Today on the merch visitor podcast episode number 33.
Mister Murphy is back, and boy, has he been busy? How busy? When someone doesn't like off road racing, I mean, really doesn't like off road racing of any kind, you get Mister Murphy. He has all sorts of wrenches that he can throw into your race day planning. And this year, Mister Murphy and his buddies were all about making a mess of things for me. However, it taught me all sorts of things about what makes Mister Murphy tick The results of the strategy that they will teach you today for taking on your own Mister Murphy and keeping him from stopping your race cold. What's that, Mister Murphy? Why are you using that finger to tell me I'm number 1? I love that guy.
Greetings, and welcome to season 3. I am the recognier, Kyle Bondo, your professional business coach for race promoters who want to turn race promotion into a lifestyle. And this is Lucky number 33. Episode number 33, which is dedicated to my cohost, Mister Murphy. And just to tease you a little, since Mister Murphy loves surprises. This whole episode is going to be about his antics and a return of his wheel of Woe. I'd be thinking, wheel of woe. What is that? Well, it's the wheel of misfortune,
where every time you spin it, it lands on something bad. Then Mister Murphy does that bad thing to you hence the woe part as in woe is me. Fortunately, I've been around a dozen spins of the wheel alone, and now most of Mister Murphy's tricks. And today, I'm gonna teach you what You can do to survive when Mister Murphy makes you spin the wheel of oil yourself. Don't think this can happen to you? Think again.
My chances are, if you've been around any kind of race promotion for at least 1 minute, you've already met your own Mister Murphy. Mister Murphy is not only a force of nature, or a or divine intervention, whatever you wanna call it. The bad luck that happens to you, it causes whatever can go wrong, to go wrong, and the worst possible time with the worst possible sequence. Mister Murphy can possess people too. Saboteurs,
race haters, trail activists, nature purists, they have all sorts of names. But when they what they all have in common is they hate off road racing. If you haven't had the privilege of meeting your own, Mister Murphy, buckle up because they are everywhere. And it's only a matter of time before you get the opportunity to enjoy
your own turn at the wheel of woah. But fair enough, today is a good day. And it's a good day for learning how to deal or even beat back the Mister Murphy that that will torment your race. It's only a matter of time before that happens, or you're experiencing that right now. Your own personal Mister Murphy's wheel of Woe and I'm gonna help you deal with that situation because I'm gonna explain to you a little bit about my own experience with mister Murphy and how
you can use that as your toolbox for dealing with your experiences as well. So before we can get into how we can defeat Mister Murphy, I need to first tell you a little bit about my own Mister Murphy experience.
So there I was. I just completed directing a 4 race series called Wednesdays at Wakefield. Now this is a race series that have been promoting for the past 10 years. I'm personally directing it for 5. And if you listened to the past 2 episodes where I did inside the Race Record Studio, I talked a lot about Wednesday's Wakefield, how to how we how it was built, trials and tribulations
of the mechanics and the orchestration of Wednesday's Wakefield. But what I didn't talk about was Mister Murphy and his antics during that race series. So when I when I thought about it, when I sat down and think about this and blown away about how much time that I put into seeing this race series stay successful, I spent a lot of time fixing the timing, fixing maintaining
the race, working with all the all the other people who are volunteering and working with it, as part of the race itself, trimming trees, fixing trails, working with the there's an IMBA chapter here called Morneau, which is the Mid Atlantic off road enthusiast. And they're into moredashmtb.org.
That helped fix the trails and work with us to get this race series off the ground. It's really kind of a community effort to do this event. All all hands on BondEK, not only do we have the club I belong to, which is the Potomac velo club, epitomicvilo.com, where we go out there and plan the race, put up the arrows, put up the course mark the the course markings,
decide on what the race course is gonna be, trim branches, cut trees, but more is out there right alongside with us doing the same thing, mowing grass, trimming trees, fixing trail, removing debris. We're out there picking up garbage. We are constantly riding the trails ourselves, so we're always in we're heavily invested in this park. Because this park is really kind of neglected. I mean, Wakefield Park sits in this ideal location just outside Washington DC.
It's kinda become this choice location for mountain biking, trail running, hiking. And since it's just next to Washington D. Metro area, I mean, you can get there from Downtown DC within 20 minutes. So you're just writing the it's almost like in your own backyard.
And it it sits in this kind of suburb area outside the Beltway. And the Beltway in DC is if you think about the Washington DC, if you think about a freeway system that goes around DC, like a giant circle, They call that the Beltway. That's the Washington DC Beltway. It's like i495. And just outside the Beltway. So if you look at it, if you think of it as a compass, the west, the w on your compass would be where Wakefield is as far as the Beltway is concerned. So you can visualize that yourself.
And this park sits it's kind of in the the kind of like the way cities are broken up here almost looks like if you took a if you took a piece of glass and throw a rock through it. And the way the glass cracked is kinda how the city boundaries work out. So this park technically sits in the city of Anadale, but really it's right on the edge of Springfield, which is really right on the edge of Burke. Which just sits all in the Fairfax County strange location.
So this park is in like a lot of people's backyards. So people are very interested and invested in this park, especially mountain bikers. So this park is not just limited to those that live near it all around the park, there are communities that bordered as well.
So you have walkers and families that are pushing baby carriages and residents use this park because there's a separation between the park and a I guess it gets called a suburban sprawl or complex of houses and communities and people's property, homeowners.
So there is a the huge community that circles this park as well. And it's not too far away just across the main road that sits right there. It's called Braddock Road. The other side, the south side of this area is a place called Lake Acotene, which has another huge community and a man made lake, which which has a green zone
which was which was constructed many, many years ago, long before me, that goes through Fairfax County. Like, it starts like at Lake Fairfax, which wap in the north of the county and comes through, and it's called the Cross County Trail. And it's this green zone that has this natural trail that moves all the way through. It kinda connects all these parks together. It's not perfect. They've put highways and freeways and parkways through the middle of it. They've built houses all around it. But if you If you work hard enough, you can figure out how the
CCT works and connect all these pieces together. Fact, once upon a time, more put together something called the the Nova Epic, the Northern Virginia Epic. Which was a race that started in Wharton, which is at the south of the county all the way down by the Aquaclan River. And from Wharton, which is where the ruins of the Lorton prison is, you can go from Lorton all the way up to Lake Fairfax. It's it's like 50 some odd miles. It is a a true epic, and it is a true
it's it's a it's a not only a fun ride, it's hard ride. Because you're you're kinda going up the water shed and you're going up kinda going uphill in in a sense coming from the south to the north. But If you stop and ride every mountain bike trail on the way up there, you can do Laurel Hill, and then you can ride the Lake Acutane and do Lake Acutane trails.
And then you can go to Wakefield and do the mountain bike trails of Wakefield. And then you go all the way up into Oakmar and do the mountain bike trails behind the Oakmar golf course, which will take you into difficult run which takes you past the Dulles Parkway or toll road, and then it moves you into from Dickable Go Run into Lake Fairfax, which has a whole bunch of mountain bike trails there. Altogether, you can easily make a 50 mile course out of that.
