An Open Letter to the Letter Writers of Squamish,
It appears that the traffic complaints about the GranFondo are based on personal importance and/or stubbornness. If it was a family member in town for a few hours, or an old flame, or a prospective employer, basically anyone or anything that was important to you, altering your schedule by an hour or two wouldn't be considered a hardship. It would hardly be an inconvenience; it would be a change of schedule. Maybe even a welcome reason to get out of the house early. That's all. Coffee at Starbucks? Breakfast at Chef Big D's? An early snack at Fat Burger? Sure, I'm in and looking forward to it.
Because you have no choice in the matter but to alter your schedule to help make a lifetime memory for over 10,000 people (I'm counting vollies and fans because I got so excited volley-ing last year that I bought a road bike and I'm doing the Fondo this year), you've got your backs up against the wall and do silly things like saying you refuse to leave your house early to get to work. Refuse to make allowances. Refuse to embrace an amazing event.
Is it that much of a hardship to eat breakfast out on this one day? To maybe ride your bike across the highway? Or to drive down to the highway and then catch a bus or cab or a ride with a waiting friend on the other side? To walk? To wait? Or even to kick back with your feet up with a perfect excuse to do nothing on a Saturday morning? Is it that painful asking you to enjoy the spectacle that will be rolling through our town for a couple of hours? No, it's not, but you're doing your best to pretend that it is.
I may not be in the Giro category, but I'm still racing. I might suck by your standards, but I'm still racing. I might not be able to afford it next year, but this year, I'm racing. The other 8,758 hours of the year (approximately) I can expect to stop at traffic lights, dodge debris and drains in the cycling lane and be prepared to be buzzed by drivers who feel it's inconvenient to give cyclists a little extra room, but at some point during the two hours Squamish will be inconvenienced (not punished, not broken, not disastered - inconvenienced), I expect to be doing my best to come flying through town working my ass off, appreciating how magical it is to experience something like this. So to me and to many others like me, it is a race and it is important that we can roll through town without worrying about getting hit or cut off.
And maybe I'll be feeling a little proud if I've convinced even one person to stop bitching and start thinking that maybe, just maybe, those two hours are important to thousands of other people and it's not such a horrible thing to delay a trip to Wal-Mart.
Gary McFarlane
Squamish
