BLOGGERS CONTEST UPDATE & EXPLANATION

THE EXPLANATION:
Sorry for the delay - I’ve re-tabulating the results yet again. It’s time consuming because every time I download an update, I have to remove the illegitimate data by hand.

A lot of you are wondering why some contestants have moved down in the rankings. Here’s the quick explanation: for a vote to count it must list a “first,” “second,” and “third” choice. Sadly, the guilty party not only voted for themselves “first” hundreds of times, they also voted for other contestants dozens upon dozens upon dozens of times, (at times in big blocks) for their second and third choices. These ballots also had to be considered illegal and were subsequently removed.

My guess is that a script was set up on a handful of machines that cleared both the cookies and the cache of the machine and then automated the voting process, subsequently allowing each machine to vote again and again. Backing out all of the bad data has played hell with the rankings and completely upended some of your expectations. In some cases, folks who thought they were in good standing now find themselves somewhat behind. There are some ruffled feathers out there.

We’ve had a few thoughtful conversations over the weekend with some of the contestants, and there have been some unsurprisingly clipped emails directed at us as well. There’s also a bit of backlash going on by some folks online (and I’m sure in person.) Let me set the record straight – we are not cheating or skewing the results, we are merely rectifying a situation not of our making...and investing a lot of our time in doing so. I can understand some anger, but having it directed at us seems a little off base. With that said, that’s also sort of understandable as we haven’t released a detailed explanation until right now. Please feel free to pass this along to whomever may benefit from reading it.

My phone number and email are generally public domain. I would encourage ANYONE who has questions to pick up the phone and speak to me rather than allow those ambiguities to balloon into something else. I truly regret that things worked out this way, but again I must reiterate, our mistake was trusting in the integrity of the individual. Our experience here in Colorado has always proven this to be the proper course. Withe the Mountain States Cup, The Firecracker, Mountain Bike Little League and The Summit Mountain Challenge we’ve gone to great lengths over the past decade to cultivate, recognize and at times reward what we perceive as outstanding instances of sportsmanship. This philosophy has served us well. I believe that most people, and certainly the vast majority of all of you subscribe to this ethos. Unfortunately, there are some who do not and there is one in our midst.

Thanks for hanging in there –

Mike

Michael McCormack
Managing Director The GreenSpeed Project, Inc.
mikemac@breckepic.com 970.485.5847

UPDATED RESULTS:
Ok folks – these are the real results once the bogus votes have been removed. As you can see, there’s still a bit of shuffling going on and not much space separating some of the top vote-getters and those within striking distance.

You’ve got until midnight to get the vote out, so if you've got a horse in the race, get your pork-luvvin’, Tammany-hall style politician’s smile out and keep shaking those hands and kissing those babies.

…and please, please, PLEASE – impress upon your friends that importance of only voting once per computer. Now that our radar is up for suspicious activity I’ll be taking it upon myself to discard all shady-looking votes. There’s an acceptable limit to how many votes can come from one box – and we’re actually being pretty generous in that regard, but my advice? Don’t push it too far. Do not let your chances be marginalized.

MM

5358 Jen Hanks, Salt Lake City, UT, played by: Jennifer Garner from “Alias” and “Elektra”
5273 Team Dicky, aka Rich Dillen, Charlotte, NC, played by: Rick Moranis
5020 Tomi McMillar, Carlisle, PA, played by: the "I've fallen and can't get up" lady
4993 Heather Szabo and Mary Monroe, Lafayette and Durango, CO, played by Cameron Diaz (X2)
4890 Luke Wiens, HOMETOWN: Temecula, CA, played by: Robert Duval
4616 Matthew Juth, Evergreen, CO, played by: Edward Norton
4024 Brandon Dwight, played by Bill Murray (directed and produced by Wes Andreson)3967 Jeffrey Carter, Denver, CO, played by that guy from Breaking Away
3906 Wendy Skean, Mountain Center, CA, played by: Tinker. In drag.
3861 Neil Miner, Boulder, CO, played by Jon Heder
3728 Ryan Draper, Canmore, Alberta CAN, played by Owen Wilson (He hopes)
3238 Mary Wilcox, Ogden, UT, played by: The 5th Element. Or Angelina Jolie. Or Will Ferrell.
2934 Lynda Wallenfels, St George, UT, played by Claire Littleton
2751 Ben Thompson, Bend, OR, played by: Himself
2739 Anthony Maguire, Taos, NM, played by “Ant” Maguire
2661 Larry Grossman, Eagle, CO, played by: Robert DeNiro
2551 Keith Berkoben, Somerville, MA, played by Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones
2531 Sarah Uhl, played by....wait for it...SARAH UHL!
2150 Cory Wallace, played by Harrison Ford/Indy/the Blade Runner guy

- WE DELIVER

...your food that is, thanks to Subaru and Mountain Bike Magazine. Subaru is going to provide each racer/team with 2 reusable shopping bags made from recycled bottles (RPET). These are a lot like those $.99 plastic jobbies at Whole Foods. We're going to design them so that we can easily print your bib numbers on the side. You can load them up with extra gear, your own personal food...whatever, and we'll stage them for you at the aid station (or the stage finish) of your choosing each day of racing.

Why is this a big deal? Well, the Hammer folks are our energy gel and beverage sponsor and their stuff is great, but even they acknowledge that if you're on a particular nutrition or supplement regimen that in a race of this distance you might want to have the ability to stick to it as closely as possible. We're implementing a strategy (with their firm blessing I might add - they're so cool,) to help you do just that. Your bags will be lined up at the place of your choosing in numerical order, then we'll bring them all back to race HQ at the end of the day so you can reboot for the next day's stage.

...and you get to take those effin bags home. That means that in a sea of promotional reusable bag crap you'll have the swankest one in town. One that says, "I'm tougher than you. And you. And you." ...and so on and so forth.

Subaru's also underwriting the on-site shuttle system. What is it? Well, they're giving us 10 cars to use for the event. With the generous help of Yakima, they'll all be outiftted with bike racks. From 9am to 8pm each day Breck Epic staffers will use the cars to take you just about wherever you want to go. We're trying to make it as easy as possible to get around our little town, so much so that we can say with a straight face, 'once you get here you don't need a car'.

Wanna go to dinner? We'll take you. Wanna ride to the rec center? We'll take you. Wanna go back to your condo? We'll take you. Wanna take a hopped up 2009 Outback curb-jumping? We're still negotiating that one.

Wanna express your thanks? Consider Subaru when making your next auto purchase - this is just the sort of customer-centric philosophy that makes them a great fit with The BE and a good choice for your next car. It helps that they have the punk-rock 2.5 liter Boxxer turbo engine. My wife has it in her car and I kick the living shit out of it every chance I get (keep that on the DL, yo.) What does it say when I've got my foot rammed all the way to its floorboard? "IS THAT ALL YOU'VE GOT, YOU GUTLESS WORM?!?!? GIMME MOOORRREEE!!!!" All that and 20-something MPG. Made in a zero-waste facility. I love it.

Thanks Subaru. Thanks Mountain Bike. Your thoughtfulness just made the event a bit better.

MM