Now, you better have a map and sometimes a compass to figure out all the different pieces in there. But that's just to say that these parks are all connected and all these communities are connected and the mountain bikers in this area are very entrenched in making sure these are successful. Majority of them. So the old adage of that that off road enthusiasts for mountain bikers are these pot smoking dudes who are just out to wreck everything and make trails all by themselves.
And the old 19 eighties kind of look at this is not doesn't exist anymore. In fact, you'll find in in my in this race series, when is this Wakefield? The Masters 45 plus category hit near 50 people in the category. It it hit the category is so high. They're gonna have to split it up next year. It's just too many people. Too many guys who are racing who are in their late forties, early fifties.
This is where the sport is gone. The local recreational mountain biking has reached this level where the demographic is shifted to an older population, which is not bad, but we you gotta cultivate, gotta remember, juniors are coming up too. So the junior categories are big too. So I got lots of juniors and lots of masters. It's the stuff in the middle that is a weird place. That's where things gonna come and go. And so that's the place you have to work. So you think about all this.
Wakefield kinda sits in the center. There you go. You've kind of I've kind of painted the context of it. Wakefield Park sits in the center of all this area in the western side of DC in Fairfax County. Okay? Now, as part of this, Vervex County has this recreational center system where it's special special parks. They have things called a rec center.
And this 1 in particular, Wakefield has something called the Audre Moore Rec Center. And it includes this large facility that houses the, you know, full gym and swing pool, dance studios, yoga, locker rooms, basketball, basketball courts. Even has outside baseball courts. It has this I mean, this This huge facility
sits right next to where the mountain bike trails are. And within a 1000 feet of facility, starts everything else, the tennis course, the baseball field, then the astroturf soccer field, skateboard park, and, of course, miles of well maintained single track. So this park is really, really interesting because it has all of this kinda condensed into this really kind of packed little area, and it's not very big. I mean, I would even say it's a 1000 acres. It's probably less than a 1000 acres.
But it's it's got this right away This Dominion high powered lines run north and south through this long skinny park. So it it butts up against the interstate.
So you have the in family homes you have to think about the interstate is to the east. The family homes are to the west. The power lines run up through the center. There's a main road to the south, which then leads into a lake there's a main road to the north. So it's it's really boxed in this little town of community. And the border to the west of the park between the the houses and the park is a place called Accutene Creek. And Accutene Creek is kind of the the natural boundary
between the houses and the park. And there you go. I kind of painted the whole picture. So this puts Winston's way from a very good place. It's a great venue. It's a good distance for local riders. It's got good parking.
It's a solid volunteer base because everyone kind of lives right around that area. But this multiuse part comes with some strings. These strings have everything to do with who gets to use the park and when. You can think about all the different stakeholders in this park. You can imagine that there you know, they don't all like each other. They rub against each other. And there are those few those
busy bodies, doesn't I think, is a good way to put it? That think that they should be they should be the ones that use the park, and that park should have 1 purpose and 1 purpose only. And if you're a mountain biker, that's been paying attention, you should be surprised to learn that that 1 person purpose doesn't include you. I mean, every park that borders a community of of or a homeowner's association. Ernie has got a territory or a homeowner association that exists.
Kind of has run into this problem of do mountain bikes belong on the trails kinda controversy? And you would think that a lot of this stuff has been solved. Mountain bikes Sure. They can they can cause some ruts and trails. And sure there are a few people that'll make pirate trails and jump boom, things like that. But for the most part, mountain bikers are just out to enjoy the nature and trails just like everybody else. But you get that 1 guy
or gal, you know, I've I've seen both ways. Come flying by a hiker without letting them know that they're coming up behind them and scaring the death or what I think would happen in, like, it was New Mexico or Colorado. Where a biker came by and the hiker yelled at him. And then the biker came back and they got to a fist fight, which is insane. Me share the trail, and we all know how that works. Hikers. Hikers are in the walkers get the highest priority. Then comes horses.
Then comes mountain bikes. And if we all share the trail, everyone gets along. Right? But these bitty busy bodies who think that a mountain bike should not go any faster than 3 miles per hour past them, like to cause problems.
Right? They think you should like almost like walk your bike past them. And don't ask them about races. Races are right out. Doesn't matter how safe you are either. It doesn't matter how well marked the courses or how many course marshals you have. It doesn't even matter if no 1 in their community is even in the park during the race, including themselves, they don't ever want it, period. This is their position. And there are a lot of reasons these people behave this way.
Power, anger, sabotage, boredom, enjoyment, I mean, you have to face it. Some of these people, some of these folks are just plain nuts. And because of that attitude, you have to think about the irrational thinking of that, that some of these people behave in a way that makes no sense. You can't rationalize
with this kind of behavior. Some people, you can rationalize what they have a conversation with. And if you can get the you can you can get the community people involved in the conversation and let them know that mountain bikers aren't the devil, you can start creating a dialogue that can create a lasting relationship, and I'll get into that in a little bit. But you have to face facts that some people will never accept mountain biking on a trail, effort. They have this hardcore
That's like it's a philosophy or worldview that mountain bikes are the devil. And I don't know if 1 is upon a time a mountain bike came by and hit them or kicked them over, where they got rundown mountain bike, where they fell off a bike and broke their arm and now they're psychologically damaged every time they see some of the wheels on it. Who knows? But what I do know is
I do know a rational behavior when I see it. And I do know when you're having a conversation with somebody, and they're just They're losing their mind because a bike went by them and on a road 10 feet wide. They're on 1 side and a bike went by them on the other side, and they call that a near miss. You know, something something's not right. Okay?
So this is why you need to be on your toes when it comes to combating those individuals that are working against your rate per race promotion interests. So I like I like examples. I like using examples. So I'm gonna go I'm gonna go into into an example of what I mean about why some people just go out of their way to wreck your race. And this example
of course, is a story about Mister Murphy. Now, Mister Murphy is not his real name. Mister Murphy may have 1 or all of the reasons for behaving this way. You remember what those reasons are? The power hangers, sabotage, boredom. In this case, enjoyment, this guy seems to enjoy this stuff. Regardless of the reason, Mister Murphy is actively making trouble. And that sucks. And you can learn a lot about someone making trouble.
You can also learn about where you're weak when it comes to risk management and planning efforts based upon the way Mister Murphy comes and just just throws all your efforts on its side. Before, I mean, if you if you miss an I or forget to cross a t, Mister Murphy will be there to take advantage of it. He doesn't miss an opportunity to take advantage of it. So before I get into the most recent example, let me explain you a little bit about Mister Murphy has been doing.
So remember, I talked about Wednesday's Wakefield. Wednesday Wakefield's erasers that started back in 2002. To find out from people who have, you know, been around. There's a once upon a time back in the nineties, Mister Murphy almost single handedly got mountain biking ban from Wakefield Park with a lawsuit. Now the lawsuit was thrown out. But just imagine someone who goes into the effort to file a lawsuit, to ban inactivity at a park, is not messing around
That's not, you know, I'll get you little kids. Go off my lawn. That's not that kind of attitude. A lawsuit's a big deal. Well, you know, it turns out you know, Mister Le Murphy is a lawyer, of course, from the law firm of Murphy Murphy And Murphy. Naturally, you think lawsuits make perfect it's perfect for for a Mister Murphy activity.
