BIKEMONKEY

WHO: Laird Knight, Race Promoter Extraordinaire: Granny Gear.

photo: Dan Campbell

Bike Monkey’s contributing writer Fritz Wisor had a chance to catch up with famed race promoter Laird Knight and ask him some questions about what has made him and his events what they are today.  Here is some insight into one successful race promoter’s rise to fame. We let Laird do the talking…

BM: Where ya from?
Military Brat (more brat than military), Davis, West Virginia has been my home for 24 years (moved there from Snowmass, Colorado in 1982) but now that I’m married to my awesome wife, Barbara, my home is with her in Morgantown, WV. (Go EERS!)

BM: Any favorite bikes?
My first bike. I called it the Red Rocket. Upon it, or more accurately falling off of it, I learned that even scabs can get scabs.

BM: How about trail systems?
Hmmmm, tough one. Well, Moab always delivers. The UPS-LPS-Porcupine Rim combo occupies three of the top 10 rides of my life.

BM: When did you produce your first events?
1983 in Davis, WV. The Canaan Mountain 40K. Twelve started, zero finished (I raced it too). The first 24 hour race was the 24 Hours of Canaan in 1992, also held in Davis, WV. (I raced in this one, as well. I wasn’t about to pass up this much fun.) It ended up being WAY more fun than any of us could have imagined. That’s when I knew I was on to something and decided to quit my job to become a full-time, professional race promoter.

BM: It seems like the race promotion business is one where folks don’t tend to last that long. Without giving away your secrets, what do you think has made Granny Gear last as long as it has?
If I had a secret that would keep promoters going longer, I’d give it away. The fact is promoters take on a lot of work, a lot of stress, a lot of financial risk, a lot of responsibility, and a lot of ethical (if not legal) liability. And, often after all is said and done, there’s not much (sometimes much less than not much) left over. On top of all that, some racers have it in their heads that you are making a pile of money from their entry fees and they make you the bad guy. Fortunately, the vast majority of mountain bike racers are humble, fun-loving, respectful, and appreciative and frankly it is this consistent quality that I’ve observed in mountain bikers that endears me to the sport and sustains me in down times, when I feel like quitting. When I hear of a promoter throwing in the towel (why doesn’t our sport have more metaphors to draw on?), I understand completely and I feel a weird mixture of sadness and relief for them.

photo: Tom Weigand

BM: Do you still ride? Race?
OH YEA!!! But frankly, not as much of either as I’d like to. I’m not a natural athlete in coordination or inherent fitness, but I do love the fun-factor that comes from competition and gamesmanship. I’m truly grateful for both my pee-wee and junior varsity football coaches for helping me discover what I was capable of (AND for making the shoulder-role an instinctual response in a fall. To this day, I often roll up out of endo, onto my feet, looking for someone to tackle).

BM: What is your idea of a kick ass event?
As a racer: Low-stress, smooth organization, kick-ass course, and quick, accurate timing.
As a promoter: Low-stress, smooth organization, kick-ass course, and quick, accurate timing.
Oh, and good competition, in both cases.

BM: What about the events and the racers has changed since you started doing the 24 hour thing in ‘92?
In the events area, the 24-hour format has spun off into 6’s and 12’s and I think spurred the development of and demand for epic (100 miler type) racing. The days of the big NCS races seem to have waned a little. Grass-roots, local, XC racing is still holding its own and I think it will always be vitally important to the health of our sport. In fact, I’d like to see much more of it in order to get teens and 20-somethings pouring into the sport again. The racer demographic is aging, though they’re all still fast as hell. It’s occurred to me that it’s a different world for entry-level 20-somethings these days as compared to when all us old-timers where in our 20’s. It was a new sport back in the 80’s. Heck, having someone, say 35, in the race was like “wow, can you believe that guy did that well?”. And as impressive as the 35-year olds were, they were rarely that competitive. Nowadays there are a whole slew of 45, 50 and even 55-year olds that regularly trounce the 20-something newbies. It must be deflating for them. Hey guys…mileage counts. Keep riding. You’ll get there.

BM: What are people doing wrong in the race promotion business?
They’re not charging enough money!

BM: What’s the biggest gripe you hear about yourself and others in the game?
They’re charging too much money!

Promoters need to learn that they owe it to their racers to be successful. A reasonable profit gives the promoter the motivation to keep going and the resources to improve the event and add more value. It’s not about greed, it’s about running a healthy business that can succeed and serve it participants, year after year.

Racers need to learn to appreciate how much goes into producing a race, or at least try to imagine what it must cost. Compare the cost of our entry fee ($140 w/o early discounts) with any number of other things you might pay for regularly or look at the entry fees in other sports like Xterra or triathlons.

Think of one of those VISA commercials: A month’s supply of Kona coffee to help you get up early for training, $84. A special dinner with your girl-friend because you forgot to tell her you couldn’t go with her to her sister’s because you’re going to Moab with your buds to do one of those 24-hour races, $100. The speeding ticket you got from the nice police officer from Utah, $240. 24 hours of racing, 24 hours of RealTime scoring, 24 hours of EMS, 24 hours of Volunteers and lifelong memories for you and your crew,…priceless.

