EWS Scotland Day 2 (shortened, but why?)

I woke up this morning to the following email in my Inbox:


Part of me was relieved because I was having a pretty lousy weekend and struggling to find any flow on the tight, muddy trails and the idea of finishing a few hours early sounded pretty good. And it had rained all night. But then I realized that they had dropped Stages 6 and 7 and left in Stage 5...

Here's a quick overview of the original four stages on day 2:

Stage 5: Newly cut, steep, hadn't been ridden in at all, dirt was a mixture of mud and clay. During the race people ended up tearing off their mud guards by hand because their tires were getting so gummed up that their wheels wouldn't spin.
Stage 6: Long, groomed, lots of pedaling. This was the stage that everyone was complaining about because it was so pedaly. It was all groomed trail that shed water well so it would have been fine even in terrible weather.
Stage 7: Short, steep, fun. Would have dealt with lots of moisture fairly well.
Stage 8: Good mix of pedaling and technical. Long but finished right near Peebles. A perfect final stage.

It made sense to keep Stage 8 as it finished less than 10 minutes from the event HQ and it was perfectly ridable despite the night of rain. And it was close enough to Peebles to give spectators great access. But why Stage 5? It was terrible. Not just for me (although it was terrible for me), but for everyone I talked to. Most people couldn't clip into their pedals by the bottom. I heard five different people say they had flipped over the bars because their front tires got so gummed up they wouldn't spin. Other people had to manually tear their mud guards off mid-run. And on the transition back up to the final stage people were dunking their bikes in the trailside stream in an attempt to rinse off their drivetrains.


So why keep it? Stages 6 or 7 would have dealt with the weather better and been easier to access. Some people are saying Day 2 was only shortened so they could drop Stage 6 without a fuss. Others are saying that the exhibitors wanted to pack up early. Neither of these seems likely to me, but the question remains, why Stage 5?

Here's POV of my Stage 5 run complete with crashes, OTB and getting passed by three riders. Yeah, I had a terrible run.



And Stage 8 (which actually started on Stage 6 - see the email above). I took one really good "enduro line" part way through the run to let Chris Johnston (of the Santa Cruz Nomads) pass.