't race cause its cheap and we don't make any money doing it, so....again, why do we race?
We race because it's fun. SO fun! Who wouldn't want to travel around the country with their friends doing what they love to do the most. You get to ride trails and race courses that you never would have ridden otherwise. Take for example the first 30 seconds of the dh course at the Panorama BC cup. I start shaking just thinking about how fast you get to go there. With the exception of the Sun Peaks course I don't think I rode my bike faster last year. For those very few of you who rode there you know what I'm talking about.
The beginning of this course goes straight down the ski hill into a HUGE roller. If that isn't fun I don't know what is. I was definitely a little scared every single time i did it. Its the kind of speed where your vision gets a little blurred and you really start thinking about how fast your going. If you didn't think this was fast you have mental problems and I want them.
The biggest reason for racing I think for most of us is competition. People want to win. People want to defeat other people and be the best. The feeling of winning a race is unmatched. On that day you were the best. Nobody there went faster. Oh the glory.
"How'd you do in you're race?"
" I won. "
How good is that?! Thats what we strive for; victory.
Even if it isn't first place you can still be the victor. You can beat your friends, that guy that was talking shit all the way up the lift,the guy thats 1 place ahead of you in the points, the guy that's more sponsored than you,or the guy you were just reading about in the magazines. They're all victories. ( By the way, this all applies for the ladies as well, just replace "the guy" with "the girl" ) So if you wanna have fun at a new place or even think you're a little competitive, try racing. At least try it once. I promise you you'll do something in your race run that you'd never do otherwise. Try it!

Adam Billinghurst