So what's an obstructionist to do when the judgment doesn't go his way? When his lawsuit got thrown out, And a lot of time, the reason this lawsuit got turned out is because all the witnesses that showed up who talked about all the activities he said was unsafe to come and explain themselves about how much malarkey that was, that they had insurance, they had permits, they had all the the things they needed to make a mountain bike race safe, and this guy was just angry
that there were mountain bikes. It's really, well, you can handle some down to it. It's just there were bikes. I'm angry. I'm gonna file a lawsuit I think is unsafe. We got thrown out. So what do you do when the judgment doesn't go your way? Well, this is what Mister Murphy does. You go and stand in the middle of the trail and make sure you block any access to mountain bikes during the race. And this is what Mister Murphy did.
Mister Murphy went and had to sit in on the trail in the middle of the course. Now, first off, it's incredibly dangerous. We have all these mountain bikes flying with this guy who refuses to get out of the way. So naturally, mountain bikes stop and move around, and he's blocking the trail, and It's total it's total bedlam.
So the police are called and they're called the the park to haul this guy away. Well, the park is kind of this think about park in the way they want, they want everyone to be happy. They want everyone to enjoy their time at the park, and they they don't wanna promote 1 group over another. So the park is very interested in maintaining peace and order, and they definitely don't want someone hauled away. Because
on on any kind of charges. Because that that that's, like, trespassing. I mean, what's the what's the charge? You know, what it's a criminal mischief? It's kind of a hard thing to kind of figure out. It's like, what do you charge a guy like that with? Who just won't get out of the trail?
Is he trespassing? Not not really. He's just being a nuisance. Is he a public nuisance? Yeah, it's a permanent race, but he's sitting in the middle of the trail, so the police recalled, but the park persuaded the race director the time not to press charges. Because if charges have been pressed, this passive aggressive behavior might not have continued for the next 20 years. But no, no no no charges filed. So Mister Murphy
politely walks away, and he gets his message out that he doesn't like racing there, and he's upset because the lawsuit got thrown out. So some of this behavior kinda makes sense. Alright? If you think about if you think about if you were went to court and you lost a lawsuit, you might you might, you know, pick up a sign and go down to the place that you sued and stand across the street and say, those guys suck. They screwed me over. Right? Now, this is kind of what he's doing. So, you're gonna empathize a little bit with Mister Murphy to wreck on a race like that. He couldn't get his way, so he figured this is this is only recourse.
And possibly because they didn't press charges on him. You think that would be the end of it? Well, you would be wrong. So to show his appreciation for not being arrested, Mister Murphy decided, well, if I can't beat them in court, I can beat them with bureaucracy. So he decided to take it to a whole another level. So a lawsuit requires standing and actual witnesses and, you know, you have preponderance of evidence and those kind of things.
But to get policy changes done, all you need is the county supervisors or the board of directors or maybe even the governor, the politics, to help get you involved in changing the policies about mountain bike racing at races at Wakefield Park. Well, maybe I'll just wait for a park, maybe every park. And that's exactly what it did. I mean, direct legal action didn't work for him. So
obstruction didn't work for him. So now we're going to use the state bureaucracy to get racing band based on liability. So Mister Murphy's claiming that racing is unsafe and that parks like Wakefield Park could be subject to a massive lawsuit that someone got hurt. Now, in the state of Virginia, there's a thing called gross negligence, where parks are protected
from from people just falling over and getting hurt. You can't sue a state park or a local park because you fell over in a trail. I mean, it's inherently There's inherent risk in it going out in nature. And if you hurt yourself, it's your own dang fault, and it's really kind of the the view the law takes about parks and recreational activities. They're going after gross negligence. They're going after, you know, I I I, as a park, I
I dug a big pit and then I covered it up and you fell in it. Well, then I could sue the park. Well, this is really kind of going after the gross negligence after 6 of this. Is the park inherently risky and they accept that. But now you add mountain bikes to it. Now you're saying the park could be liable if a mountain bike hit a hit a walker or hit a hiker. And that's how he went. That's his that's where he started to go. So Mister Murphy claiming that racing was unsafe.
So he tried to argue his rights had been violated, and his his trail right away was being prevented by these mountain bike razors in the race. So you started to con to go up the bureaucracy chain of command and they were listening. They were starting to consider Mister Murphy's argument because, unfortunately, I don't know what your political standing is, but most bureaucrats and most people within park administrations, they don't want lawsuits.
They don't want to be involved in it at all, and they usually go the passive path of leaf resistance, which is just a ban everything. They start to consider that. So in an act of solidarity, all these bound bikers and trail users formed this this group to show up at these hearings to make sure that Mister Murphy did not win the day. And that's what they did. They intervened
He was 1 guy, testify testify testify you can think about it. If you ever been to any kind of these park administration meetings, there's, like, if if there's anybody there, there's like a handful of people there. No 1 shows up to these things. Well, this guy, has this meeting, and people are paying attention, thankfully.
So he does his he does his his speech about how mountain biking is around safe and negligence and all the things that can bad things can happen to the park. And the park's like, you know, oh, yeah. That's very interesting. And then the 200 other mountain bikers and trail stewards groups that showed up,
Then 1 after the other after the other talked about how we put in all these work in the trails. We make sure everything is safe. We do this thing above above board. We're always making sure that everything is is taken care of, and the actions of the other park people against Mister Murphy won the day. The outcry from the community, Mount Bikers and Trailer users, formed the the basis for the bureaucracy to reconsider their position.
Okay? So yay. Way 1 for the another win for the mountain bikers. Right? So they form to compromise. This car reminds would limit the area being used for racing. You know? In addition, the mountain bikers and the racers the trail runner racers were required to put notices up in the park. So this means that anytime there was a race there, they had to put a notice up. And they had to it would be it would tell say, what's gonna happen? What's what where the dates are gonna be? And
where the race would be held. So you're gonna put out all the race markings. You're gonna put these signs up to say warning mountain bike race or trail run race in progress on these dates.
Stay clear, use caution, that kind of thing. And you would think this compromise would be enough because really what happened is Mister Murphy couldn't get mountain biking or racing in general offer or racing in general banned from this park, but he did require some new rigor for the mountain bike, for the racers to post signage to be considered legit, and this was the compromise form between the part of the board the park authority,
Mister Murphy, and the racing community. So you think that car drives me enough? Not for Mister Murphy. Losing again to these punk mountain bikers was enough to make him start a gorilla campaign. So you have a lawsuit didn't work. You have a sit in, didn't work. You try to use the bureaucracy to change the policy, didn't work. What's a Mister Murphy to do? Well, of course, He's going gorilla. That's what he's gonna do. He's gonna make sure this compromise is violated.
So during the following years, Mister Murphy starts to do this thing where he goes and tears down the signage. And we know he teared on the signage because he's been caught multiple times tearing down the signage.
Whenever and wherever it was posted, he'd tear it down. And once he removed it, he would go back to the park and claim they were never there, and they violated the compromise. And therefore, they are they're bad actors and that you can't have a race here because they won't even agree to the minimal amount of of notice to people.