BM: What is your favorite memory of all the 24 hour races you’ve put on. (Epic battles, Mythical Suffering, Good time teary eyed moments?)
Wow, that’s a question that will be hard to keep succinct. While there have been many epic solo battles (is there one that isn’t?), in my mind the most intense race in the history of 24-hour racing was the Co-ed Pro/Am in Moab in 2001, when the top three pro teams had spent their guys through the nights and it all came down to the gals on the very last lap Alison Sydor (her TREK teammates Sue Haywood, Travis Brown and Chris Eatough) vs Gretchen Reeves (her Beaver Creek teammates Melissa Thomas, Mike Janelle and Jay Henry) vs Shonny Vanlandingham (her Sobe/Headshock teammates Kerry Barnholt, Jimi Killen, and Eric Jones). You can read about it here  http://www.grannygear.com/Races/Moab/2001/index.shtml but the story doesn’t match the edge-of-the-seat drama of being there.

The greatest teary-eyed moment was watching John Stamstad climb down off the podium at The 24 Hours of Canaan in 1996 to a standing ovation after besting half the field of 360 teams as the first 24-hour soloist. Everyone was crying. I’m getting weepy again just writing about it.

The Mythical Suffering brings to mind, not that of numerous soloist who seem to revel in running themselves in the ground but several Moab events where myself and my crew discovered levels of bone-tiredness we never new existed. For example, few know the back-story of the infamous “8-hours of Moab”, in 2006. The rains that plagued the race were the follow-on to rains earlier in the week that had completely washed out the road to the venue. Typically we begin setting up the venue eight days prior to the race (with the weekend off to ride) and even then it seems we just barely get everything tied up by late Friday night. In 2006, our trucks did not even park for the first time at the venue site until 12:30 in the afternoon on the Wednesday before the race. With only two and a half days to put up everything we’d normally put up in six day of work we called-in some extra help and worked a 12, a 16, and an 18 hour day, in succession. I wasn’t asleep until 1:30 Saturday morning and only slept 4-1/2 hours before one of the food vendors woke me to get the generators started so they could start fixing breakfast. That night, after the rains and hypothermic conditions had shut the event down, my IT-guy, Zack Hall, and I pulled an all-nighter, trying to modify the timing system to create a fair way to stop and re-start a 24-hour race. (It turns out that this is impossible in any truly fair and practical way but that didn’t really start dawning on us until, well, dawn.) Of course the rest of the day was spent dealing with furious racers and trying to re-assemble the results for the awards ceremony and, of course, packing-up and cleaning-up to a point where we could call it a day (a weekend?). So, from Friday morning at 6 am till Sunday night at 7 pm many of my staff and I had only 4-5 hours sleep out of 60 and this after three long days leading up to it. I remember driving back to town at the end the event, groaning with pain. Deep, weary pain.

BM: Do you have any advice from your side of the timing table for racers getting started in the endurance and ultra-endurance events?
a) Bring LOTS of support crew so they get a break. They’ll have more fun (and be more likely to help you again) if they have time off to hang out a little and get some sleep. (And don’t be too cheap to buy them all t-shirts.)

b) Have Fun! Train hard because it’s more fun to race when you are fit. There’s less lung-butter suffering and more strategy that way. It’s not as important to ride hard all the time as it is just to ride all the time. In fact, I think it’s counter-productive to ride hard in your training after you’ve gotten close to your peak fitness. Just ride.

c) Sign up early. There’s more value (and lower prices) when you commit early. Think about all the excitement and fun preparing for the event that you and your teammates miss when you wait till the end to commit!

BM: Where are we headed? What do you think the next big thing in MTB racing in the US is going to be? (Stage Racing Off-road centuries, Short Track Racing, etc)
I hope the next big thing in mountain biking is mountain biking; like in the 90s, again. This sport has so much to offer and I’m concerned that the next generation didn’t get the bike bug the way that we did. We were raised on bikes, lived on our bikes as kids. I’m SO grateful for the quality of life and the level of health that I enjoy and there’s no doubt that it’s from riding bikes. Exercise is boring. I won’t do it. Riding bikes is fun. I do it every chance I get. What’s next in racing? My inventive mind is still turning gears but nothing to announce just yet.

BM: 10- What would you like to see for the future of Endurance MTB’ing?
I’m looking forward to the 50th Annual 24 Hour of Moab. I’ll be 76, hanging around, telling stories about the old days. Heck, with a little help from science I might actually be racing in it on a team of super-uber-grand-masters.

BM: Bonus- What are you doing to keep a grassroots feel at your events?
The same thing I’ve been doing for 26 years, honoring and celebrating the comradery, sportsmanship and fun of mountain bike racing.

Thanks again for the opportunity to speak.

-Laird

photo: Harlan Price

~Bike Monkey