BIKEMONKEY

It doesn’t take much for several hundred people to make a big impact on an area. So we’re dubbing ourselves a low-impact event and enforcing measures to ensure that.

1. PACK IT IN, PACK IT OUT:  As race promoters we are not responsible for your junk until it’s littered all over the place.  So if you bring it with you to the event, you get to take it home. Because none of us want to know about your private life…  There will be no place for anything other than recyclable items, so bring your own trash bag and make room for it on the ride home.
2. BRING YOUR OWN PLATES: Last year this was a big deal, and helped us to achieve a low-impact race. As a racer your meal at the end of the day is included as part of your entry fee. Keeping it free depends on your ability to remember to pack your own re-usable plates, bowls, cups, and silverware.  If you forget, you can BUY a set of our biodegradable plate-ware for anywhere between $2 and $4 depending on what you need.  Consider it a convenience fee or a fine–them’s the rules.
3. RECYCLING: We will help you all recycle and will have recycle and compost bins available.  But absolutely no non-recyclable waste–you get to take that crap home with you.  We’ll have a recycle-bouncer standing by to make you look like a fool if you try to put garbage where it don’t belong so stick to the protocol.

We figure that a bunch of you folks are going to show up with your friends and family.  GREAT!  We love the atmosphere it provides and the Sonoma County Trails Council is going to accommodate them by selling food, drinks, and beer all day.

1. BRING CASH: The SCTC will be equipped to sell your friends and family food and drinks, but they can only take cash.  So make sure to have some with you.  Everything will be reasonably priced.  It’s not a movie theater–It’s a mountain bike race!
2. RAFFLE/FOOD TICKET SYSTEM: Buying food is sort of a two-for-one sort of deal.  If you buy food it means you bought a raffle ticket.  So essentially you buy your raffle tickets first and if you want to redeem any of them for food you just tear off one half and hand it in.  Raffle tickets are good for: SWAG, FOOD, DRINKS, and BEER.

1. REFUNDS/TRANSFERS: The time for refunds has closed–they will not be honored.  However you can transfer your registration to somebody else as long as you do it BEFORE MARCH 14th.
2. CATEGORY CHANGES: Category changes will be allowed BEFORE MARCH 21st.  After that date our registration database will be closed to any changes and made final so we don’t have race-day headaches which might set us back.
3. SIGN-IN:  Sign in will be available both the evening before and early on race-day.
   • NIGHT BEFORE: Sometime in the afternoon.  We’re leaving this loose for now so when you get there come over to registration for the final word on when sign-in on the eve’ of the race will take place.
   • RACE-DAY: Race-day sign-in will be open from 6:30am until 8:00am.

RACE-DAY

Here is your race-day schedule:

1. 6:30am: Registration opens
2. 8:00am: Registration closes
3. 8:05am: Racer Briefing at the Registration Tent
4. 8:30am: Racing begins.  Waves will start in 2-minute intervals after a 10 minute gap from the solo categories.  We will have a final start order on race-day, so make sure to get there on time so you know when you’re going off.  LOOK FOR THE SIGNPOST WITH YOUR CATEGORY ON IT, and LINE UP THERE. 

All food and beer sales throughout the day will be used to support the Sonoma County Trails Council who will be out there helping us to produce a top-notch event.  They’re even going to be helping us with course prep-work and producing the event this year so your money spent on food and such is money well-spent.  We couldn’t do it or much of anything else in our area with bikes if it weren’t for this organization.

1. RAFFLE:  Shops are kicking down to help support this cause in 2009 by entering into a new “SHOP TEAM” category.  Their entry fee is SWAG, and all of that swag gets thrown into a pot to help raise money for the SCTC.  Your purchase of redeemable raffle tickets enters you into a chance to win this stuff that will be raffled off throughout the day.  So remember to BRING CASH (I think I said that already)

For 2009 a couple minor things are going to change.

1. COURSE CHANGE: The course will be altered slightly.  Nothing major, but we had some trouble with the BALP (big-ass-launching-pad) last year and a couple of riders were injured–both seriously.  We take that seriously and in order to make sure everybody has a fun and safe event we’re going to avoid the BALP.
2. SHOP CUP: Part of what keeps us real here in Sonoma County is how well we play with others.  To identify with that we are presenting the “Shop Cup” for 2009–a stanley-cup-like award that will be given to the strongest bicycle shop employee team and passed along from year to year.  Like the Stanley Cup, the first year’s award will be a prestigious but humble trophy that will grow over the years.

DIRECTIONS (CLICK HERE FOR A MAP)
Getting to Boggs Demonstration State Forest is pretty straight forward.

• Unless you are coming from a northwestern direction (Mendocino/Humboldt counties) then your directions are as follows:

1. Get yourself to Middletown, CA
2. Take HWY 175 to Cobb, CA
3. Continue through Cobb, CA past the golf course, through town, and past the school.
4. Leave town and start to wind your way through a couple of tight switchbacks.
5. After a mile or so, look for the BLUE “State Fire Station” sign on the right.  That’s your entrance.

• If you are coming from that “other” place, then you will be coming from HWY 175 the other direction, and the entrance to Boggs Demonstration State Forest after seeing the blue sign will be on your LEFT.  You will not start from Middletown.