So the result was a huge move to prove to the park that it was not the razor's violating the compromise or rather Mister Murphy. Because when it comes to bureaucracy, you're guilty until proven guilty. And this guy was I mean, this became his like life mission So this guy is Johnny on the spot. Anytime he can poke a finger in the razor eye, Mister Murphy's right there. So at 1 point, I started putting 20 staples to use per sign followed by taking a picture and then tour the park staff
to witness the postings to let them know is there. So if they're got tear down, We know that Mister Murphy, 1 of his compatriots tore it down. But that was not enough. Mister Murphy didn't watch his racing band at the park. He wanted any activity band at the park. So this means that he also went after that you guessed that the trail advocates the people who actually build the trail and cut back the trail and mow the trail.
He made more, those are the mid Atlantic off road enthusiasts, the people who are out there with their volunteer hours and their minimal amount of funding fixing trails and cutting back trails that he gets to enjoy. Make them require waivers and notices and posting before they did any kind of trail work. And these people making the trails better for him, no, he didn't want that. Mister Murphy is all natural. I'll let you know. He doesn't even want the trail people out there anymore.
This is possibly because he viewed them as his enemy. They organized against him to stop them from banning racing. So he's gonna make their life difficult too. This is where I go back to the irrational behavior. Is this really about safety? You know, like keeping people safe? Or is this about some sort of acts to grind? Then Mister Murphy's out there in the world?
They tend to do the latter. They tend to be those people that that do this out of some sort of, like, obligation or or dedication to their to their hurt feelings, that mission that I will I shall be avenged, difficult to kind of kinda wrap your head around this kind of behavior. So with trailer work harassment, mountain bike work harassment, race day harassment, who spends this much time and effort in trying to remove the Verint group that's keeping the park usable.
Well, the answer is Mister Murphy does. And there's reasons for that behavior. I go back to those again. Is it power, anger, simple sabotage? Is he boredom? Or is his enjoyment? This is kind of insidious. I don't know for sure. But what I do know is that Mister Murphy is a part of your risk mitigation plan that you may not have planned for. But wait, there's more.
Last year, just like every year, the past 15 years, we've started prepping the park for Windsor's Wakefield usually around April or May. And this begins with trailer workday led by more. And Mister Murphy and everyone in his community are always no shows. And that's fine. We don't expect them to show up. We fix the trails regardless of their environment. Because we enjoy the trails and we enjoy the trails being fixed, and we do that for the benefit of everybody, not just ourselves.
So you see Park is is limited resources when it comes to trail maintenance. So they have to keep the rec center facilities, the the those playing fields, all the swing pools on something. I feel that up and running, which is not cheap. This makes their the trails kinda last on the list sort of priority. Because we are actively using the park multiple times a year, the park manager has allowed more to become the steward of the trails. This makes the trail work fall on on volunteers. And
on and pretty much the majority are is volunteer work. And if the volunteers don't get it done, usually doesn't get done. Tree falls, cut back the brush, mowing over to our grass, filling the potholes and ruts for those knuckleheads who like to ride when the trails are soppin' wet,
not during the rain. That's past episode, and I talked about that before. We're talking about after the rain, the sun comes out, it's soaking wet, and then they go ride, and they ride it all out, that's the bad thing. Right? We're talking about removing standing water, making drains and stuff, or maybe even rerouting trails because there's just so much damage to use you get trails that are roading falling down the side of the hill.
Kinda have to use to blaze some new ones in order to make that usable path still. All that is done with volunteers. And this requires a ton of work. You got my dirt and rock and sand and, of course, manpower. And this is annually. Every single year, since I've been since I, you know, I moved to DC in, what, 2000. Ever since. So for the SaaS past 17 years, Wakefield Park has been maintained by volunteers.
And Mister Murphy's community, along with every mountain bike controller that uses that park, benefits from this work. So everyone wins. But after doing all this work and fixing all these trails, mountain bikers do what most mountain bikers wanna do. They will want to race it. So why more helps fix the trails, it's still the property manager of the park that controls the park. So that means you still have to get a permit to erase it. So out of a root permit, there's no race.
And the the park manager controls who gets to do what permit. And most times, when it comes to mount back racing, there's only a few organizations that get in there to do kind of, you know, racing whatsoever. So it's not a difficult part to to get to as far as it's getting a permit approved. So we've never been denied a permit in 15 years. Normally, we had any issues, injuries or problems of the local communities bordering the park. Now we've had mountain bikers go down. That's happened.
People come off the trail, hit a tree that happened a couple years back. We had the big flood 2015. Go back to episodes 3132. I talked a little bit about the the epic flood of 2015, where we had a a firefighter from West Virginia, save a guy. But
got her front teeth knocked out. And then just this past race, we had a guy go down and break a collarbone. So, you know, razors get hurt, but that's expected. That's why they sign waivers. That's why we have insurance. That's why the the park is is protected from that kind of thing.
So and and, of course, racing is inherently dangerous. Right? So and most people have medical insurance, especially we're talking like guys in the thirties and forties at work at IT Firms and DC lobby groups and all the other, you know, nonprofits around DC. So most people have the medical insurance. So everyone's well covered. But local pedestrians, people pushing babies, older elderly folks just going for a nature walk. None of those people have ever been hurt ever,
ever ever. In fact, there is a bridge that connects the community to the park where I specifically put a course marshal at. So let people know, hey, there are some bikes. They're going pretty fast. Maybe you should stick to the side of the road or walk that, but then walk another direction. And most people are chill with that. We've had really no problems except for, of course, Mister Murphy. Right? And before each race, we put out the notices.
That there will be mountain bike races for each Wednesday's wake field, each Wednesday for the next 4 Wednesdays starting the 3rd week of June, We worked the course. We pre marked the course with our own arrows. We set up boundary tape, and we we've set the boundary tape aside. We're gonna use during the race. So the past years, We've always had our arrows disappear. Always.
We expect some of them to fall off. Make it ruin the rainstorms and all that or even pull down by park vandals. That happens every now then. Yeah. No worries. Replacing a dozen arrows is really no big deal. But Mister Murphy wasn't having it last year. The first time we put up the arrows, there was, like, 60 some odd markers, I think, in in total. Mister Murphy hit them all. All 60 markers were torn down the day after we put them up.
Must have taken him some time because it took us some time, and we had 3 people doing it. So when we found out, we were a little shocked that he would have hit them all. What? Okay. We're like, okay. Well, No worries. So we set out to replace them, and we did it just before the race. We figured we do it just before the race, then there won't be any time to tear it down, and and we can do this. So the morning that Wednesday morning, we went out and took care of some of the fallen trees,
and then we discovered that Mister Mukherjee hit us again. This time, maybe he was a little under his game. He only he only hit 30 of them. But he also removed our boundary trait that we set aside. He didn't just not just remove the boundary tape. So I'm talking about insidiousness. He took the boundary tape, tore it into little tiny pieces. Reformed it back in the little pile and set a rock on top of it. Oh, isn't that nice? It's so nice of him. Right? At this time, we were angry.
Who would do this? Well, of course, the answer is obvious. Mister Murphy would do this. This is what we started to call in Mister Murphy the Arrow Bandit. So over the next 4 weeks, Mister Murphy would hit us
3 more times. And while the park was fine with us leaving the arrows up, all between the in between the races, Since placing arrows over a 5 mile course is tough work. Mister Merger wasn't having any of this. He would hit the arrows at random. He removed large sections on 1 weekend, then hit another the next weekend. The guy is just he's amazing. So overall, Mister Murphy took out over 300 arrows.
