Durian Cup

There's a fun event coming up tonight at the Dump. Dave Shishcoff of organicathelete.com has organised 4 races in cooperation with SIMBS. The first of the 4 race weekly series is on tonight. Signup starts at 6:30 and racing starts at 7:00. The race fee is a meager $3 if you have a Cycling BC insurance. If not you can buy a day licence for $40. http://www.organicathlete.org/blog/durian-cup. Unfortunately I don't think any of the Shop staff will make it out tonight, but I'm sure we'll be there next week. This is a nice develoment. There have not been a lot of races at the dump for awhile, but after the first super d there last year and the second one this year there seems to be an increased interest for putting on races at Hartland and this will train the Capital Regional District in being more accepting of such events. It's a constant struggle to keep the little land we have for riding in the CRD and events like these, that show that there is a big group of energetic people using the trails might help in developing more land for mountain biking. What seems to elude the CRD is how much is to be gained from having a nice network of trails within the city limits. CRD tends to focus on liability issues, but forgets to think about how much mountain bikers contribute to the local economy...Somehow this goes unnoticed. BC is a Mecca for mountain biking and there are thousands of people that come here (BC) specificly to ride our trails, and if the city of Victoria is interested in keeping a healthy tourist population they should expand the riding in the region, not limit it. Mountain biking adds to a list of nice sustainable things to do in Victoria and it would be great if those that travel here would have more options in trail systems to ride. but that's a whole different story...Go out there and race the Durian Cup... It should be great fun and I'm sure there will be some beers afterwards...