Issue link: http://trailridermagazine.uberflip.com/i/1540850
14 Trail Rider www.TrailRider.com Don't Stop for Teammates: In rela on to the above points. It can be temp ng, when you see your team- mate on the ground (Korie, test two day three), stuck up to the shroud (me, test five, day one), or off over the hillside and missing a visor (Brandy, test two, day three), to stop and help. Don't do it. Unless you are certain they are injured or absolutely cannot handle the situa on alone and will half-hour out and be disqualified si ng there, all stopping does is increase the amount of me the team will lose. You grit your teeth, avert your eyes, keep moving as fast as you can, and maybe send up a li le prayer the next me you see a statue of the Virgin Mary on a transfer. Buying Favors: Okay, to be clear, don't stop for your teammates in a special test. Always stop on transfer, and hell, half the me I stop for people who aren't my teammates, unless they have displeased me over the course of the week or are enough of a direct compe tor, I'll catch grief from my team later. In which case, do your best impression of Ronnie Milsap (not Davey Milsaps, but honestly, that might not hurt in the final moto), and pretend not to see them fran- cally waving at you. During the course of the week, I kicked one compe tor's front re straight for them and stopped to check on several others if I saw them flat on their face in the transfers. Meg and the Tool Pack: It is an annual tradi on that I misplace my tool pack somewhere, and our chase rider, Meg, has to bring it to the next checkpoint. She has the pa ence of a saint, but each year I sense she gets more and more frus- trated with my ADHD ass over this one. So far, I've been lucky and haven't needed anything trailside in those forgo en tool pack moments. But that doesn't stop me from imagining barbed wire in my brake rotor, or my bars coming loose, or crashing and bus ng off a lever, as soon as I realize what I have forgo en. Know Your Machine: I did not realize the Rieju rear wheel spacers were different from right to le . As a result, when the axle wouldn't go through, I panicked and whaled on it like John Henry racing the steam engine. Bad move. I dam- aged the axle, the spacers, and dropped a minute in the evening work area anyway. In ten years, this was my first me losing me in the work area, and I was both humiliated and enraged with myself. I had to have help from an FIM official to push the bike through impound because the rear was dragging so badly, and I was lucky I didn't lose even more me trying to fix my mess during the morning work period the next day. Korie Steede Brandy Richards Rachel Gu sh Korie Steede Brandy Richards Rachel Gu sh