We're talking a 100 yards of boundary tape destroyed and a dozen plastic stakes and a plastic stakes 2 3 bucks at Home Depot or at Lowe's, you know, not to pick at Home Depot or Lowe's. Right? But plastic stakes. Right? Yeah. Amazon. There we go. We'll get the third 1 in there. There's, like, 10 of those we never saw again. It just disappeared. And I have a feeling. I have a feeling Mister Murphy, though. He doesn't have them in his garage. That would be silly. You know,
that would be the evidence. Now they're probably in the woods somewhere. Imagine, you know, 100 years from now, someone will come upon a whole pile of steaks. I wonder what those were to work. So we figured that okay. 2016 was a bad year for Mister Murphy. Or a good year depending on you're kind of crazy. So now comes this year 2017. This is the race series that just got finished last week. So this year, he hit us again.
Only this time, we didn't put up a notice that we were having a mountain bike race until the last minute. But since we had this race at this park for 15 years in a row without issue, we didn't think this was really a big deal. I mean, during the race, We have the course marshals at the places where everyone in the neighborhood would be crossing into the park.
So where that Accutene Creek is? Talked about 4 that separates the community. This will look really 1 way for residents who live nearby to cross into the park and walk and walk across. And that's a single It's a well built bridge. I mean, almost drive a car across it. But there's a bridge there. Of course, now it's Mister Murphy's Bridge. If they don't cross that bridge, they really can't enter the park.
So there's only a few ways in, but the other ways are really far away. They're not some place local residents would choose to do on a weekday. When they're talking about Wednesdays afternoon on a weekday, which means that if you didn't cross that bridge, you have to go a couple miles the south of the north to get into the park, and that's not really easy to do.
So placing notices all over the park doesn't really make a lot of sense. So placing notices at locations where the park where people would cross does make sense. But here's why it's the rub. Park users would actually have to read the notices. So take a survey of any park user, but it's not a mountain biker. And I am certain that neither 1 would tell you they saw the notice. Well, there is 1 exception to that, of course. Mister Murphy,
Yes. You know, Mister Murphy is a lawyer. Don't you know? And as a lawyer, nothing escapes the busy body observation that he has. He is an all knowing, all seeing super super sad. Right? And because only Mister Murphy, you know, he's busy, busy, busy, tearing down all the arrows for a second year in a row, He would notice that no notices were up at the time. Notice it so well that he decided to leave us his own message for the first time. And on the day of the first race, we discovered
this tape to a tree on an 8 and a half by 11 piece of paper paper in the back. And it said, quote, Though park is for everyone to enjoy, do not block or close trails, period. Any quote, a new dialogue with Mister Murphy had begun. Only this sign was placed in a place that mumble trailer users would not bind it. It was placed on location that Mister Murphy was certain that we would find it. And at first, nobody knew who was doing this.
I mean, most of the most of those involved in his past activities had already kind of moved on. So after 20 years of passive aggressive activity, a new group of racers and race promoters was about to get introduced to Mister Murphy. And we all knew him by reputation. But it became kind of dormant for a couple years until the arrow banded from last year and then this activity this year.
So it's clear that Mister Murphy had moved up in the world. For someone who used to want to be an act of obstructionist, Mister Murphy had now embraced or actively sought out the power of being the president of the local homeowners association. Yeah. So now we're talking about a new angle because now he represents the home conversation of community next to him. So now he's got not only it's not just him. Now he's got a now he's got associates.
He's got other people who feel his way. They've started a support group of Mister Murphias. Mister Murphias? Mister Murphy alls? What do you call a group of Mister Murphy's? Maybe there's a joke in there. Right? What do you call what do you call Plus, load of Mister Murphy's wife, Cliff. A good start. Why don't sharks eat Mister Murphy's? A professional courtesy. You could probably go on and on and on a lot of stuff. Right?
You can't imagine the resonance of an association must think of him. I'm sure if you have a home association and you have ever been to 1 of their meetings or been fined because your mailbox is the wrong color or your grass is too high, You already know most homeowner associations are not well loved organizations. And rightly so,
I mean, think about it. You buy a house, in a community, and the minute you wanna do some of the house, you can't you have to ask permission in order to do that. The house would be maintaining the standards of the neighborhood.
This is a lot to do with people I know with flag pulls and go on and on and on about that. But there is this this this understanding that conversations don't exactly greatest group of people because who shows up for the election for homeowners association? Well, nobody does. That's how these people become going to office. And if you want to challenge your homeowners association in an election, you can really maybe 10 people who vote for you can crush you can crush
an election. I mean, that's, like, that's, like, heavy turnout for 10 people. Try it sometimes. Go to an election for a home organization and count how many people there. They ain't a lot. Go to 1 of their board meetings and see how many people are there. They ain't a lot. It's people who who care about the community maybe. Sure. But it's busy bodies. It's people who are I mean, that's their life. That's their their world. They have their little bit of control. Well, Mister Murphy now has
that little bit of control. He's got a community on his side. That's just community on his side, but he's got Friends, friends of Mister Murphy. He can only base my judgment on on what he's done. Actions speak louder than words, and his actions to tear down our course marking mark course markings in Ken, speaks volumes to his frame of mind, his the way he views us
that hasn't changed since the time he sat down on the trail some, you know, dozens years ago. But then he'd sides to take it up the next level because, of course, he's the president of the home association. He comes at us with these words. And what I'm about to read you is an email Mister Murphy sent us through through multiple channels. Remember this email was sent after our course markings were in science have been torn down.
K? So, Mister Murphy writes in a quote, I was down in Wakefield Park on last Wednesday, fortunately early in the afternoon. They're they were just setting up for the bike race later in the afternoon. Quote, kids race or early adults start around 6 PM, end quote. This tells me that Mister Murphy has been watching us and is very familiar with our operations.
He uses the word fortunately in his leading language. He's already assuming there's a risk. And he says, quote, I've been looking for several weeks for the notices of the schedule, the bike races, to be posted. As they always are, so I could avoid the park during the times of the races, but hadn't seen anything all spring end quote. He didn't see them. They were they were there at 1 time. So when did when did he last see them before after he torn down? Right? But as we approach race day,
you know, they mysteriously disappeared along with their rose. Isn't that nice? I go, man. Let me continue. Quote. In the past, for many years now, the racing groups have always put advanced notices of the summer schedule in clear plastic envelopes attached those notices to various visible places around the park, especially on bridges across Accutane Creek, and all of its little tributary streams and left those notices up all summer, but no notices have been posted anywhere this year in quotes.
Nope. Just another dark park mystery. Where could they have gone? Quote, we just want notices to be posted so our residents can avoid the park trails during the races, you would certainly think that you and your other racing groups would want that to end quote. Well, this is true. We do want that. We do want residents in the neighboring community to know when the rate of the mountain we're doing mountain bike races. Aeros and Boundary Tapes helps the community communicate that very well as well.
So it is the course marshals. However, when all of your arrows and tape are removed, no amount of signage is gonna stop people from fumbling down the trail. She was about to be full of mountain bikers. Oh, but Mister Murphy was not done, and he was not. Quote. We have many elderly residents children and young adult parents pushing baby strollers who go into the park in all hours. We want them to be on advanced notice so they can leave the park to the bicycleist during races, end quote.
That 1 I have a bit of an issue with. You see, the only way into and out of the park is, like I said, is Mister Murphy's Bridge unless you're already in the park before the race. That's the only conditions. Because you're not going all the way around. You're an elderly person or pushing a vehicle or you're not going miles out of your way to get into the park. You're not going to. But even with that, you have to walk past our setup no matter what. The park is as long but very narrow.
Making any movement north and south observable for many locations. It's not hard to find someone in this park. There's a lot of choke points that cannot be avoided. In other words, you cannot come into and out of the park without seeing that something is going on. Additionally, this is an event that takes place on the weekday. Not the weekend. On the weekday or on a weekend. Sure.
Is going to be folks coming and going and all out. But on the weekday, like a Wednesday, the park is very empty around 6 PM. Quote, we are aware that everyone gets to use the park, and we wanna make sure that we can all coordinate instead of each other's way, end quote. Agreed. But it's not about staying into out of each other's way. It's more about communicating with each other about our cues. Plus coordination would imply that Mister Murphy is open to communications which he is not. Quote,
it's really an important safety issue. And we would appreciate it if you would make sure that your post that you post those notices and leave them up all summer. So everyone is informed and can stay out of each other's way, end quote. Now as a side note, we posted 21 separate notices of the park after getting this email. It was interesting to find out how many are still in place, for the race, and the answer was some of them disappeared. Quote, we just wanna work cooperatively.
With you so you can stay out of each other's way and all use the park safely. Thank you. Mister Murphy, president of the home association board in the park. End quote. You've just been inside the mind of Mister Murfie. That was how you said standards out of the way multiple times. This is how Mister Murphy thinks. This is how he thinks about your race too. He's referred to safety often
in this email. But after 15 years of racing, no 1 in the community has ever been rolled over on or run over by any kind of racing bike. So why does he think it's so unsafe? Stereotypes. Simply, it's stereotypes. Because 1 mountain biker did that 1 thing that 1 time when they are all that way, aren't they? It works the same with racism, bigotry, just about any other judgment based philosophy. You take the actions of the 1 or the few and you say that applies to the many. Right?
You know when you hear it, it usually starts with the phrase those kind of people. So Mister Murphy thinks we are truly those mountain bikers. Why? Because he doesn't know us. And up to this point, he's never really tried to know us. And what's worse? He is the spokesman now for an entire community. And that's a little terrifying. Just imagine what he must be saying to his neighbors and friends about us. Maybe this vicious circle does it go on for 20 years?
Hate, breeding more hate, and Mister Murphy in the center of it. Just imagine the next generation of haters that he is creating. Talking about mountain bikers, talking about the way that the race Brokers worked at park, talking about new people moving to the neighborhood. Oh, let me tell you about the racers at that park. You hear about those racers? And sure enough, during this year's race, it wasn't just Mister Murphy.
Other people started walking through the middle of the event. I have every right to be here as you do. Hey. Look out as riders come and move out of the trail. Well, they can look out for me. Yeah. Already starting to spread. His message of hate is already started to spread. Mister Murphy's be so proud. So coming up next,
I'm gonna talk to you about what I wrote. Back to Mister Murphy. And what you can learn about working with your own Mister Murphy when it comes to pushing back against they're crazy. Alright. Now I'm gonna read you what I wrote back to Mister Murphy. Let's go through this. I will tell you what I was thinking when I wrote this and why I think this tactic is good is a good approach when dealing with the Mister Murphy's that come in contact with you.
So I said, end quote, greetings, Mister Murphy. Thank you for your message and for reaching out to us. End quote. Okay. That was true. It was good to finally know who I was dealing with. I can let me continue. Quote, I would like to say that I am sorry the signs for annual mountain bike series were not posted in areas that could be viewed by your members in a timely manner. End quote. They were,
but we all know that Mister Murphy didn't see them. So I decided to double down on this on his request, quote, I have put into motion the following actions to remedy the situation. 1, the immediate placement of new caution signs. Our club members will be out this in the park this week posting these signs before the next next Wednesday's Wakefield mountain bike race series. This was achieved about 12 hours later after, like, 12 hours after I sent this email.
So quote, 2, We will ensure that these postings remain in place or are replaced before our final 2 events, and I give the dates, end quote. Remember, we're the newbies of Mister Murphy's shenanigans. But we are onto him, which is why we we added the check our notices and placing more notices on our prerace checklist. No more reasons for Mister Murphy to complain. Right? Quote 3. Now it's 15th year, Wednesday, Wakefield, a permitted event approved by the Park Authority.
Has had an excellent safety record with few problems with anyone using the trail before, during and after the race. Regardless of our success, and using the mountain bike trails for approximately 60 races hosting over 30,000 mountain bike riders, we still take safety very seriously every year, end quote. This is an important point. I wanted to point out to him that this was not our first rodeo and that his fears over safety were not grounded in reality.
Sure, mountain bikes can be dangerous to people walking down a trail on a baby stroller, but I've never seen a baby stroller during a race. I've seen them when I met out riding recreationally, but never during a race and never on Wednesday. So this has never happened ever. Point that out probably pointing that out probably fell on deaf ears or blind eyes. Since Mister Murphy, whose worldview is that quote, you know, Mister Mountain, those mountain bikers are dangerous, quote.
So facts proving that they were indeed not dangerous, doesn't really help to change his mind. Let me continue. Quote, this is why The organization that puts on the race carries liability insurance during every race series. Places trail intersection boundary tape to protect spectators during races, post course marshals at key points with handheld radios to make sure everyone acts in a civil manner on the trail, end quote.
This is more reinforcement to the point that we are not a bunch of kids having a pirate race in his backyard. We are professionals, with real protections and take safety seriously. He might not care, but his community sure will. More on that in a minute. Quote, as the race director, any and all infractions come to me and are dealt with immediately.
So if any of your members ever have any problems with any riders during our events, please contact me directly, end quote. Now, I gave him my email address and my mobile phone number. Will he ever call it? Probably not. Unless he's gonna do some heavy breathing. But it removes any future arguments where he claims he couldn't talked to anyone in charge. I have my phone number or my phone on me during the entire race. Now for the good stuff. Quote, 4. In the spirit of cooperation,
I would ask you to communicate 2 issues back to your members. Remember, he's the he's the president. Right? Okay. Let me continue. A, the mid Atlantic off road enthusiasts more organization, In partnership with our group, does an incredible job repairing, maintaining, and building all the trails that make up majority of the Wayfield Park Trail network. We would like to give an open invitation to all your members, invite them to come and participate with any of our future trail work days.
I believe having your residents work with us to maintain or in maintaining the trails could help us learn about each of those organizations, get to know the people involved, and help us forge a better relationship going forward. Can upcoming trial workday schedules be sent to you in the future? End quote. Boom. First shot across Mister Murphy's bow.
Did she catch the last part? Did she see what did there? Missed it, let me break it down for you. I just called him out. Mister Murphy, for everything that I've ever been told and collected about his activities over the years, is a big park activist. He claims to be doing this all the soup separate soups to subrefuge, in defense of his own community and those that enjoy to use using the park. However, he don't come to Trail Days.
They don't participate in trail maintenance. They don't clean up garbage. They don't even donate to those that do. His community, for all its gripes about using the park, enjoys the fruits of other people's laborers. Maybe it's a tax thing. Maybe it feels that because he pays taxes and we feel parks the public park, then maybe he doesn't have to participate in making it better. Maybe they've already paid their fair share. Okay. Fair enough. It's their right.
Well, we all know that parks don't get cleaned and fixed be up because of taxes. Remember, we feel park has that big rec center. So in pools, movie stars. Right? That's where all that money's going. It's going to that service. Trails, That trail is maintained by organizations like more that spend their time and energy. Remember, for no pay, to make
many parks worth coming to, especially this 1. So if Mister Murphy was more involved in the park like he said he is, he might have known that, but he's a faker. He doesn't care anymore about the park than he does anything else. Again, actions speak louder than words.
Now, for the peace de resistance, quote b, we have permission from the property manager and the Park Authority to leave these materials up for 2 weeks prior to the 1st race and take them down a week after the conclusion of the 4th and final race. Last year and now this year, someone who lives in the area that includes your association, has been removing these markers at great time and expense of our event.
Could you please ask your members to not remove any course markings, arrows, signage, and staged boundary tape? That we would use in the duration of our series, that would be greatly appreciated. End quote. Boom. 2nd shot across the bow. I did not write say it, but I was implying that, quote, we know it's you and you need to stop. End quote. It also brings up 2 things. The first is, if he is the 1 doing it, remember, you kinda have evidence. Right?
So we have a lot of we have a lot of antidoteical evidence and some some sightings. But if we caught him red handed, no, we've never caught him red handed. But we've seen arrows. He walks through arrows disappear, but 2 and 2 together. 1 day, we'll catch him right handed. So go back to first, if he's the 1 doing it, We have officially asked him to stop. 2nd, if he's not doing it, then we just pointed out that he does not have the control over the park. Like, he claims he does.
Either way, Mister Murphy was put on notice to stop doing it. Before we catch him, or to use his influence to stop the person that is doing it. By calling this activity out, we're putting Mister Murphy on Notice. Sometimes shining a light on something stops that kind of behavior. Well, I will tell. Quote, 5. I've always want to support working more cooperative with your residents. Who are our neighbors to?
And make Wakefield Park enjoyable for all. I hope these efforts help move us in that direction end quote. Now, will this have an impact to Mister Murphy's behavior? No. I don't make it will at all. But I have 20 years of evidence to support this. We already know from past experience that Mister Murphy uses the law and the rules to his own benefit. And when those laws and rules don't work against him, he takes matters in his own hands. He doesn't take part in many fences.
He's active in kicking them in. So how do you deal with a guy like Mister Murphy? You have to remember a few things. First, Mister Murphy is just 1 man. Not an army. While 1 man can make it very difficult for you, there is an entire community around Mister Murphy that may not feel the same way he does.
I mean, my consider crashing a homeowner association meeting yourself and taking the fight right to his doorstep, which is something that I have considered depending depending on how much grief this guy was gonna cause us this year, I'd really consider doing that. But I think that's the I I consider that the nuclear option. I mean, it would be curious to see how his fellow residents feel about what he's doing. And if they want their association present to behave this way.
Remember, I don't have any proof per se. I have Ansible as evidence and a lot of history of remarks and statements. I've only spoken to this gentleman a few times. He is not a kind man.
So like I said, we'd be curious to know if if his residents know this, or to hear maybe what kind of drove all these put into their heads. What they think about us? Because opening the dialogue is what I'm talking about. And maybe that's not considered the nuclear option. But it'd be definitely interesting to go to 1 of these association meetings and have a conversation with them to say, look, we're not what you think we are. So the second way to fight back is something that comes right out of the US Army field manual.
It's set an ambush. No. Not with rifles and booty traps. Although there are some people who have been putting up arrows that you know, kind of thought that direction. You know, I'm talking about the good old fashioned stakeout. This is, you know, only this time you bring your camera in some witnesses. We're gonna catch the arrow bandit in the act red handed with the arrows. That would be awesome. That would be true evidence. I mean, learning the the identity of the AeroBand. It is
none other than Mister Murphy. It would give us a case in position. There's a lot of credibility. It's like, you know, the Scooby Doo episode. Code. You know? The arrow bandit and you pull off the mask and it. Mister Murphy and I wanna I went with it too. Wasn't for you meddling kids. This is kind of that that that the military mentality of me. If I if I can't catch him in the act, then maybe I set a set a trap, set a I'll set up a bunch of arrows out and see if I can get him on camera.
And then I've got evidence. And then I can confront him. Maybe I can get him on camera, be confronting him as well. I mean, very, like, you know, I can we can be gorilla right back, and then, you know, put that video out for everyone see or take it to the Homer Association to show them. I mean, these are, like, these are very direct and very rough tactics to to consider.
But when you have a Mister Murphy and Mister Murphy is an acting on on actual evidence or actual position, of authority or of, you know, kind of the the moral high ground. He's just crazy. He might have to go down these routes. So finally, you start using his own community against him if you have to. Like a locum wrote my response, I invited him to share the information in his community. Chances are very high that he will not. I mean, but why break bread with us now?
No. He's gonna ignore the request and keep doing what he's doing. Because that's been his history. Now, people don't change very often, and he's behaved just in the past 2 years, shows that same way he's behaved 20 years ago. He hasn't changed at all. But what happens when you start brokering relationship with your homeowners that live in the same community? You guessed it. You start to erode as power base. You start to show that his voting members,
that you're not the evil mountain bikers. He's told everyone you are. You start to change minds by just showing up and showing yourself to be a real human person who really cares about the park as much as they do. By embracing his own community, you remove the stereotype and the lies Mister Murphy has been weaving. Have you ever seen the 2 towers? Which was Peter Jackson's epic to JRR Tolkien. It's Lord of the Rings, where they go to
It's not Gondor. It's Roham, I believe. And the king there is all, like, foggy eyed and kind of old and crusty, and there's a guy there whispering his ears. He needs a worm,
He's like, we don't like these people. And things like, we don't like these people. He's all you enter the spell. Right? Mister Murphy is like that 1 with guy. He is telling his community, his, you know, his guys, friends, his friends, his neighbors, all the evils of the mountain bike racers all they thumb their nose at the law and how they're disrespectful and they run people off the trail and they're they're you know, their rock and roll music and all that kind of stuff.
You can fight back by showing up to a meeting shug going door to door to their neighbors. Go and fight. You can't fight hate with hate. You can't
just block off the road and say, you know, they'll show them a lot pass at the bridge there and just shut it down. You can't do that? Park won't let you do it. I mean, you could do it until you if someone found out. And that would be the ultimate victory for Mister Murphy is if you started using his tactics against him. But you could embrace his own community and remove that stereotype, you can go and fight hate with knowledge. You can, you know, can't stoop to the mismurphy's tactics.
So remove the need to have to. Change his own community right underneath him. Turn his strength into your strength. Make you don't take his power away and make it your advantage by going to those people who live in that community. You could even you could invite them to trail days. You could invite them to a picnic. You could invite them. You could have a prerace meeting where you invite all the neighbors to come and enjoy.
Maybe some some music or some drinks and get people together, talk about, like, right there in the middle of the park. And I'm serious about this. Right through the middle of the park, you could have a whole shindig, a hootenanny, if you would. And you can invite all the neighbors from next door. And come over there to have, you know, have water punch, some snacks, enjoy some music, have a little festival before the race.
You could do it on the weekend. And use that time to explain to them, like, you know, introduce the people and tell them that, like, if we do the race here, And this is what we do for the community. We use the trails we do. And here's the president of more, and he's gonna tell you about the trail maintenance work they do out here for clean house. And all the trail days they have, and about how we go out here when we get rid of the trees. And we're open in a dialogue. Tell us about what you think about the rate, oh, someone rode past you. Well, then we set up a hotline
or, you know, you can you can call this number and say, you know, this guy rode past me in the park, and he was really fast. And we can start educating racers. Now will they change? Now you gotta think about it. There's Juric's idiots on both sides. There are mountain bikers who don't give a rip about anything. They don't care about anybody on the trail. I feel sorry for them. Those people really upset me. When I see them, I call them out.
But there are some people, some pedestrians, and and people who use the park. That's super nice either. So there's there's problems on both sides, so we can fix this by coming together. You can become an ambassador of your own racing endeavors. You can turn his community into your biggest fan. And when you own his community like that, and they think you're doing a great job in the park.
And when you're having a race there, it will never be a problem again. I mean, Mister Murphy won't go away. He's still going to be a pain in your butt. Even if you get rid of all his power, you stop his lawsuits, you stop his sit ins, you stop his meddling in bureaucracy, You stop his his vagrant, you know, this this violation of your course. You stop his community members from thinking that you're the devil. I mean, what's he got left after that? And what's a hater gotta do?
So be careful because, you know, crazy can be crazy. So you don't wanna you don't wanna push too far. But you can defang and remove the power that Mercer Murphy has on your race and your racing efforts. By getting people involved, getting people together, and just having a conversation about, hey, we're gonna do we do racing here, but we also do all these other great things too. And, yeah, maybe 4 times a a year on a Wednesday, we do a race here. It's very little to ask.
We're not doing a raise every single weekend all summer long. We're not racing in the spring all spring long or fall off. We do it 4 weeks, and then we're done, and we're out of here. We clean up everything we do. We fix the trails. We don't leave any trace. We're pretty good people. What are your neighbors as well?
This is how you take out of Mister Murphy. This is how you build community involvement. This is how you work with a park. And you build your reputation with a part by engaging in the community that the Mister Murphy's of the world will live in. Now does this does this work all the time? Is this a perfect strategy. Maybe. You
won't know until you try. You won't know until you open a dialogue and remove the stereotype. Because it's the stereotype that perpetuates the problem that allows Mister Murphy to hide behind the mythos of the evil mountain biker or the evil trail runner. And 5 bucks says, you horse people out there. Mister Murphy, don't like you either. You know, your horse is pooping on the trail and all that. That's just outrageous. That's not fertilizer. That's an annoyance. You should be picking that up.
Yeah. He's coming for you too. Not to mention you boaters out there as well. You think about off road racing and you think about there is someone out there who doesn't want you to do what you're doing. They're everywhere. The busy bodies of the world and Mister Murphy's They're everywhere trying to throw a wrench into your race to 8 plans, and the way you combat them is through knowledge.
Remember, like I said, you can't fight hate with hate, but you can't fight hate with knowledge. This is how you do that. Is you have a dialogue You explain your position to people with real people, not through Facebook, not through email, with real people. This is how you change people's minds,
and you have to do it with with love and grace. You can't do it any other way. You can't yell at somebody and force them to take your position because if they're not gonna change, they're not gonna change. I mean, when's the last time you changed someone's mind on Facebook?
I know it doesn't work. A lot of times, it just start throwing memes at people just to annoy them. But when it comes to when it comes to this, when it comes to fighting Mister Murphy and combating his tactics, Sometimes, you just have to take a little a little bit from Mister Murphy and just accept that he's gonna exist out there and do things to you. This is why we we have an arrow budget.
We used to have an arrow budget. We used to just print them off. Now we have an arrow budget. We have to plan ahead to know that Mister Murphy could hit us. We're gonna need extra arrows. We also have a the race boundary tape budget. We have a planning a a planning prerace checklist now. That we need to definitely check our course mark markings before we ever do a race.
So this is this is how you need to approach this subject. You need to embrace his own community. You need to remove those stereotypes and the lies that Mister Murphy has been weaving. And you need to to try to bring people to your side so that you don't seem like a monster anymore, that you seem like a reasonable person, a reasonable organization,
that's doing racing in which you're gonna let them know when it happens. And then you're gonna ask if they wanna come and participate in all the other things you do because they may not even know you do them. We have no clue whatsoever that someone does trail against me. You think the park does it? I pay taxes, the park face of the trail? What are you guys? You guys are just a bunch of interloper. Just fixing things from mountain bikers. No. No. That's not how it works.
A lot of people don't know that. So when your own community thinks that you're doing a great thing for the park, Having a race there will never be a problem again. And now you know. Do you wanna build your 1st race or need help making races better? That's where where to start. Well, today's sponsor is Rechinir, and [email protected]
is for you. Recognier is the number 1 resource for race promoters who didn't major in business. And the result is over a 100 free lessons, strategy, and tools to give you a better way to build off road and endurance races. Enjoy some of the best lessons learned in event design, race management, and race promotion that will help you grow your business and give you a place to start on the path to becoming a successful race promoter. Rick and Ear can also partner with you to help you get your race off the ground. So go to wreckingear.com/start
and learn more about what Rechinir can do for you to help you build better races. That's rechinir.com/start.
Thank you so much for listening to the rest of your podcast, and welcome to season 3. I kind of been breaking these up in season's gonna figure out how to better organize them on the other side. So this is season 3, episode number 33. And I love to hear from you. I would love to hear from your experience about what your Mister Murphy has done. Do you have a Mister Murphy out there? Is this someone who's who's gun something to your race or reputable race? And how did you
respond to that? How did you fight back? How did you engage your community and fight your heat with knowledge? Tell me about it. Tell me an email, [email protected]
or at on Twitter at mercysogirt, and let me know about your Mister Murphy challenge. And on the next episode of merchants of dirt. I'm gonna talk a little bit about data driven decisions. I'm gonna go through a process again reviewing back to the the series of mountain bike races we just got done completing with all the things I learned from that because you learn a lot from doing a race and especially a race series. Versus just talking about it. So the doing part is called my laboratory
to learn all sorts of new tricks and strategies that I can give you. But in this particular series, we had huge turnout because of us a lot of different environmental thing, like race orientation between how the business moved on, that we have had it influxibles with people, and we had a category store just huge. And I'm gonna go through the process with how do you break that up, how do you go about thinking about
Do I have a category of 50 people in it, or do I have to figure out another way to change that up? Again, for safety, for fun. I mean, people bracing in a 50 person category, and then it's really difficult to be top 3, you know, 20 and 50 people. And those kind of decisions goes into the and help you understand
that when you have these awesome problems with too many people, you can help make your races safe. Meanwhile, I hope Mister Murphy leaves you alone out there, and I'll see you on the next episode of the Virgil's podcast. Until then, go build betterations. No Mister Murfrees were harmed during the making of this podcast.